A Short Introduction to Healing

A Short Introduction to Healing

Acts 28:1-11

Christian Assembly

October 7, 2007

Larry Craig

I said last week that I would preach a sermon each of these two weeks answering the question: If I had one sermon to preach, what would it be on?  This week the subject is healing.  The more I study it and talk about it, the more I see how important it is.

Let me give you some of the reasons why I believe it is so important.  The first and obvious reason is that it can save your life or the life of someone else. 

In 1996, I was diagnosed with cancer, lymphoma in stage 3.  I was strongly advised to begin chemotherapy immediately, and I refused.   I am not saying that every Christian should refuse cancer treatment.  I am just saying that I couldn’t in good conscience do that.  This is not to say that it wouldn’t have helped me, but I know of a lot of young Christians who have died from cancer leaving small children behind.  I do not see this as God’s answer to our biggest needs. 

At the time I was also struggling with depression, and I don’t know if the combination of chemotherapy and depression would have been conducive to healing anyway. 

            More recently, one of my close relatives was working out in my basement, when I heard this awful, awful noise coming from down there.  I ran downstairs as fast as I could to find him, we’ll call him John, lying on a bench with a 250# barbell on his neck.  I remember reaching for the bar to pull it off and then I remember standing with the bar on the floor in front of me.  John then went into convulsions.  Immediately I put one hand on his chest and another on his throat, and I told him: Be healed in Jesus’ Name.  Be healed in Jesus’ Name.  After about 6 times, he said: I’m okay.  I’m okay.  He sat up and said: I don’t remember anything.  What happened?

            I sat down, because I was a little shaken up at this point.  He got up and started to take the weight off the bar, so he could put the bar back on the rack.  He then asked me if I thought he should finish his workout.  Frankly, if my first response had been to call 911, I don’t know what would have happened.

            Healing is important, because it affects the rest of your Christian life.  The Bible says that God will supply all your needs.  If healing is not a need, then what is a need?  If you can’t go to work because you are sick, and you can’t pay your bills because you are out of work, or if you are dying and leaving your family, if that is not a need, then words have no meaning and communication is impossible.  Then what is a need? 

            We talked last week about prayer, and how that Jesus taught us how to pray and used the example of a child going to his father and asking for bread and how the father wouldn’t give him a stone.

            If God won’t heal you when you are sick, why should you think He will get you a job, find you a spouse, or answer any other of your prayers?  If it is His will to let you die from cancer, then why couldn’t it be His will to let you die from starvation or hypothermia?  We say that we know God, but if we can never know ahead of time what He will do, then in what sense can we say that we know Him? 

            Some people say we shouldn’t expect God to do anything for us.  We are here to serve Him and He is not here to serve us.  And, of course, if we are expecting Him to do anything, then we are telling Him what to do.  Which we should never do.  

            Jesus spent as much time healing people as He did in any other single activity.  If He longer heals people like He did in the Bible, then what else has changed, and how do we know what it is?  The only Jesus we know is the Jesus of the Bible, and if Jesus is not like that anymore, then we don’t know Him at all.

            In the Bible, healing was a part of the covenant that God gave to the Israelites, so from Genesis 12 to the end of the Old Testament, healing was God’s plan for His people.  In the first 11 chapters of Genesis, people lived for hundreds of years, so healing was not an issue.

            In the New Testament, as we said, Jesus healed as much as He taught.  In the Book of Acts, the only picture we have of what the earliest church was like, healing was common, the norm.  The last chapter in Acts was written after most of the rest of the New Testament.  If healing is no longer the norm in the Church, then we need a new Bible to tell us how things are today.

            Healing is important, because of what it will teach you about God and prayer.  When you pray for something, anything, how long do you wait before you believe that God has answered your prayer?  A week?  A month?  Then we often may believe that God’s answer was no, or we look at the circumstances and say that that was God’s will.           

            With healing, we can know what God’s will is and then we can see how often it takes time for God’s will to come to pass.  We learn that everything doesn’t come immediately or fast as we would like.  We are all used to stories of instantaneous healings, and when we don’t see one, we think that it didn’t work.  Well, you will learn that probably most of the time it isn’t seen to be instantaneous. 

            I also want to say up front that you would want to learn about healing when you healthy.  It’s easier to learn about healing on sore throats and headaches than something major like cancer. 

            We often think of healing as something that is done to us by someone else.  I prefer to teach people to do it for themselves.        

I could go on, but this is just a short introduction to the subject.

            I want to talk to you about healing, and why we should expect it much more than we see it.  We obviously will not answer every question, but hopefully we will answer your question.  I would like to give you four reasons why I believe healing should be a normal part of the Christian life.   (In my book I give 36 reasons, but we will briefly look at four here.)