Several months ago, David Servant posed the question “How Do I Know If It’s God’s Will to Heal Me?” and spent several Little Lessons answering that question. In today’s Little Lesson series, David answers additional questions that viewers have sent to him regarding what the Bible says about divine healing. Learn more!
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Questions About Divine Healing
Hi, welcome to today’s little lesson. Thank you so much for joining me once again. If you’re a regular viewer, you know that about 10 or more little lessons previously, I did a 10 part little lesson series titled: Is it God’s Will to Heal Me? And of course you watched that. And I was very positive, very affirmative, looking at the many scriptures that would build our faith for healing if we need it. But there are folks who, in the comments in those YouTube videos, ask questions and so forth and so I have somebody on our staff who is reading all of that of course. And they list out the ones that they think that would be the most relevant for me to try to cover in future little lessons. So that’s what we’re doing here now. I realize it’s been a while since we talked about this, but you have to realize I record these things some time in advance. So that’s just the nature of what we’re doing here.
So anyways, here’s one of the comments that I wanted to address from someone who watched all 10 of those lessons. Okay? And this is a very sincere viewer and I want to thank you for asking a question. So he or she says, “So after 10 lessons, what are you saying? What is the bottom line? Can you reply with a set of bullet point conclusions? It sounds like you are saying,” and then they give the bullet points of their understanding what I’m saying.
Number one, yes, “God was and still is in the healing business.” I definitely was saying that and I am saying that. God has never changed. Okay. He’s the healer. He’s revealed himself as the healer in the Bible from cover to cover.
Number two, “that it is his desire to heal his children.” And yes, that’s a point I wanted to make that, and we have to believe that if we are wondering whether it’s God’s will, then it would be of course impossible to have confidence, to have faith. All we could have is hope and hope is not the same as faith. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, we read in Hebrews chapter 11 right? Right. Okay. So that was my points, it is God’s desire to heal his children.
Point number three, this is their bullet points, this is their interpretation, “that it takes concrete faith that he can and has healed you.” And I would have to agree with that as I understand it. Yes. So many people, Jesus said to them, “Your faith has healed you.” So he credited their faith. So unless we’re going to argue with Jesus, it was their faith that healed them. Faith is a component and we see that not just in the gospels, but for example in James. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elder of the church. Let them pray over him and the prayer of faith will heal that one who is sick. So faith is a definite ingredient and this person brings out in that third point, and he has healed you. And so that’s referring to another point that I tried to make. Jesus said, “Whatever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive it.” When do you believe you receive it? When you pray. And so that’s different than believing you’re going to receive it if you believe I have received it when I pray.
And so from then on, you’d be thanking God that I have received it. I know people get mad at that and so forth, but argue with Jesus. Okay? Because I don’t see how else you’re going to interpret believe you receive when you pray, then that. If you’ve got a better way to interpret that, let me know. Okay?
Then the fourth bullet point that this person suggests, “but also that it requires obedience in that person can’t have continued sin or unrepentant sin.” And yes, that is a point I did make and I agree with that. Now you don’t need to drag something up to condemn yourself. No. God is good. God is love. If God wants you to be healed and there’s something hindering you from being healed, why would he hold back from revealing that to us? Right? And so if we seek him and say, “Lord, is there anything that could stand between me and my healing? You’re holding a sin against me and I need to confess it and repent.” Because God forgives us when we ask for his forgiveness, all right. He’s a wonderful, wonderfully merciful and good God. I mean, none of us really begun to comprehend how wonderful God is and how merciful that he is. Okay. So yes, that’s a bullet point that I would put. So, so far, so good. That’s one, two, three, four bullet points that you’ve given. And I agree wholeheartedly.
Number five, “but sometimes God heals sporadically as a demonstration for others to see and stir them up.” Yes, that’s another point that I made. I think I gave the story of the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda there. And every once in a while an angel would come down and start the water as the first person that gets in. So God heals primarily by two methods, through faith, and I believe that’s available to every believer. And also sometimes through gifts of healings and they happen as the spirit wills. And you might wait all your life or a gift of healing, but you don’t have to wait for healing if you can trust God and take him at his promises. Okay.
Now the next bullet point is where I said, “And sometimes it seems it is the faith of the sick individual that heals them and other times it seems as if the faith and actions of others of faith on behalf of the sick person,” and then they say it like when the man was lowered down to Jesus through the hole in the roof and the faith of his friends heal a man.
