You may find the following study very beneficial. I used this for most of my notes on my most recent sermon on healing, "UNDERSTANDING THE BREAD": Destiny Church – Fargo | Moorhead = THE HEALER = RECEIVING PHYSICAL WHOLENESS by Ryan Kari Title: “Understanding the Bread” Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: 1 Corinthians 12:1NKJV One of the biggest things we fight is ignorance. Refuse to be ignorant!!! Bless the Lord, O my soul;And all that is within me, bless His holy name! 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,And forget not all His benefits: 3 Who forgives all your iniquities,Who heals all your diseases, 4 Who redeems your life from destruction,Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, 5 Who satisfies your mouth with good things,So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Psalm 103:1-5NKJV Hosea 4:6 says, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23NKJV Blood always has spiritual significance. Flesh has spiritual significance. Suffering does not glorify God. Deliverance glorifies God. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20NKJV 27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. 30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. 1 Corinthians 11:27-30NKJV Paul told the Corinthian Church that “Many were weak and sickly” among them, because they were “not discerning the Lord’s BODY” (1 Corinthians 11:29-30). That properly answers the question of so much sickness in the church today. God is not purifying or glorifying His church through tests or “affliction.” It is not that God is trying His children’s faith. Sickness is due to failure to be taught about the BODY of Christ as we have been taught about the blood of Christ. Very often, when conducting services in churches, I have asked for a show of hands in our audience, to determine how many were sick, and in almost every case, over seventy-five per cent of the audience has revealed by an uplifted hand that they had some kind of sickness, disease, or infirmity. THESE THINGS OUGHT NOT TO BE SO. What is the reason for them? Why are seventy-five per cent of our church members sick or infirm, suffering from the very diseases and sicknesses that Jesus Christ, our Substitute, has already borne for us (Matt. 8:17) ? The answer is simple when our attitude is right. We must discern the Lord’s BODY properly. An Old Testament and a New Testament Church Contrasted As a contrast to the aforementioned Church of Corinth in which, although their number was small, there were many weak and sickly members, I want to mention a much larger church, about three million in number, which existed under much more trying circumstances, but yet in which church “there was not one feeble person among them” (Psalm 105:37). It was the children of Israel en route from Egypt to Canaan. We have 2 churches. One, an Old Testament church; the other, a New Testament church. One controlled by law; the other blessed with grace. One established by the Son of God. Yet, that Old Testament, law controlled, animal-blood church, with some three million members, did not have ONE sick or feeble person among them, while the New Testament, grace-blessed, blood-of-Jesus church, with only a small number of members, had MANY weak and sickly ones among them. Surely something was wrong there, and something is still wrong where such conditions exist. Health Provided in Israel’s Deliverance Let us take a trip down to Egypt, where for four hundred years the children of Israel had dwelt. Evil rulers of Egypt had made slaves of God’s people. Many weary years passed while the children of Israel worked as slaves for a heathen nation. Long hours of crying to Jehovah-God for deliverance were spent by those in bondage. But it is written that one day “God heard their groanings, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them” (Exodus 2:24, 25). And God chose a man named Moses, to whom He said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the land of the Egyptians . . . Come now therefore and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people the children of Israel out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:7, 8, 10). God still hears the prayers of those in bondage, and speaks these same words to everyone who needs deliverance. This call to deliver God’s people, Moses obeyed. After many signs and wonders had been shown him in Egypt, the final step cam, and God said to him: “Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, . . . Take every man a lamb . . . and kill it . . . and take the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door posts of the houses, . . . and EAT THE FLESH (of the lamb): it is the Lord’s passover” (Exodus 12:3, 6-8, 11). I want you to notice carefully that there were two things to do: apply the blood of the lamb, and eat the flesh of the lamb. Many have forgotten this EATING OF THE LAMB’S BODY, which is as significant and important as the drinking of its blood. Notice the two steps. First: the death angel, which was to pass over Egypt, slaying the first-born in every family, was a type of eternal death to the soul of man, caused by a wicked and sinful nature, for which the blood of Jesus Christ, our Lamb, atoned, as the blood of the lamb atoned for Israel. This all had to do with the sin question; the soul’s needs--not the sickness question, or the body’s needs. Second: the eating of the lamb’s flesh had to do directly with the physical needs of man. Always remember that this