SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/11/2020
10:41 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Pt-4 “Healing”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
4:23c-25
Message of the verses: “and healing every
kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. 24 And the news
about Him went out into all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill,
taken with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and
He healed them. 25 And great multitudes followed Him from Galilee and Decapolis
and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.”
I
promised to give an interesting quote from John MacArthur; at least I think it
is interesting. “I am convinced that the
only time such miracles will again be performed is just before the millennial
kingdom arrives, when the Lord regathers Israel and the tribulation
begins. Then, just as at Christ’s
(Messiah’s) first coming, ‘the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears
of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the
lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb will shout for joy (Isa.
35:5-6). When Israel rejected the King
at His first coming she also rejected the kingdom. But when the King comes again, the coming of
His kingdom will not depend on men’s response.
He will establish it then. It
will be announced ‘among the nations, The Lord reigns; indeed, the world is
firmly established, it will not be moved’’ (Ps. 96:10).
“To
demonstrate the absoluteness of His power and authority, Jesus ‘healed’
everyone who came to Him during His earthly ministry, without exception and
without limit. He still has power to
heal today, with the same absoluteness and without limit. He still has power to
heal today, with the same absoluteness and completeness, and, as He sovereignly
chooses, He does so. But He does not
promise to heal everyone who asks Him, not even those who belong to Him. The
healing miracles He performed while on earth, like His other miracles and those
of the apostles, were temporary authenticating signs to Israel that her Messiah
had come. The scripture now stands to
attest to the promise of a coming earthly kingdom.”
We
will now look at six features of Jesus’ healing while He was on earth that have
never been duplicated since then. The
first one is that Jesus healed directly, with a word or a touch, and even
without prayer and sometimes without even being there where the afflicted
person was. Next Jesus healed
instantaneously. There was no waiting
for restoration to come in stages.
Thirdly Jesus always healed completely it was never partially. Fourth, Jesus healed everyone who came to
Him. Fifthly is the Jesus healed organic
and congenital problems, no matter how severe or longstanding, and lastly He
brought people back to life. Even after
disease had run its full course and the person died, and in the case of Lazarus
who was dead for four day Jesus brought him back from the grave.
MacArthur
writes “Those six features also characterized the healing ministry of the
apostles. At the beginning of the book
of Acts we are told of many miracles and signs that the apostles
performed. Yet before the end of the
book the accounts of miracles cease. The
same diminishing is seen in the epistles.
In his early ministry Paul performed many miracles of healing, but years
later he simply advised Timothy to take some wind for his stomach ailment (1
Tim. 5:23). At the end of his next
letter to Timothy the apostle reports that ‘Trophimus I left sick at Miletus’
(2 Tim. 4:20), apparently beyond the power of Paul to help. There is no scriptural evidence that, by the
end of the apostolic age, miracles of any sort were still performed. Once Israel had turned her back on her
Messiah, her divine King, the authenticating signs of the kingdom had no more
purpose. They faded and then disappeared
altogether.”
I
have to say that I totally agree with what MacArthur says here. I remember when I was a young believer I sent
a letter to an “healing evangelist??” who wrote back to me not mentioning my
problem, but he sure wanted my money. I
believe that the gift of healing was a sign gift that went away after the
church was established. I ask a friend
of mine who mentored me when I was a new believer and he told me that God heals
you every time but the last time. I like
his logic.
When
Jesus was on the earth the people who followed Him had many more reasons to do
so other than to be healed, as many of them were looking for the miracle of
salvation, and that miracle is still working today.
Today
people are looking for spiritual healing, and as Jesus stated the fields are
ripe and the fields stay ripe and so believers need to work in the fields in
order to share the miracle of salvation that happened to them with those who
are still in those ripe fields. Salvation
is by far the greatest miracle that anyone can experience.
Spiritual meaning for my life:
As I look at the situation of healing in our world today, and the great
mistakes that people make who are a part of the health and wealth gospel I have
to say that they are putting God in a box and that is something that I never
want to do.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I continue
to desire to learn more about humility and to find joy in studying the Word of
God, and also desire to continue to post more on these SD from “Strategy of
Satan” for a little bit more time. “After
you have given God your body (and gotten out of bed) and your mind (and
meditated on the Word), your next step is to give him your will; and this you
do in prayer. The Word of God and prayer
always go together. ‘But we will devote ourselves to prayer and
to the ministry of the word’ (Acts 6:4).’ ‘If you
abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done
for you’ (John 15:7).” We will
continue along these thoughts in our next SD, Lord willing.
3/11/2020 11:47 AM
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