Now, and that’s… I need to clarify that. Yes, you don’t need anyone else’s faith to be healed. That’s illustrated by the ministry of Jesus. He said to people, “Your faith,” singular, “your faith has healed you.” He never said, “My faith has healed you.” He never said, “The apostles’ faith has healed you.” Jesus never credited any adult’s faith for the healing of another adult. He did credit adult’s faith in healing their children. Okay? But that’s the only case. In the case of the man being lowered through the roof, yes, Jesus saw their faith. So it was their faith, but not only the faith… and the sun’s coming out from behind the clouds. That’s why we’re getting this change of lighting in here. My camera will take knowledge of that and adjust as it’s adjusting now.
It wasn’t just the faith of the men lowering him through the hole. Obviously the man on the pallet, the paralyzed man also had faith. Jesus saw their faith, all of them. I’m assuming five, one on the pallet, four on each corner. Four on each corner, that’s four. And so he wouldn’t have had, if he wouldn’t have had faith, he wouldn’t have allowed his friends to lower him down. So Jesus said, “If two of you agree about anything, they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” So there’s the prayer of agreement, but if I’m in faith and you’re not, that’s not agreement. Okay. So, but so let’s say I’m the sick person and I agree with you, but I don’t have faith and you do. Here’s what I’ve learned. And I think scripture bases out. Your faith can’t push off healing to me, just like your faith couldn’t push forgiveness of sins or salvation off on me. Right? Okay.
But if we agree and I have faith and you doubt, your doubt’s not going to stop my faith from working and getting what God’s promised me. Okay. So this is a good point. Thank you so much for putting it out. And I just want to clarify that, okay?
And then the last point this person says, asking me if this is the points I would make. And then there is also the steps the sick person may have to undertake, such as presenting themselves before elders of the church to be anointed with oil. Now know when I clarify that. That’s a possibility. And that might make it easier because if you’re kind of struggling in your faith and we all do struggle in our faith, right? Right? Come on. One time Jesus said, “Don’t worry. Just believe.” And the guy said, “I do believe. Help my unbelief.” Do you ever feel like that? Yeah. So getting others to pray with you, you call the elders and they’re the spiritual leaders so there’s the ones that are closest to God and the ones who have the most faith. And so they’re going to encourage you and speak words of faith to you and speak the word of God and so that makes it easier for you. So it’s not essential, necessary ever. But if you feel that that’s what you need, then go for it. God’s good. Okay?
Now we are out of time for this lesson. So I’m going to pick up right here in our next lesson. Again, I love the person who wrote these questions and someone else, they asked a few more things they said. And then someone else made a comment, a good comment. So we’re going to discuss that in our next little lesson. Okay? Love you so much. Thank you. And see you next time.
Questions About Divine Healing (Part 2)
Questions about divine healing, part two. Hi, welcome to today’s little lesson. Once again we’re going to talk about some questions people wrote in response to my 10 part series on is it God’s will to heal me? It was quite some time ago, okay and I’m now getting to those questions. So we were reading questions really by one person in our previous little lesson. I hadn’t finished their entire letter as it were. So I read through this person’s bullet points saying is this what you’re saying? Is this what you’re saying? I think we had seven or so bullet points and I’ve just in my last lesson, clarified that. If you didn’t see that, please go. In most cases, this person nailed it. So it made me feel good. I actually communicated well enough that they got most of what I was saying and hopefully in the last little lesson, I’ve clarified what was not clear.
So now the person’s kind of summing up that. Are these the bullet points that the listeners should understand from the lessons? Or did I get some wrong or miss them? Mostly you got them right, okay? It goes on to say, “And not trying to be a critical spirit here.” Oh God bless you. I never thought for a second you had a critical spirit, “But those points seem confusing. Which is it? Our faith alone, the faith of others alone, the faith of both combined, personal repentance, getting anointed with oil, being the first person into the pool of Siloam.” I think it was the pool of Bethesda, but I could be wrong, but who cares? Yeah okay, so thank you now. I hope I’ve already to a degree clarified that in the last lesson. I’m going to do my best to really clarify that in this little lesson. Okay. So without going into everything I’ve said before and if a person is interested in that, you can go back and look up those videos. Is it God’s will for me to be healed?
