Prayers That Heal the Sick and Alter the Weather

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. So what is the prayer of faith, you ask? It's very simple. It's just a request for healing. That's all that it is.

You may not be certain of what God is going to do, but you believe that God is real, and you believe that He's good, and you believe that He's listening. Thanks for joining us today for Summit Life with pastor, author, and apologist, J.D. Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. I have a question for you as we begin the program today. Do you believe prayer is actually effective, and should we still pray, even if we're not totally sure about that answer? In today's brand new teaching, pastor J.D. sheds light on a crucial and often misunderstood passage about prayer from James chapter five. As a reminder, if you've missed any part of this brand new teaching series through the book of James, you can always catch up or listen to any other Summit Life broadcast free of charge at jdgreer.com. So are you ready for some solid biblical answers about the topic of prayer? Then let's join pastor J.D. right now in James chapter five.

One last time, would you take out your Bibles and open them to the book of James? In the 1850s, an economic crisis roiled America, causing a lot of panic. The crisis was felt most acutely in New York City, which even then was our nation's economic center. Feeling the pressure all around him, a Christian businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier called together members of his church on Wednesdays during the lunch hour from noon to one just to pray. Lanphier was not a not a pastor, he was just an ordinary business guy. At that first gathering only six people showed up, but man they got after it. They prayed for God to pour out his power on our country and for a fresh move of the Holy Spirit. Six months later that weekly prayer gathering had ballooned from six people to more than 10,000 people gathering in locations all across Manhattan. Non-believers even showed up, they would get prayed over and many of them came to Christ. Within two years time over a million people in our country had become followers of Jesus out of this movement. It was one of our country's most significant spiritual awakenings and it all happened because one ordinary Jesus loving businessman felt compelled to pray. History would label what happened in the 1850s as the layman's prayer revival and it illustrates a profound biblical truth.

God's greatest movements have always come in response to normal people praying. Pointing to that truth is how James ends his book. So James 5, if you have your Bibles, if you don't already have them open in front of you, we're going to be in the last set of verses there in James 5. I ended last weekend telling you that when you're in pain or when you're in suffering or when you're frustrated by what is or is not going on around you, I told you that James says we should look in two directions.

Do you remember what they were? He said we should first look backwards, everybody point backwards, okay, point backwards to the stories of God's faithfulness in the past. Then we point, then we look where? Forward to Jesus's soon return and this week, as I promised, James adds upward to God in prayer.

So raise your hands upward there, okay, upward. James chapter 5 verse 13, is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

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 of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Oh my goodness, this passage raises so many questions. I mean, it sounds so promising, doesn't it? Healing from sickness, assured forgiveness of sins.

You're like sign me up for that. But then there's all kinds of questions too in this passage, like is this passage guaranteeing healing if you pray with faith and what's up with the anointing oil? New Testament scholars consider this not only one of the most difficult passages in the book of James, they consider it one of the most difficult passages in the entire New Testament.

So let's just start by asking a few questions. Question number one, what is the prayer of faith? That phrase, prayer of faith, is a very unique phrase in Greek.

When I say unique, I mean literally unique. It's not used anywhere else in the Bible. So what does it refer to? Some people assume they think it means this prayer that is characterized by an incredible certainty. I mean, you got no doubts that God is gonna give you what you are asking for, so you screw up all your certainty and you demand something from God.

I've heard, for example, some who believe they have a healing ministry of prayer say to a sick person, now listen, we're gonna pray. We're gonna pray for healing, but I need you to know that when you ask, you can't have any doubts. If you doubt at all that God is gonna give you the healing, he won't do it. Which I wanna say is not only theologically wrong, it is traumatic. Because if the healing doesn't come, the only possible explanation is one of our faiths is deficient. And the prayer healer always assumes it's not their faith that is broken, so it must be yours. And so now, in addition to being sick, you've got the trauma of thinking there's something deficient about your faith. Praying with absolute certainty about what is going to happen is not what prayer of faith means, and here's how I know that. We've got an example of a prayer of faith in Mark chapter nine. There's a father with a demon-possessed boy who comes to Jesus and says, please, Jesus, heal my son, to which Jesus responds, you can read it later, Mark nine, do you have faith? And the father says, I believe, help my unbelief.

In other words, sort of. I mean, I do and I don't. I have faith, I think, but I'm not sure it's enough faith, and I wish I had more.