eating of the lamb’s body had nothing to do with the passing of the death angel, because the blood on the doorposts was the sign given for the death angel, even as the blood of Jesus Christ, our Lamb, is the only atonement for our sins, redeeming and delivering us from sin’s final penalty, which is death. Israel was beginning a journey, which was a type of our Christian journey through life, en route to our heavenly Canaan land. God planned that His children be well and strong for this journey, and that is still His plan. What happened when Israel ate the BODY of the lamb? Nothing outstanding that one could see. But the eating of the flesh of the lamb was as significant as the striking of the blood of the lamb on the doorposts. These two things were done in faith, looking forward to the same sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary to which we look backward, when we, in faith, partake of the TWO EMBLEMS, the bread and the wine, in commemorating our Lamb’s death. God has installed in the human body a little processing factory which man calls a stomach. The food which we eat is digested there and sent out into the blood stream. It becomes flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, skin of our skin, body of our body. It becomes a part of us. The flesh, or BODY, of the lamb slain in Egypt, when eaten, became a part of the Israelites. It became flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone, skin of their skin, body of their body, and it was a type of the BODY of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who would later be slain for the whole world (Compare John 6:53), whose life, Paul later said, would “be made manifest in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11), declaring that we, by faith, had become “members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” (Eph. 5:30). We partake of that same BODY of Christ, in type, every time we partake of the bread in the Communion Service (see 1 Cor. 10:16). FAITH recognizes that fact and claims the promised benefits of the BODY that was beaten for us, on which body also were laid the cruel stripes by which we were HEALED. The Israelites ate the lamb’s BODY and began their journey the next day. As they journeyed, they found that all their sickness vanished, and that all their infirmities left them. And, lo! “there was not one feeble person among their tribes” (Psalm 105:37). No one sick; no one feeble; no one weak; but every one among them was strong, well and healthy. They had eaten the lamb’s body which had become a part of their own body. Wonderful! Marvelous! Almost unbelievable! Think of about three million people, and not one feeble person among them! When they obeyed Moses’ orders, accepting his message concerning the lamb, God covenanted or CONTRACTED with them, saying, “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26). God further declared that He would allow no disease to come upon them so long as they were obedient to Him. THAT IS TILL HIS PROMISE. He further promised: “The number of thy days I will fulfill” (Exodus 23:26). THAT IS STILL HIS PROMISE, in spite of the fact that many in the Corinthian Church died prematurely, and that many more in our day are dying prematurely. ALL God’s promises await our claim by faith, then they become ours. Remember that Israel not only applied the blood to the doorposts, which was a type of salvation from sin, but they also ate the lamb’s BODY, which was a type of healing from sickness. When Jesus Christ became man’s Substitute, bearing man’s sin and bearing man’s sickness, He did so in order that man might be delivered from them and their power. He thus made atonement for man’s sins, bearing them for him (1 Peter 2:24), and made provision for man’s sicknesses, bearing them for him (Matt. 8:17). The man who believes these truths and accepts the sacrifices of Calvary as substitution for himself personally, is set free from his sins and from his sicknesses, whether he “feels” any immediate change or not. Believing it and acting as though he believes it is so always brings the promised results. Deliverance From Sin and Sickness Alike God was not only a deliverer from the death angel for the Israelites, but also a healer of disease for them, and He said, “I am the Lord, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). Every Israelite who put the blood on the doorpost was protected from the death angel’s blow, and every Israelite who ate the lamb’s body was freed from sickness and made well, strong and healthy. That has been the plan of God for His obedient children throughout all the Scriptures. In his praise to God, David said, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forge not ALL His benefits; Who forgiveth all thine iniquities (there’s the sin question); Who healeth all thy disease (there’s the sickness question)” (Isaiah 53:5); showing again that provision has been made for deliverance form both sin and sickness. Then when Jesus came and began to preach the gospel of the kingdom He proved to be the Healer of sickness as well as the Forgiver of sins. It was the same Christ who said, “Arise, take up thy bed and go thy way into thine house (there’s the sickness question)”; who also said, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee (there’s the sin question)” (Mark 2:5, 11). Jesus thus provided forgiveness for the sins and healing for the sickness of the man sick of the palsy. Jesus the Healer and the Savior Three years of Jesus’ life