So all that’s needed for you to be healed is you have to pray and have faith and there needs to be nothing else that could be a roadblock. In one of your bullet points, you said, “We have to make sure we’re not committing sin or that if we have, that we have asked God’s forgiveness.” So there’s nothing in between us. So we’re pushing that aside. All you have to do then is ask in faith. Everything you ask in prayer, believing you shall receive, Jesus said in Matthew 21, 22 and Mark 11, 23 and 24. Jesus said, “Whoever shall say this mountain be removed, be cast to sea, doesn’t doubt in his heart, but believes what he says will come to pass. He shall have whatever he says.” Therefore, I said, when you pray, whatever things you desire. When you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them.
So Jesus is saying, you can get this totally on your own. Many people have. Okay, but there’s other ways to be healed. Now we talked about gifts of healing, that God sometimes anoints people spontaneously with gifts of healing. Those are as the spirit dwells and there’s no guarantee you’ll ever get it that way. Okay you might, but there’s no guarantee. Let’s back up a little bit. If you feel that your faith is not strong enough, then it would help you to get others who you know have strong faith to pray with you. Like as James said, is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders. See that’s the idea there. Or Jesus said, “If two of you will agree about anything they should ask my, my Father will do it.” So if two people can agree and both have faith, sometimes that can make it easier on the person who might be struggling a little bit, just as if they call the elders.
That can make it easier for them because they feel oh I’m being uplifted by people who have strong faith. Notice that when James said that the anointing with oil, it’s not the oil that heals. He said it’s the prayer of faith that heals. It’s interesting, the very next verse says, “If he has committed any sin, they will be forgiven.” So sometimes that can be a hindrance, but you can take care of it. Snap doodle, just like that. Lord, forgive me. Here’s what I did. I asked your forgiveness and you’re forgiven. The guy lowered through the ceiling on the pallet. The first thing she said to him is “Son, your sins are forgiven.” I assume he said that because the guy was worried about that and probably it was causing him to doubt because it’s hard to have faith that God wants to heal you when you’re certain that he’s holding a sin against you.
Again, God is so merciful and if we confess our sins first John 1:9. He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So that guy who was lowered on a pallet, I mean I’m assuming now. It’s an assumption, but I think we have good reason to assume that he was worried about his sin. Within two seconds, his conscious was clear. Jesus said to him, “Hey, your sins are forgiven.” Of course everyone in the room, all the Pharisees, who can forgive sin, but God alone? Jesus of course brings all that up. He says, “Which is easier to say? Your sins are forgiven or take up your pallet and walk. So just so you know that I have authority on earth to forgive sins, take up your pallet.”
The guy did. So it was a multi-dimensional lesson there by Jesus. What I’m focusing on now is this guy was worried that his sins were in the way, and they probably were. Jesus mercifully, compassionately says to him, “Hey, I know it’s bothering you. Your sins are forgiven in you. So there’s nothing standing in the way now, except you just need to act on your faith. So I saw your faith. My goodness, have you got faith? You let your friends cut a hole through the ceiling and lower you down on ropes on a pallet. You’re paralyzed. Now I’m going to tell you, take up your pallet and walk.” Well, isn’t that a funny thing telling somebody who was paralyzed to get up and walk. I don’t know what the guy did, but he must’ve done some little action of his faith making some little effort and bingo.
He believed, he received as he prayed as it were, and he was healed. So if I was sick and I needed healing, I would just be immersing myself in anything in the word of God that would build my faith. I’d be listening to sound teaching on that subject. I wouldn’t be listening to the teachers who are always talking about how Paul was sick and he prayed three times for God to heal him, and God said no. I wouldn’t be listening to those kinds of teachers. First of all, that’s not true. We talked about what Paul’s thorn in the flesh really was in those lessons. Paul never said he was sick. He never asked God to heal them. God never said no, it’s not God’s will to heal you. Okay. Okay. So anyways, I hope that clarifies the general gist of what I was trying to communicate.