Honestly, I'm not sure if you're gonna do this or not, but Jesus, I got nowhere else to turn, so please help me. To which Jesus says, what? You aren't absolutely certain about what I'm going to do? Then you don't get the miracle.

Is that what he says? No, Jesus says, that's faith, and then he heals his son. So when somebody says to me, you can't doubt it all or you're not going to get the answer, I'm like, well, here's a guy who doubted plenty and he's still got the miracle. Similarly, many think that prayer of faith means that you slip into some kind of command mode. I rebuke this sickness in Jesus' name and I command it to leave your body. Many people who say they have the ministry of prayer and healing don't really talk to God at all.

They talk to the person or to the sickness itself. Now, to be clear, that's not prayer. It is true that Jesus and some of the apostles sometimes healed that way, but that's not what James is talking about here. James is referring to prayer, which means talking to God. Also, you should know the New Testament never tells Christians to go around healing like that in command mode. Furthermore, you should note here that James is not referring in this passage to some special prayer ministry. These instructions are not for a big healing rally with people who have a special gift of healing. These are regular, old, plain old, boring elders that do the praying. No offense to our elders, but they're doing, they're just regular old elders doing the praying in the context of somebody's home. So what is the prayer of faith, you ask? It's very simple. It's just a request for healing.

That's all that it is. You may not be certain of what God is going to do, but you believe that God is real, and you believe that he's good, and you believe that he's listening. I love how my friend Jen Wilkins says it. She says, the prayer of faith is not faith in a particular outcome. The prayer of faith is faith in the God of all outcomes, which leads us to number two. Does the prayer of faith promise or guarantee healing? Some people see that phrase in verse 15, where James says the prayer of faith will save the sick, and they read it like a divine guarantee. If you pray just right, healing will come, but y'all, it cannot mean that.

Here's how we know that. The apostle Paul prayed prayers of healing that went unanswered. For example, in verse Timothy, Paul said he had to leave one of his most trusted companions, Trophimus, in Miletus, recovering from sickness. Paul didn't say, I forgot to pray for him. He prayed for him, and God left him sick, so Paul had to leave him behind until he could get better.

In the same letter, Paul recommended Timothy take some medicine to treat his illness. He didn't tell Timothy just to pray in faith. Furthermore, we know that Paul prayed earnestly for healing from his own physical afflictions and got turned down. Even Jesus had seemingly unanswered prayer. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said, Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. You ever ask yourself, what did Jesus mean by the phrase, if it's possible? What he meant is, God's if there is some other way to do this, please do it. God did not answer this prayer, but was it because Jesus lacked faith?

Of course not. Jesus prayed with perfect faith. What Jesus lacked was, hear me on this, what Jesus lacked was perfect knowledge. You see, when Jesus was on earth, he limited his access to divine knowledge.

Theologians call that the kenosis. He limited his access to his divine knowledge. For example, Matthew 24, Jesus said he didn't know the day or the hour of his future return. Only the Father in heaven knew that. People read that and they're like, well, if Jesus was God, how could God not know something? Well, it's because in the incarnation, Jesus limited his access to that divine knowledge.

Here's the point. When Jesus prayed, his faith and his motives were perfect, but his knowledge was imperfect. So God, the Father turned down his request because the Father knew more than Jesus at that moment and God, the Father had a better plan.

We'll see the same thing happens with us. I love how Tim Keller explains it. Tim Keller said, if God came to you tonight, disappeared to you tonight and said, I want you to know that from now on, anything you ask for sincerely with good motives, incomplete faith, I'm going to give it to you without condition. If God actually said that to you, if you have any brains in your head at all, Tim Keller said, you would stop praying immediately and never pray again. And your friends, if they had any brains in their heads would come to you and say, please never ever pray for me again.

Why would I say that? How many times have you sincerely sought after something you thought was good for you, only to find out later it was quite destructive. Be honest. How many of you look back on something that you prayed for in your life, but right now you're like, thank you God for not answering that prayer. Raise your hand if you could think of that.

Right? All of us as we age, learn the truth of that great 90s worship song. I thank God for unanswered prayer by that great theologian Garth Brooks.

Kyle Idelman, pastor of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. In the gospels, Jesus boiled all of the commandments down to just two things, love God and love people. One day at a time is a 60 day devotional that'll help you get better at doing both of those things. Each daily devotional includes questions for reflection and a challenge to help you love the people God has placed around you. Ready to truly embrace those in your life with the love of Christ?

