A Biblical Case for Healing, Part 1

While He was on earth, Jesus performed amazing miracles. But those miracles didn't stop after His ascension into heaven. Once the Holy Spirit arrived, the apostles were empowered to bring life to the lifeless. Their astounding miracles are recorded in the book of Acts and beyond. So what happened to those special powers? Will the Holy Spirit still perform miracles today?

These are the questions we'll tackle for the remainder of the week on Insight for Living. It's part of Chuck Swindoll's teaching series on the Holy Spirit. He titled this portion of our study, A Biblical Case for Healing. We have a tendency to race to extremes. For example, some of us back away from seeking medical help and rely instead on the premise that if we pray in faith, expecting and trusting God to heal, then He will heal us. And then too, there are those of us who run to the doctor without ever giving prayer for healing a second thought. It's too religious, too far-fetched to believe that God would actually heal.

That's the way some people think. One of the apostles wrote, Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.

Is anyone among you sick? Let him... let him what? What right here would you recommend?

Let him what? Some homemade elixir, plenty of rest and vitamin C, perhaps a poultice or a favorite faith healer, the telephone number of a medical specialist. To find out what remedy the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle James to write, let's turn together to the fifth chapter of the epistle of James. Clearly, as we read James' instructions in verses 13 through 15 of this fifth chapter, he has two patients in mind, two categories of people in real pain. If you'll just step into his office with us now, we'll listen in on the specific treatment James prescribes for each person. For the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

We're going to insight.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck titled, A Biblical Case for Healing. Something occurred in February of 1975 that I will never forget. Cynthia and I, along with a number of alumni from Dallas Seminary, were returning from a 50th anniversary celebration. We were on board a large plane. Back in those days, they flew 747s from Dallas back to the West Coast, some of you will remember, and so there were, on that particular flight, a number of empty seats. Our group sort of sat together in the front part of the coach section, but we noticed sitting several rows behind us was a couple that was rather quiet throughout the early part of the flight. She was sitting and he was lying down, actually. He was taking up about four or five of the seats across. They had pushed the armrests up so he could be comfortable there. And as we were back and forth, getting something to drink or going to the bathroom or making conversation with various passengers, we met this couple.

We noticed that his color was not good. She was extremely serious as we talked with her, and when she discovered that the people in our group were involved in various kinds of ministry, her interest in us heightened. As we struck up conversation and she felt more comfortable with us, she told us her story. They were from Louisiana. The man was deathly sick with cancer. They had been in touch with a so-called faith healer on the West Coast, whose name you would know if I called it, and they had been promised that if they would come and if they would bring money, she could guarantee the husband's relief from pain and he would no longer have the cancer. They, in response to this promise, had sold everything they owned, including their home.

They also had pulled from their entire retirement fund the amount of money that they had saved through the years. And in fact, she showed me the actual bag of cash that she had in her purse that she was bringing with her, and she said with tears and sincerity, she said, I am willing to give everything up that she called his name that he might be healed. And then she asked that ominous question that was of very delicate nature. She said, What do you think of such things?

I'm sure you can appreciate the moment that passed between us. She looked deeply into my eyes with a longing of assurance because she had talked with very few people. They were actually not church people, as she put it, but they had watched this woman on television. They had seen her do her wonders and they were so convinced of this. And yet with an enormous amount of tact and yet I had to mix it with absolute honesty, I opened the Bible and I shared with her the things that I believed.

I'll never forget saying to her as I finished, she sighed and she said, I don't mean this the wrong way, but I hope you're wrong because she said, we have tried everything else and we put all of our hope in this. I said, I'll tell you what. And at that time I carried a little card that had my name on it. I wrote my home number on it. I wrote the church number on this card and I said, this is my name.

These are my phone numbers. Will you promise me that if your husband is healed that you will call me? And she said with a smile, absolutely. I will call you and you and I can celebrate. And I said, I will celebrate with you. I'm still waiting for her call.

That was back in 1975. My phone has never rung with her on the other end of the line. Do I believe that God can heal? I hope you will hear me correctly and will pass the word correctly to others with all my heart. Do I believe that God does heal? The answer is a resounding yes. Yes, I do believe that. Have I seen cases where God has healed? Yes, rarely. But yes, and I'll share a couple of them in my message today. But do I believe that God has placed his healing powers in a few individuals that claim to be divine healers?

I do not. I have expressed in the former message on healing, the healing work of the Spirit, some of the sources I feel that these so-called healings can come from. And in a day of divine healers, that is not a popular position to take.