Okay. I hope so. He finishes up and this is the summary. At the beginning of each lesson, you raise the question of how will I know if the Lord will heal me? That is the question each person wants to know. Very, very good. How can they as individuals know their God will act upon the fervent prayer for healing? Well, God doesn’t lie. So if we will take God at his word, at his promises and believe them and act upon them, it’ll work. You have to be convinced first. You cannot pray. Lord if it is your will, heal me. Now, there’s appropriate times to pray if it be thy will. Sure. When God hasn’t revealed his will. Like Lord if it’s your will, I’ll go to Africa to be a missionary. Well you might not know if it is God’s will.
So you’re asking. You’re consecrating yourself to do whatever God’s will is when he reveals it to you. In cases like this, I mean would you ever pray Lord, if it’s your will, forgive my sins? Well that’d be nuts. You know it’s God’s will to forgive your sins because if anything’s revealed in scripture, that’s there. Well, look at all the scriptures we covered in those 10 lessons on, is it God’s will to heal me? All of them shouted a resounding yes. The evidence is overwhelming from the Bible. Okay? There’s much more even than what I was able to cover in those 10 lessons. So hope that I’ve done my best there. There’s a few more questions to come. So we’ll pick up here at our next little lesson. Thank you so much for joining me, God bless you.
Questions About Divine Healing (Part 3)
Questions about divine healing, part three. Hi, welcome to today’s little lesson. Thank you so much for joining me. We are trying to answer some of the questions that our viewers have written in response to the 10-part teaching I did entitled Is it God’s Will to Heal Me, and excellent questions or comments. Thank you so much. This is a very sensitive subject and controversial. So we’re trying to do it with sensitivity and with love and with biblical basis. And my main point was trying to show that the overwhelming evidence of scripture is indicative of the fact that it is God’s will to heal his children, okay? And that’s just the simple summary of all of it. And pardon the sun going in and out behind the clouds here. That’s why we’re getting this variation. But my camera knows that and it adjusts. It’s amazing. It just takes a second to adjust to the lighting conditions in my room here.
Here’s a question that someone wrote. Actually, this was more of a comment, but I’m going to just comment on the comment. “I’ve been praying for my father to be healed of kidney failure, but I have not received an answer to my prayer. I believe, and so does my father, that there’s a lot of internal hurt that he needs to let go. Unforgiveness can hinder healing.”
Okay. Well, a couple points could be made about that comment. Very good comment. Yes, I would agree entirely. We talked about how sin, known sin, unrepentant sin can hinder healing and obviously, unforgiveness is a sin and we need to forgive. That being said, if he wants to minister healing to his father and he’s worried that unforgiveness is standing in the way, needs to, if you’re going to minister healing, minister the truth of God’s word about forgiveness, okay? And I’ve done some teaching on that. I think you could look for it here on YouTube or at davidservant.com and just type in unforgiveness and see some of the things I’ve written about it, because there’s more to it than a lot of people let on, not in complexity, but I think in just keeping it balanced within the understanding of the entire bible.
But harboring bitterness against somebody definitely could be a hindrance to healing, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, it’s possible to let go of that, okay? And really, if we love those who offended us, we’ll be praying for them and we’ll be, if it’s all possible, going to them to gently confront them, to tell them that we value our relationship with them, but there’s a breach there and we would like to a chance to work through that with them by communication. That’s how it’s supposed to work according to bibles. Jesus said, “If your brother sins, go to him.” This is in the bible. So a lot of people try to jump to the forgiveness thing while ignoring the confrontation thing, okay, and that’s a mistake, all right? Because 9 times out of 10 when you go to another believer and confront them gently and with love, it’s going to wind up in reconciliation happening without going to any further steps.
Now, I also want to point out, as I tried to point out in my 10-part series, that this person says, “I’ve been praying for my father to be healed to kidney failure. I have not yet received an answer to prayer.” And he says, “I believe, and so does my father.” Okay, your faith cannot push healing off on your father. At bare minimum, your father is going to have to work it out for himself, working out the unforgiveness, but also of course the faith that God requires. And so the best way to minister to him in that regard would be to feed him with God’s word, all of the healing stories, all of the healing promises.
Just go from cover to cover in the bible and let him soak in and saturate in the promises that build his faith. And then he’s going to have to not believe that he’s going to be healed someday whenever it’s God’s will. Jesus said, “Whatever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive.” And so there has to be a point where you release your faith as it were and say, “From this moment forward, God has heard and answered my prayer and I am rejoicing in receiving what he’s promised to me.” And at bare minimum, you’re going to start rejoicing and thanking and praising him, right?
