Healing: The Childrens Bread (Matthew 15:26) By Dr. Frederick K.C. Price The following is an excerpt from Dr. Prices book Building on a Firm Foundation, cyberstore_small.gif (2497 bytes) If we were to take a poll of people from every denomination, we would probably have no argument from anyone on whether or not God can heal. I am sure the people polled would admit that God can heal any person of any physical condition if He wants to. But if this is truly the case, why then are so many Believers dying every day of sickness and disease? For the sake of argument, let us say it is not God’s will for every one of His blood-bought children to be healed. How do we find out, then, which people God wants to heal? To find the answer to that question, we would have to look at whom Jesus healed when He ministered in this earth-realm. Once we make that determination, we can use the same principle to ascertain whom God will heal today. Matthew 8:16-17: When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses. Matthew 9:35: Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. Luke 6:17-19: And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all. In each of these passages, and in many others in the four Gospels, the pattern is the same. Jesus healed everyone who wanted to be healed. Let me also point out that every one of the people Jesus healed was living under the Old Covenant. Paul tells us in Hebrews 8:6, But now He [Jesus] has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. If the New Covenant is better than the Old Covenant, our covenant should have all the benefits afforded under the Old Covenant, plus more. If that is the case, how could people under the Old Covenant be healed, and people under the New Covenant -- the better covenant -- not be healed? That would not make sense. Why Everyone Is Not Healed Today? Many times, a person’s opinion on divine healing is based on the experience of people, not on God’s Word. For example, some wonderful saint of God was stricken with some sickness or disease, and the people in the church prayed for that person, but that person died anyway. If you operate strictly in human understanding, it can be difficult to say that the person who died could have missed something. The conclusion is often made that the Lord took the person, and that it is not God’s will for everyone to be healed. I am not in any way trying to cast aspersions on the commitment or love of the saint who passed on, nor on that person’s relationship with the Lord. However, if he or she did not know the truth concerning divine healing, that person was going to die unless he or she had a good doctor, or God intervened supernaturally through the gifts of the Spirit. That person’s dying had nothing to do with loving the Lord. It had to do with a spiritual law that is stated in Hosea 4:6: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. According to this law, if we have adequate, proper scriptural knowledge, that knowledge can stand between us and disaster. Sometimes people go to a church and are prayed for, yet they do not get healed. This does not mean God does not want them healed. It can mean that the minister who is praying for those individuals may be praying in unbelief. This does not mean that the minister does not love the Lord. It may be that the minister simply does not know how to pray and what to do according to the Word. In Matthew 17, we have a perfect example of this situation. Matthew 17:14-16: And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him. The statement the father makes in verse 16 tells us something. If the disciples could not cure the man’s son, why did he waste his time bringing his son to someone who could not help him? What happened is that the disciples did not cure the man’s son. Because they did not heal him, the father concluded that they could not heal him. But there is a difference between could not and did not. Matthew 17:17-19: Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me. And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out? If the disciples did not have the ability or the authority, they would have known it. They came to Jesus and asked, Why could we not cast it out? The fact that they asked Him this question means they knew they could do it. For some reason, this time the power did not work, and they did not know why. Unbelief -- Then and Now Notice how Jesus answered the disciples’ question. Matthew 17:19-20: Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief.... You can just as easily have unbelief operating in the preacher, the pulpit, and the church. If you are operating in unbelief, God’s power to heal will not work, even when it is the will of God for it to work! This is exactly what has happened in many churches. Simply because sometimes a person was not healed, the minister has concluded that it was not God’s will. He would never consider the possibility that he could be at fault, that it was possible that his faith was weak. He may not know any better because he has never been taught any better; and if he is not informed in God’s Word, he cannot operate on what he does not know. If it were really God’s will not to heal everyone, what would we do with a scripture like Matthew 8:17: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses. Likewise, what would we do with 1 Peter 2:24: who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness -- by whose stripes you were healed. When Jesus was taken into Pilate’s judgment hall, and the Roman soldiers laid 39 stripes upon His back with a whip, God saw every disease of mankind transferred to Jesus’ body. When the soldiers had finished their scourging, they took Jesus to Calvary and nailed Him to a cross. When they killed Him, they also killed the sicknesses -- and that made you free from sickness and disease. The verse reads, by whose stripes you were healed. If you were healed, that means you are healed, in the name of Jesus. If healing were not for every Christian, what would we do with James 5:14-15: 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 sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. According to these verses, the Lord will raise up anyone who is sick. I do not care how many people have prayed for you. If you are sick, you have a right to be well. If you are not prayed for rightly, you may not get healed. But by the same token, Jesus promises us in the latter part of Matthew 17:20: ... for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. If you have the boldness to take God at His Word, to ask Him in faith for your healing, and to stand in faith until that healing physically manifests, no matter how long it takes, you will be healed. Divine healing is for every Christian. If you are not walking in divine health, you are not only going against the will of God, but you are walking far below the privileges for which Jesus gave His life for you to have. It does not mean you are not a Christian, or that you do not love God. It just means that you are living below the privileges Jesus has provided for you. Take advantage of the best God has made available for your life. You can live above the circumstances of defeat, including sickness and disease. Healing is for all -- have no doubt about it!
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 11:40:58 +0000
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