were occupied in healing the sick and forgiving the sinful. Then came the crucial time during which He was to become man’s Substitute. He would become sinful with our sins (2 Cor. 5:21) and He would become sick with our sicknesses (Isaiah 53:10). Both sin and sickness had to be put away, but before they could be justly put away, the penalty for both had to be paid. Jesus Christ, the sinless, sickless ONE, was the only one who could do this; but He did it because of His great LOVE, and He did it for us (Isaiah 53). But before Jesus went to the cross of Calvary, He tried to show His disciples what to expect and what would be the effects of the suffering which He would undergo. So Paul relates it all: “The same night in which the Lord Jesus was betrayed, He took BREAD: and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is MY BODY, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me. After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, saying, “This cup is the New Testament in My blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me (1 Cor. 11:23-25). It is doubtful that the disciples who sat at the table and heard Him speak these words understood much of what He was saying. Little did they expect what was coming -- but it came. Cruel, ungodly, mean, brutish as it was -- yet it was all for your and my deliverance. At the hands of cruel men, Jesus, our LAMB was beaten. He was spat upon. He was bruised. He was tortured. On His body deep furrows were plowed by the awful Roman lash as it literally tore pieces of flesh from His back. These were the strips by which, Isaiah and Peter say, WE WERE HEALED. And they were laid on His BODY. His body was brutally beaten for us. This was not the atonement made for our sins. It was the bearing of our sickness and so the provision made for the healing of our body. Matthew says, “Himself took OUR infirmities, and bare OUR sicknesses.” After they had striped and bruised his BODY, by which stripes we were healed, then they nailed Him to the cross and pierced His side. His blood ran down on the ground, but that was “shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28), not for the healing of sickness. Jesus our Lamb suffered in two ways, He shed His blood on the cross for our salvation from sin, and He bore the stripes on His BODY for our healing from sickness. In the intense spiritual (and physical) agony of Calvary, which Jesus suffered principally in His spirit, for during that time even His Father turned away from Him, Jesus bare our sins, being made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). But in the excruciating physical agony of the crucifixion, where Jesus suffered in His BODY from the terrible Roman lash. He bare our sicknesses; for it was there by His stripes that He was made sick for us (Isaiah 53:10), and by His stripes we are healed. After it was ended and Jesus had returned to the Father’s right hand, and sat down, all things being “finished,” having completely delivered mankind, both spiritually and physically, from all satanic bondage, the Holy Spirit revealed to Paul the significance of it all. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11, about the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which every church observes. He tells us about the TWO EMBLEMS which we honor in the remembrance of the suffering of Jesus Christ, our Lamb; the bread and the wine; types of the BODY being striped and lacerated for our physical healing, and the blood being shed for our spiritual healing. Then he tells us: “As oft as ye eat this BREAD, and drink this CUP, ye do shew the Lord’s death till He come” (1 Corinthians 11:26). In the tenth chapter of first Corinthians, verse sixteen, Paul interprets these TWO EMBLEMS. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The BREAD which we break, is it not the communion of the BODY of Christ?” Jesus’ BLOOD was shed when He bare our sins, so that we might not have to bear them, but be saved from the, and be delivered form the power of sin in our lives. Jesus’ BODY was striped when He bare our sicknesses, so that we might not have to bear them, but be healed of them, and be delivered from the power of sickness in our lives. When Christians are properly taught to discern their deliverance from all sin and from the power of all sin in their lives by the shed BLOOD of Christ, then they will be as free from sickness as they are from sin. Sickness will then have no more power over them than sin. They will see that sickness is no more for God’s glory than is sin. (GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY) They will see no more sickness for their lives than they will see sin for their lives. They will see that sin and sickness are done away with, both having been borne by our wonderful Substitute -- Jesus, the Lamb of God, pierced and scourged for us. Partaking of the Communion When the emblems of the Lord’s Supper are brought to us, in the commemoration of our Lord’s death, we take the cup of wine and very reverently drink it. After drinking it, we usually express gratitude to our Father for such a wonderful Christ, and for the wonderful power in the blood of Christ to wash away all our sins. We rejoice because the power of sin in our lives has been broken; that sin has no more dominion over us. But how do we know these things? Did they go to the extreme when they told us that the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin? We answer, NO! The truth always sets free. We are