Okay, and the stories that I have heard … Now, I’ve never been dramatically healed because I’ve never been dramatically sick. I have gotten older and my hair has gotten gray, but there is no a promise to stop us from growing old. And one day we’re all going to die. There was no promise for that either, okay? And I’m trusting God to die without sickness or disease. “With long life, he will satisfy me and show me his salvation.” That’s what he’s promised. And that’s what I’m striving for. You can’t believe against wrinkles and getting older, but sickness and disease, that’s something else. And I have been healed plenty of times of minor things, but never had a need to be healed of kidney failure, for example. In any case, I would be reading the testimonies of other people who are healed. I’d just be focused on that as much as I possibly could, okay?
So then a second question, and I just have two minutes for this one, “Can you speak to the situation of when the sick person desiring healing does have faith but the healing doesn’t happen?” It doesn’t happen. “What happened then? Does this reveal their lack of faith?”
Yes, okay, unless God is a liar, and this is not to say it in some accusatory, finger-pointing fashion, “Oh my goodness.” No, no, no. And this is why people shy away from teaching about this, and this is why no one ever gets healed through their ministries or through their teaching because they shy away from it. You have to be bold, and a percentage of people will get it, a percentage of people will not get it, and some of that percentage they won’t get it will hate you. Well, but we still love them because we’re trying to get them healed. We’re trying to build up their faith. We’re trying to turn them on to the word of God so that they can be amongst the multitudes of people whom Jesus has healed over the centuries, that Jesus has been doing that, okay?
But you have people that don’t get it. And I think we should just be honest enough and mature enough and humble enough to admit that maybe it wasn’t God’s fault. Maybe I can’t pin this on God and say, “Well, it must not have been his will for me to be healed.” Well, if you’re saying that, then you don’t believe all the promises that promise healing for whoever will believe. So that’s your choice. But in good conscious, I just can’t go that way.
Let’s say you have something very critical, cancer, that’s eating away your body or something that is terminal and so forth. Well, if you pray and believe God, quote unquote, “believe God” or do your best to trust God and you don’t get better fast, you run to the doctor. Run to the doctor, because when you delay these things, you could delay them too long. And I’ve seen people who have done that, okay? You read the healings that Jesus performed. Not all of them were instantaneous. The 10 lepers were healed as they went and the nobleman’s son began to heal from that hour or something, I think. And Jesus said, “They’ll lay hands upon the sick and they will recover.” That implies a process of time.
But when I hear people say, “I’ve been believing God for two months for my healing,” I honestly tell those people, “You need to stop, back up and ask yourself, ‘Am I really believing or am I actually hoping it’s going to come and I’m waiting for it?'” Because you haven’t believed you receive or else God is a liar. That’s your choices. Okay. All right. Out of time for today. I think I’ll talk about this on the next little lesson a little bit more. I hope you still love me. See you next time.
Questions About Divine Healing (Part 4)
Hi, welcome to today’s lesson. Thank you so much for joining me once again, and we’re continuing trying to answer some questions that our wonderful viewers sent to us regarding the series I did sometime ago called, “Is It God’s Will To Heal Me?” I’m trying to clarify things that perhaps were unclear and doing my very best. This is a sensitive and controversial subject I know, but you can be the judge of whether what I’m telling you or not is the truth and biblical and so forth.
I mean, anyone who would deny that the Bible is overwhelmingly positive on the subject of healing hasn’t read it too closely yet, okay? God revealed himself as a healer. Jesus made wonderful promises. He healed people. Healings in the Book of Acts, healings of the old covenant, healings in the book of James for example. Any among you sick, here’s what they should do and here’s how they can be healed. So James didn’t put any stipulations on it, but we have these teachers you know today who, God bless them, I heard a famous teacher on the radio one time commenting on that passage in James five that says, “Is any among you sick, let him call for the elders.”
He brushed that off just simply by saying, “Back in the ancient days, back in those days, people believe that oil had healing virtue.” What they’re saying is that the Word of God, the inspired book of James is just propagating an ancient wives tale that oil can heal. Oh my goodness. James didn’t say the oil would heal you. He said, “The prayer of faith will heal the one who is sick and if they’ve committed any sins, they will be forgiven.”