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Call now. Now let's get back to our teaching today. Once again, here's Pastor JD. Well, then you ask in verse 15, it's not a guarantee. Why does James phrase it like the prayer of faith will save the sick?

A few reasons. First, because God often does grant healing in response to our prayers of faith. Second, there is a sense in which God does guarantee the healing, even if it's not according to the exact time table that we wanted. In the end, Jesus's wounds will heal all of our diseases. Even if God doesn't heal me physically on earth, he will in eternity. He hears every prayer and will one day wipe away every tear. So in one sense, he is healing those things, even if it's not on the time table that I want. Most importantly, however, James has a little bit more in mind here than just physical healing. Okay, go with me here. We're going to go deep into this passage, and I need you to put on your theological big boy pants for a moment.

Okay, you ready? There's an interesting play on words in this verse. In verse 15, when James talks about the sick being healed, he uses the word saved. Do you see that in verse 15? The Lord, he says, will save the one who is sick.

That's the Greek word sodai, which is usually used for salvation, like soul salvation. Then I look in verse 16. When James talks about us confessing our sins, now he says we'll be healed. Confess your sins to one another and you will be healed. So think with me, okay? The sick person is saved and the sinner is healed.

Ordinarily, we would think of it the other way around, right? James is pointing to a deep connection between sickness and sin. Ultimately, the reason we get sick is because of the curse of sin. I don't mean necessarily yet specific sins you have committed. What I mean is that sin in general brought sickness to the earth.

It was part of the curse. And much less important than healing from our temporary sickness is finding ultimate healing in salvation. Less important than your body being healed is your soul being saved. And if God uses the sickness to bring salvation to your soul, that is an even more full experience of healing, which is why James connects healing here to the forgiveness of sins.

It's got bigger things in mind here, which is our next question. Number three, what connection does confessing our sins have with healing? James here clearly makes a connection between sin and sickness. Sometimes our sickness is caused directly by our sin, a specific sin, and this is the sickness that came from it.

But let me say this very clearly. Not every sickness is caused by some direct sin. In fact, most are not. Sickness is part and parcel, like I said, of what it means to live in a broken and fallen world. And it affects the righteous and the unrighteous alike, and it is unwise for us to rush to say that somebody is suffering because of something they did, or that I must be suffering because of something I did. That is exactly what Job's friends were criticized for, and it is why God called them stupid.

His words, not mine. So we should never just assume that somebody's sickness or our sickness is because of sin. That said, sometimes God uses sickness to get our attention, and James wants you to be aware of that.

Now you say, well, pastor, how am I supposed to know if my sickness is because of a sin that I've committed? I don't have a silver bullet answer for that, but I know, I do know the Holy Spirit will reveal that to you if you ask him. I mean, he's not trying to hide it from you. He's trying to get your attention.

That's the point. So he will either reveal it to you clearly through prayer or your study of the word or through the counsel of other believers. Believe me, if God wants you to know something, he will get the message to you.

I'm not talking about you obsessing or going dumpster diving through your distant memories trying to figure out something you did and forgot about years ago. Trust that if the Holy Spirit wants to get your attention about something, he'll do it. I've had moments in my life when God disciplined me through sickness or through some other minor calamity, and it has always been amazing to me how quickly in that moment God brought to mind that thing in my life, that thing that I knew was sinful that God wanted to put his finger on. One of our elders, in fact, told me this week that for him, it's almost always related to unforgiveness of somebody.

It says multiple times in my life, he said a sickness, God said, hey, this is going on right here in your life. Sometimes through our sickness, God may just be trying to strike at the core of your pride. I don't know about y'all, but when I get sick, I start to see life much more clearly. Even if it's just a bad cold, I start to see myself as more weak and fragile and vulnerable than I usually do. When you're healthy, you feel like you're going to live forever. I'm in charge of my life. I can do anything, and it's not until I get sick that I realize what a fragile, vulnerable, weak creature I actually am. My wife likes to make fun of me for being helpless, you know, man sick, but lying there on my back, I get a glimpse of my true spiritual condition. She's like, what's wrong with you?

I'm like, just leave me alone and let me contemplate the meaning of life. All right, final question from this section, number four. What is up with the anointing oil? Verse 14 tells us that when we pray, we should anoint the sick person with oil in the name of the Lord. What's that all about? Listen, I know I'm really taking you guys to class here this weekend, but it's necessary to understand this passage.