I realize that. But I think you will do me a disservice and you will do truth a disservice if you pass a rumor that Chuck Swindoll does not believe in a God who heals. Or believes that God can heal or that he has ever seen God heal. For all three of those things should be answered yes, with all my heart. My difficulty comes in focusing attention on a person or on a series of emotionally strong and overpowering events that surround a so-called healing service.

My plea remains the same. Why don't those individuals simply leave the altar and visit the hospitals and do their best work among those who have lost all hope? And carry out their ministry there, then I would have reason and you as well to believe that they are workers of God.

Why do they not do it completely without a need for any money whatsoever? How could anyone have the audacity to ask of a couple in Louisiana to bring their money with them that she might carry out the healing that she has the power to do? I would like for you to follow along if you will through a time of review and then I will get into some thoughts from James chapter 5 on the subject of healing itself as I understand God teaches it from his word. Let me give you six statements by way of review lest you have forgotten them or have never heard them. They all tie in with the sickness sinfulness issue and they are all related and for that reason I want to repeat them now.

And I'll do them rather hurriedly because this is review. Primarily there are two types of sin. There is original sin which we got from Adam and there are personal sins which we commit. Original sin we're born with.

When Adam fell in fact we all fell. When Adam and Eve found themselves distant from God they, our original parents, caused us to be born distant from God. Contrary to the liberal position we are not born right with God, we are born wrong with God. We are not born spiritually alive we are born spiritually dead. As a result of original sin we find ourselves as human beings unable to stop sinning. We sin by practice, we sin by habit, we sin by thought, by word, by deed, we are sinners by nature. Because we have the sinful root within us we act out in sinful fruits in our daily lives. Second, original sin introduced sickness suffering and death. Had Adam and Eve never sinned I am convinced they would never had known sickness suffering or that they would have ever died. But with the entrance of sin came sickness, disease, all kinds of human affliction and the ultimate plague of life and that is the reality of death.

All of these statements have scriptural basis I'll not take time to give that I've done that before. Number three, often there exists a direct relationship between personal sins and sickness. David admitted finally when he came to the reality of his adultery and hypocrisy and the murder of Uriah the husband of Bathsheba. He finally admitted to his sin and as a result he found himself getting well. Until then there had been an extended period of illness and heartache and guilt and shame. I believe the man suffered from insomnia.

He struggled in his rulership over the nation Israel. There was a direct relationship between his sinfulness and the sickness that he went through. Number four, sometimes there is no relationship between personal sins and human afflictions.

When the disciples happened along a man who was born blind they said, Lord who sinned him or his parents and Jesus said neither one sinned the man is not blind because somebody sinned. If there is a common response from couples who experience a birth of a child and that birth is outside the realm of what we commonly call a normal birth or a healthy birth. Frequently the couple struggled with where have we sinned that this should happen to us. And it is mine and many of our jobs as people in ministry to reassure the couple that they are not being punished for this.

That is a broader base of reasoning than that. Sometimes there is no relationship between personal sins and affliction. By the way this is a good time to warn all of us against the tendency when we're dealing with people who are sick and they can't get over their sickness of guarding against the temptation to do as Job's counselors did and try to find the sinfulness of their lives. That is not our place.

That is not our responsibility. I found that the Lord is well able to communicate with those who were sick whatever area of wrong may happen to be in their lives. Sometimes it is not related at all. Number five, there are occasions, get this, when it is not God's will that we be healed. That flies in the face of the whole idea of divine healing or divine healers. Because there is the tendency on the part of many to guarantee healing.

If you have enough faith and you come to me and I have been given the gift of this ability to bring back health, then there will be a connection and I can virtually guarantee that you will walk out of here whole and healthy again. When in fact it is not God's will that everyone be healed. Remember Paul left Trophimus ill. He deliberately walked away from him though at that time the apostle who had such gifts in the era of the apostles such gifts existed. He could have healed a man but he did not. Paul himself said I prayed three times that I might be relieved of this thorn in the flesh and the Lord never relieved him of the thorn in the flesh.

I believe he died with some form of terrible eye disease, some form of ophthalmalia. It is not God's will that everyone be healed and I think it is a weak theology that teaches otherwise. Number six, there are other times however when it is God's will that we be healed and he does so miraculously and immediately.