This is all spiritual stuff. If you’re going to say that James didn’t believe that divine healing was available to every Christian back in his day, you might as well say that James taught that forgiveness of sins was not available to every Christian back in his day because he sandwiched them right together in James chapter five and there’s just so much. So I’ve been into overwhelming evidence and tried to encourage people.
Now, we’re going to answer a question here today, do our best, and it was written by one of our beloved viewers, okay and we have some of great viewers. This person says, “I enjoy and I’ve benefited from listening to your various series. I have dealt with and may now be dealing with this whole question of how or when does the Lord heal people? You make many good points, but somehow is still not clear to me.”
Well, I hope I can fix that in this video. “The first series was titled, “Will God heal me?” Perhaps, in this world of instant answers, we want an instant formula. We all want to be told “follow these steps and this is how to attain healing.” I get it. Your title seem to imply that we can at least find out whether God will heal us.” Yes it did. So he asked, “Can you give the bottom line answer?” The answer is yes, it is God’s will for you to be healed. Until you believe that, your faith is not developed enough to where you can be healed by your faith.
Again, I know this makes some people angry, but Jesus told many people, your faith has healed you. The majority of people whom he healed that’s specific instance of people whom he healed. Faith is credited in the majority of them. Okay. So we can say without a doubt that unless we want to fight Jesus, faith was essential for them to be healed. In fact, it was the reason they were healed.
So that that proves, if they wouldn’t have had faith, they wouldn’t have been healed even though no one can debate. It was God’s will for them to be healed because they were healed. That’s irrefutable. Nobody unless they’re not very smart. You can’t argue against that logic. That’s just unassailable logic. Okay? So can you give the bottom line answer? Yes. Are you basically saying God does heal and the answer is yes. He will heal you as long as you have faith and don’t doubt that he will, or is, or has already healed you.
So that’s a good question. So yeah, you kind of got it. The answer is yes, but in order to be healed we have to have faith because that’s what Jesus said. Everything you ask in prayer, he didn’t say everything you ask in prayer, you’ll receive. He said everything you ask in prayer, believing you will receive Matthew 21-22, it’s Jesus. It’s Jesus. I didn’t make this up.
Jesus said in Mark 11:24, “Whatever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive and you will have.” So when do you have to believe? When you pray. That’s what Jesus said. So, you don’t like that. Get mad at him. Get mad at the Son of God. Don’t get mad at me. Here’s where this person I think is working through an understanding. He said, “Are you basically saying God does heal? The answer is yes. He will heal you as long as you have faith and don’t doubt that he will, or is, or has already healed you.”
I admit, that can be a stumbling block. You have to believe you receive when you pray. Obviously from that time forward, even if you haven’t got the physical evidence of your healing, if you believe to receive when you pray, you’d start thanking God for healing you, that he has healed you and that you are healed. I know some people say, “That’s line.” Okay, but I’m basing this on what Jesus said. What? You mean to tell me that if somebody says, “I believe I’m going to be healed when God gets ready in his good time,” that person has believed that they’ve received their healing when they prayed? No, I mean, that’s impossible.
So we have to get our tenses right, but it’s not just about of a formula. It’s a matter of genuine, authentic faith in the promises of God. In that category of Christians that some people would label me Pentecostal/charismatic. Now, I need to qualify that because so much of what you find in the charismatic churches is unbiblical nonsense. So I’m not into anything that’s not biblical.
The non-charismatics are into a lot of non-biblical nonsense too, right? They’ll tell you things like, “It’s not God’s will for you to be healed.” Where’s that in the Bible? They’ll cite you about Paul’s thorn in the flesh, even though Paul never said I was even sick, that he prayed to be healed, but that God said, “No, I don’t want to heal you.” So they’re twisting the Word of God. So every church has its percentage of nonsense. So I just want to try to find out what the truth is and believe what the Bible says.
For example, I prayed for hundreds of people over the years to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. As a Pentecostal, charismatic, or let me say as a person who believes the Bible and speaking in tongues in the Bible, Jesus says, “One of the signs with all the believers, it’s in the Book of Acts. It’s in the book of Corinthians, and so if your church has no speaking tongues and they disregard it, your church is not fully biblical.” I’m sorry, but it’s in the Bible. Okay, so argue with the Bible.