You're doing great. Some say oil here just means medicine because throughout the Bible, oil is a type of medicine. Do you remember, for example, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, when the Good Samaritan found the man on the side of the road, do you remember what he did with him after he found him beaten? Luke says that he poured oil and wine on him. He's like, oil and wine?

Was he trying to make him into a salad? No, oil is for the soothing of the body and wine was an antiseptic. So what is partially going on here that James has in view is that he's talking about medicine, but that can't be everything James means. For one, there were lots of other medicines in the ancient world besides oil, and if James was only referring to medicine here, he would probably have said something different than just oil. Furthermore, if all James is referring to here is medicine, you have to ask why he expects the elders to administer it. Why not a doctor? I don't know about y'all, but when I'm sick, I don't want the elders rubbing me down with their favorite blend of essential oils.

I want a doctor. Bottom line, it seems clear James has in mind something beyond just medicine. Oil throughout the Bible is a symbol of a spirit coming on somebody for a particular purpose. When David was called to be king, he was anointed with oil. When new priests were commissioned, Leviticus said they should be anointed with oil. This was a sign of the Holy Spirit's power coming on them for a particular purpose. So which is it? When James tells us to anoint somebody with oil, is he referring to the medicinal sense of oil or the spirit symbolic sense of oil?

And the answer is both. James is the master of the double entendre. We've seen that multiple times in this book.

Here's what James is saying. Prayer should never be done at the expense of natural means of healing. In the Bible, the miraculous doesn't have to replace the natural.

It supplements and completes the natural. Paul told Timothy, for example, to take medicine for his upset stomach, not just to confess his sins and claim some healing promise. Luke, who wrote Luke in Acts in your Bible, was a doctor when he started to travel with Paul, and all indications are that Luke continued that practice as he journeyed with Paul. When I pray for God to heal somebody, I will often ask for God to do that in either natural or supernatural ways. I'm like, God, whatever way you want to do it, the hands of a doctor can be the answer to this prayer. And sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes when I'm praying for healing, I will anoint somebody with oil if they ask for it as a reminder of the Holy Spirit's power at work in their heart, soul, and body.

But let me just make it clear that that is not some kind of requirement. You see, I know you people, I love you people, and I know you, and I don't want some of you feeling like you got to start carrying around a little vial of oil made out of olives that claim to be imported from the Garden of Gethsemane that you ordered on Amazon that really came from some dude's backyard in West Virginia, okay? And now you feel like anytime you pray, you got to pull it out like some kind of Harry Potter potion to make your prayers work. I know people who do that, or a can of Pam that you spray over people's heads when you pray. Anointing with oil can be a helpful symbol, but like many symbols, it's not required. I mean, I find it significant, y'all, that not one time in the Bible do you find Jesus or the apostles anointing somebody with oil when they pray for healing. Not once.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. This means that you shouldn't feel like it's required in order for your prayer for healing to work, okay? Those are four varsity level questions from this passage, but James hadn't even gotten to his main point yet about prayer. That's in the next few verses.

Verse 16. You see, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature just like ours. He prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months, it didn't rain at all on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. Prayer not only heals the sick, James says, it's the means by which God gets his work done on earth. And for his example, he uses Elijah, whose prayers literally altered the weather.

That's Pastor J.D. Greer with an encouraging reminder of how important it is to pray and how powerful our prayers can be because of how powerful God is. You know, February serves as a poignant reminder more than many other months of the significant relationships in our lives. Because of this, we decided to focus on building better relationships this month with our featured resource. We have a valuable guide, a 60-day journey to help us cultivate love and appreciation for those who play a meaningful role in our lives. J.D., could you share some insights about this new resource we're offering?

Yeah, this is a great resource from a guy who's actually a pretty new friend of mine named Kyle Edelman. If there's one thing I feel like we all get a lot of joy out of, but feel like we can get a lot better at, it's relationships. This is called One Day at a Time.

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I think it'll be a help to you. I think your family will appreciate it if you'll just visit jdgrier.com. To get your copy of One Day at a Time, just give us a call at 866-335-5220 or give online anytime at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vinovich inviting you to join us Wednesday as we wrap up this incredibly practical teaching series through the book of James. We'll see you Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.