Be sure that you add those two words for they go together. When God is involved in the healing it is an immediate thing and it is a miraculous thing. Peter and John happened upon a man who was afflicted sitting beside the temple asking alms and he was hoping for a few shekels and they said to him there's no money to be exchanged between us, we have no money. Silver and gold we have done but what we have we give you in the name of Christ stand up and walk and the man stood up and walked.

Immediately, miraculously and no one in that vicinity had ever seen him walk before and he walked and I'm convinced it stayed permanently a healing in his life. I have a friend who has now died, he was a long time friend of mine, fellow Marine from years past. We established a friendship back in the late 50s and our friendship only grew as time passed. While I was ministering in the state of Massachusetts a number of years ago at a pastorate in Waltham, Massachusetts, I received a call from my friend who lived in Texas. He said to me in a rather grim voice, he said I need your prayers as I've never needed them before. I said what's the nature of the need and he said I have been diagnosed as having cancer of the tongue. He said I, he broke, his voice broke, he said I have been to the best medical assistance I can find here in the city of Dallas, had been to his doctor, his doctor had recommended a specialist, he had gotten a second opinion and there were x-rays in fact he was carrying with him to Mayo's and he was hoping that by the time they got to Mayo's they could, he and his wife could meet with the best authorities in the land and have surgery and hopefully he could come out with at least a portion of his tongue after the surgery was done. He said would you just go down to your basement and he said I'm asking about four other close friends and would you and Cynthia just pray. He said I'm not announcing the need, I know that God can bring healing if it is his will.

I have nothing in my life Chuck that I feel has caused this to occur. All I know is I have this disease, it is in the x-rays and I just want you to pray that God will bring about a change and I said I'll do that. In fact as soon as I put the phone down I went right down the basement, had a little place down there I would often go for quiet time and for prayer. Cynthia went with me for a while and she left to care for our little children and I stayed and I prayed and I had a sense of reassurance. I did not get any voice, I did not hear any sound, I did not see any vision but I had a reassurance and I didn't tell him anything about that lest I get his hopes up but I had a sense of peace about it, didn't feel the need to extend the prayer, prayed for perhaps 30-40 minutes and then I left it with God. It was a couple of three days later my phone rang again and I heard the same voice on the other end of the line by then he was in Minnesota calling me from Mayo's and he said I have great news.

I said well what is it? He said well when I got here I brought the x-rays with me and I have seen the specialist and he said my wife and I have just met with him and we've come back to the room here and I just wanted to call you along with my four other friends who prayed for me. He said that there is no cancer and I said hey this is great, tell me. He said well actually they have taken x-rays, they've done all the tests and they denied the fact that I brought with me my x-rays because the x-rays they have taken disagree so much with what I brought with me and he said I have before me two sets of x-rays.

One shows it as they were taken in Dallas and the other shows it as it is missing in Minnesota. So he said we had a remarkable flight from Dallas to Minnesota somehow in some remarkable way it is gone and by the way it was miraculous, it was instantaneous and it was permanent. He never again had a problem with this pain or the growth in his tongue. I can't explain that. I have no powers within me that produce healing in anyone else but the God I know is the God you know and the God I called on for his will to be done for his glory only for the man was still a young man had many wonderful years in front of him and in fact he lived them to the fullest. His death was of another reason altogether. Now all of this prepares us for a wonderful passage of scripture in James chapter 5. I'd like to have you open your Bible if you will to these 13 through 16 verses. Verses 13 to 16 of James 5 and I just kind of want to walk through the section with you and let you see with your own eyes the process a person goes through as a Christian when we get sick.

I think it might be a little bit eye-opening for some, a little bit reassuring for some. Let me read the verses, 5 verse 13 of James. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms, sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him. Anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up and if he has committed sins they will be forgiven him. Therefore confess your sins one to another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. . We're midway through a message from Chuck Swindoll about a biblical case for healing. Please keep listening because there's much more that Chuck wants to address on this important topic. You're listening to the daily program known as Insight for Living. To learn more about this ministry we invite you to visit us online at insightworld.org. The free resources we offer along with this daily program are made possible through the voluntary contributions of people like you. And when you give your gift is channeled directly toward providing Chuck's Bible teaching for others so they can benefit just as you have.

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The tour to Alaska is paid for and made possible by only those who choose to attend. I'm Bill Meyer inviting you to join us when Chuck Swindoll describes what he calls A Biblical Case for Healing. Thursday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, A Biblical Case for Healing, was copyrighted in 1993 and 2003. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2003 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.