I was going to give you an example of what it takes to have faith. I have prayed for hundreds of people to be baptized in Holy spirit, and I expect that the initial evidence will be that they will speak in other tongues, speak in a language they’ve never learned. I’ve found that the ones who do receive are the ones who have faith, and the ones who don’t receive is because they don’t have faith. It’s just that simple.
So I always ask them before I lay my hands upon them and pray for them, “Will you receive the Holy Spirit?” I listen for what they say, and if they say “yes,” then I ask them, “Will you speak in tongues according to the biblical evidence?” If they say “yes,” I say, “Okay, get ready. Here it comes.” We lay hands upon them as the Bible teaches and pray for them in faith for the Holy Spirit to come upon them even though he’s already in them, he’s inside everyone who believes in Jesus come upon them and baptize them, and then they begin to speak in tongues.
If they say, “Well I’m not sure if God will give me the Holy Spirit.” I say, “He won’t because you don’t believe.” So we have to go back to the Word. Soak yourself in the promises until you have faith and then come back. If I ask them, “Will you speak in tongues?” They say, “Well I sure hope so.” I always say, “Well you won’t. So there’s no sense of us wasting our time praying here because you don’t have faith. I’m not trying to condemn you. I’m just telling you the truth. Go back to the Word and read all the promises, the promise that God will give you the Holy Spirit if you ask him, with all the promises about the speaking in tongue stuff, what Jesus said in the Book of Acts. Build your faith. Come back. I’ll pray for you.”
Many times when people do come back and I ask them the same questions and they give me the answers that indicate they have faith, I pray for them and they’re baptized and the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues. Okay? So just the way it is. It wasn’t my idea. Same exact thing for healing. If you can’t believe that you receive when you pray, don’t pray it. Don’t pray.
Soak yourself into God’s Word until you can pray and believe you receive when you pray. Okay, we’re out of time, way out of time. Thank you for listening. I’m going to break right in the middle of this same question because I’m not finished yet in the next little lesson. God bless you.
Questions About Divine Healing (Part 5)
Questions about divine healing, part five. Hi, and welcome to today’s little lesson. We’ve been discussing questions that have been written to us in response to my teaching some weeks ago on a 10-part series titled “Is It God’s Will to Heal Me?” And great questions written in and I’m so glad you’ve asked them. I’m doing my best to clarify them. So we’re in the middle of a question, a rather long question, in our previous lesson. We’re going to finish that today, and this is actually going to be the last time we’re going to do this because I can’t spend all my time on this. I’ve done my best, okay? And all I can do is my best.
So, this person is kind of asking for the bottom line answer, and he kind of answers his own question here. He says, “Can you give the bottom line answer? Are you basically saying, quote, ‘God does heal and the answer is yes’. Yes. I am saying that. ‘He will heal you as long as you have faith?’ Yes, I say that, and ‘Don’t doubt?’ Yes, that’s what I’m saying.
Now, here’s where I tried to clarify in the last lesson, That he will or is or has already healed you, so I tried to talk about how we have to believe we receive when we pray. So, in that sense, is the answer to the question of quote, “Will God heal me?” And here’s the answer, really, it depends on you. Yes, you got it. Okay? If you believe he will, then yes, and I would alter that just so slightly. If you can believe you receive when you pray, yes.
And I should say it is God’s will, I believe it’s God’s will to heal everybody, just like I believe it’s God’s will to forgive everybody, but they have to do something, right? God wants everyone to be saved, but they have to do something. So the same thing with healing, God wants everyone to be healed but they have to do something. I don’t know why some people get sick and some people don’t. I have no answers, that’s a mystery to all of us, but God has revealed himself as an impartial God who loves all people.
And there are examples in the Bible where Jesus healed every single person that came to him, you can look it up in the gospels, it says that he healed them all. Well, if you would’ve been there that evening when he healed them all and you were sick, you would have been healed. So now that you live 2,000 years later, has God’s will changed for you? Because if you’d have been there 2,000 years ago, when he healed them all, you would have been healed. There’s just so much in the word of God, that would build our faith if we just think about it, okay?
So it is God’s will for you to healed, but you won’t be healed, generally speaking. Now, you might, but generally speaking … Because we’ve all observed this, we’ve seen plenty of Christians get sick, stay sick and die of some sickness or disease. So it is God’s will to heal you but you, generally speaking, will not be healed unless you can believe you’ll receive your healing when you pray because that’s what the Bible says, okay? And so, he says, it depends on you, if you believe he will, then yes. I’ve already quoted that. If you can believe you’ll receive when you pray, yes, but you have to believe it’s his will.