free from SIN. Once for all, we have been saved from a life of sin, and we believe that sin shall no longer have dominion over us, because we are SAVED. But when the BREAD is brought to us, we take it tenderly, and EAT THE BREAD (i.e., a token of the body) of our Lamb, just as the Israelites partook of the body of the lamb slain in Egypt. Then we again offer thanks for the wonderful sacrifice of Jesus. We thank Him that Christ’s BODY was beaten for us, and that is as far as we have been taught. We’ve been taught that this BODY was indeed pierced for us, but we have not been told about the benefits we could receive because that BODY was also BEATEN for us. “Who healeth all thy diseases” (Psalm 103:3) has usually been overlooked in the communion. And because the church has not properly discerned the Lord’s BODY, many in it are weak and sickly today. The Cup and the Bread In Communion, the cup of wine stands as a type of the blood of Christ, shed for many for the remission of sins. When I partake of it, I rejoice in the fact that my sinful nature has been changed; that I have been re-created and made new; that I AM SAVED. In this attitude, I have properly discerned the Lord’s blood. This the Corinthians had and multitudes today HAVE done. In that same Communion, the piece of broken bread stands as a type of the body of Christ, beaten with cruel stripes, by which stripes my sickness was borne and healed. When I partake of it, I rejoice in the fact that my sick, weak body has been changed; that it has become bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, and body of His body (Eph. 5:30), and that “the life of Christ has been make manifest in my mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11); that sickness has no more power over me; that I AM HEALED. In this attitude, I have properly discerned the Lord’s BODY. This, multitudes today HAVE NOT done. I have often wondered why those pastors who do not preach divine healing for the body minister the BREAD to their congregation, which represents the body of Christ, on which was laid the STRIPES, by which we (all believers) were healed (Isa. 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24). It would be consistent for them to continue their serving of the “cup,” which typifies the blood shed for the remission of sins, to their people because they properly discern and are benefited by the BLOOD of Christ; but it appears useless, a wasted effort, for them to minister the “bread,” which typifies the BODY of the Lord scourged for our physical healing, to their people, then proceed to teach them that divine healing for the body is no longer for the church today. If it is not, then I would suggest that they be consistent and stop serving the EMBLEM of the sacrifice of Jesus, or Lamb, which provided such healing for the church. Many of their members are sick or infirm because, although they partake of the Lord’s Body, they do not properly understand (discern) the Lord’s BODY, as they should. When Jesus said: “This bread which is broken for you represents My body,” He expected us to understand that it was on His body that the cruel stripes by which we were healed were laid. Discerning His body properly will bring deliverance from our diseases, as discerning His shed blood will remove from us our sins. Some take the Lord’s Supper unworthily and are, therefore, unable to discern or appropriate with faith the Lord’s body for healing, even after they have had the teaching. If a man in need of healing will first “examine himself” and get in tune with God, so that he can “eat the bread and drink the cup worthily,” as Paul instructed, he will then be in a position to discern the Lord’s body with faith for his healing. The benefits of healing in the lacerated BODY of our Lamb are just as plainly taught throughout the Scriptures as the benefits of salvation in the shed BLOOD of our Lamb are taught. Discern the BODY as having been beaten and lacerated with stripes, by which stripes your sickness was borne and you were healed, and health will be yours; just as certainly, as when you discern the BLOOD as having been shed for you, in which sacrifice your sins were borne, salvation is yours. Sickness will lose its power over your body just as sin loses its power over your soul. You will be as free from sickness as you are from sin. Christ, your Substitute, bore both FOR YOU, so you do not have to bear them. By believing this portion of the Word and acting accordingly, you are free - yes, free from sickness as you are from sin. Sin and sickness need be borne only ONCE. And since it is written that Jesus Christ has already borne them, then you need not bear them. If you bear them, then Jesus’ bearing of them was entirely IN VAIN, seeing that you have not benefited. But I declare, that since Jesus bore them, you and I NEED NEVER BEAR THEM, and so “by His stripes we are healed” and through His blood we have “remission of sins.” We now have no more faith in the right of sickness to dominate over or dwell in our physical being, than we have in the right of sin to dominate over or dwell in our spiritual being. Lay claim to both of these marvelous provisions by FAITH. Accept them as yours. Accept Jesus as your HEALER just as you accept Him as your SAVIOR, and you will be free from sickness as you are from sin. Source: “Healing the Sick” by T.L.Osborn The End
Posted on: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 18:38:30 +0000
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