If you’re wondering, I don’t know if it’s God’s will for me to be healed or not, then you have no faith. You have hope, but you don’t have Bible faith. And so, don’t pray until you can pray with faith. Then he says, if you have doubts or questions, then no. That’s basically correct, yeah. And that way, he says, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe, then yes, if you don’t, or aren’t a 100% certain, then no. And if you aren’t healed, then it reveals that you just didn’t have 100% certain faith.
Well, faith is always a fight. And so, anytime that I’ve tried to endeavor to believe God ,in my heart, because faith is of the heart, I’ve always had doubts in my head because your head fights you and I think the devil … That’s his domain, so he tries to put doubts and make you not believe it. Remember the guy prayed who prayed to Jesus, “I do believe, help my unbelief.” He was struggling with faith. I’ve never had faith and not had a struggle.
Paul says, I fought the good fight. Fight the fight of faith, it’s a fight against doubt. But once you’re convinced in your heart, because that’s what Jesus said, whoever believes in his heart and does not doubt, you could speak to a mountain and make it move, that’s the formula. Praise the Lord, okay. Of course, to literally move a mountain, you’d have to know it was God’s will for that mountain to be moved, and God has not revealed in any part of his word that it’s his will for you to remove, literally, a physical mountain.
But there are mountains, the mountains are symbolic of other things, things in the way, things that need to go, things that need to move, things that stand in the way. And so, where God has revealed his will, that it is his will for you to be forgiven of your sins, it is his will for you to be healed of your sickness or disease, right? It is his will that you obey his commandments, but all these things, we have something to do with it, okay?
All right. And these are the brutal facts, I have no other way to say it. I don’t want to be like all those preachers who just, wishy washy, water down, full of unbelief. Nobody ever gets healed through their ministries because they’re not encouraging anyone to have faith, everyone they pray for dies. And why would you want to listen to a guy like that if you need healing? Go to somebody that has faith.
Okay. Now, here’s another question, this is, I think, an ongoing of that question, “And then what about the process? Can a believer ask on their own, directly to the Lord, with no other people involved?” Yes, because that’s what Jesus promised. “Or must they seek the involvement of church elders and follow a path of anointing with oil?” That’s an option, if it makes it easier for you. If so, will any church elders be sufficient? It’s not the elders, it’s the faith, the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick and they have to not have faith that they’re going to be healed someday, they have to believe they receive when they pray, okay?
“Does this then raise questions about the church? It’s belief or denomination and the individual faith levels of the others?” Yes, it does. I would never call a bunch of elders who gather around me, anoint me with oil and say, Lord, if it’s your will, and we know it’s probably not because most people we pray for die, but if it’s you will, please heal David. I don’t want those kinds of elders praying for me, and they’re not really biblical elders because they’re so full of unbelief, against the clear Word of God.
I want elders that are going to pray for me and say, Lord, we know it’s your will for David to be healed because you revealed that from cover to cover in the Bible and he’s confessed his sins, there’s nothing you’re holding against him. And so, right now, in Jesus name, we claim his healing and we anoint him with oil, we believe and receive right now. David, rise up and walk. That’s the kind of guys I want praying for me. Amen. Okay, very few elders like that in most churches.
“Should you just find proven and experienced elders who have a track record of healing?” I would say yes. And he says, “I’m not trying to be argumentative, I’m just asking real questions.” Yeah, I can tell that, way to go. You’re a wonderful person and I appreciate, so much, your question. I hope you’re actually seeing this, because it’s some weeks since you’ve sent your question.
Okay. Well, that’s all the time I’m going to devote to this series of answering questions. I think there’ll probably be some questions coming up on the last series that I did on a very provocative subject, so we’ll see what happens there as I look into my inbox. But thanks for joining me. If you want to be somebody’s hero, would you visit HeavensFamily.org?
That’s the ministry that I lead, that’s what I do most of the time, okay? We’re ministering all over the world, meeting the pressing needs of the least of these and God wants you involved, okay? So check out heavensfamily.org. Hope to see you next time. God bless you.
