Bless the LORD Who Heals

The Sunday sermon at Calvary Chapel Sydney concluded with Psalm 103:1-5:  "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."  God was faithful to His promise to be with His people, keep them and provide for all their needs.  To this glorious expression of praise believers can say amen, for He is worthy of our praise and adoration.

Through what Jesus has accomplished for those who trust in Him, we are most blessed and ought to bless His holy name.  In the Gospels we read of Jesus forgiving sins, healing the diseased, and paying the price of eternal redemption through His blood.  Jesus proved He was able to forgive sins by healing a paralysed man.  Anyone can claim to forgive sins because there is no physical corresponding evidence, so Jesus proved His power to forgive by healing and incurable, untreatable condition.  It is interesting people who do not balk at the idea of all their sins being forgiven struggle with verses about healing when it doesn't happen.  This subject of healing raises a few eyebrows even among believers:  surely God does not heal all our diseases, for many Christians have died of illnesses.  So what does this mean?

God created our bodies with systems that work together to promote health and healing for the body.  As science has advanced in knowledge and practice, modern medicine is able to leverage these natural systems to quicken and aid the healing process.  The psalmist David understood that if and when we are healed from a disease, it is God's doing.  But the stubborn fact remains that not everyone is always healed.  There are incurable conditions, cancers and COVID.  It is obvious faith in God does not guarantee physical healing, for 2 Kings 13:14 says concerning the faithful prophet:  "Elisha had become sick with the illness of which he would die..."  Because of passages like this people wonder if healing is always God's will.  I am convinced physical healing is God's will, though God allows things to occur on earth as a result of sin that are not His will.  All who came to Jesus were healed by Him, so this is strong evidence healing is always God's will.  Sickness and death came as a result of sin, and sin is never God's will.

While it is possible God can miraculously heal someone in an instant, God does not always do so.  As we are called to trust Him to heal, we must also trust His means and timing.  God might choose to heal a person through a prayer of faith in Him or after a poultice of figs is administered.  Jesus made mud with His saliva and smeared it over a blind man's eyes and after he washed was able to see.  The power to heal is God's alone, and He will do it His way.  We also must leave the timing to Him.  It may be we will never be fully healed until our bodies die and we enter eternal glory.  The criminal crucified alongside Jesus went that day into paradise and he was made whole of the wounds that resulted in his physical death:  faith in Jesus in an instant brought forgiveness, healing, redemption, a crown of glory and eternal satisfaction enjoyed in the presence of God forever.  He was healed and more still, glorified and immortal.  How good is our God!

Offer a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

"And when you offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the LORD, offer it of your own free will."

Leviticus 22:29

Under the Law of Moses when people wanted to give thanks to God, it meant more than mere words.  People sacrificed a clean animal of thanksgiving to the LORD, a peace offering they and others were partakers of.  It was a sacrifice freely offered, not with an expectation to receive, but out of thanksgiving for all God had already said, had given and performed.  A sacrifice of thanksgiving could be costly monetarily but it was a joy to give to God in light of God's generosity and goodness to supply the gift and all else in the first place.

Freedom in giving thanks to God springs from faith in God and His worthiness.  It is fitting a day such as Thanksgiving in the United States has been established in a nation under God.  It is even more appropriate every day be filled with thanksgiving to God for every person redeemed by grace through faith, given eternal life and everything that pertains to life and godliness.  David sang in Psalm 69:30-31, "I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. ³¹ This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bull, which has horns and hooves."  God does not appreciate a gift based upon the resale value but by the willing soul who thanks, loves and trusts Him.

Songs like Psalm 100:1-5 even in dreary times have the power to turn our faces to the LORD with thanksgiving like a flower leans toward the light of the sun:  "Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! ² Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing. ³ Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. ⁴ Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. ⁵ For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations."  The LORD has been good to us, He is good and will ever be.  God does not demand our thanks, but He deserves our undying thanksgiving now and forever.

Faith to Go or Remain

After the LORD led David and his men to recover their families and goods from an Amalekite raiding party, David established a statue in Israel that the spoil would be split evenly between those who fought on the field of battle and those who remained behind with the stuff.  Those who went were not to be rewarded more than those who served by staying.  Both played vital roles to the same victorious end, whether they pursued the enemy or protected their position.

God told Abraham to leave his family and country and go to the land God would show him.  He demonstrated faith in God through his obedience to God's command.  It can also be a demonstration of faith to stay and settle when you would rather be elsewhere.  The Jews were taken into captivity in Babylon and God told them it would be for 70 years.  The temptation was to hope the time would be shortened so they could return to the land of their inheritance in Israel, to resist putting down roots in Babylon because they wanted to move on.  What was the point of the drudgery of moving rocks, digging wells, laying foundations, tilling the ground and building fences on property that wasn't your own?  Well, by faith in God is a simple answer.

God spoke through Elasah and Gemariah to His people in Jeremiah 29:4-7:  "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit.⁶ Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters--that you may be increased there, and not diminished. ⁷ And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace."  It is important to point out these weren't the only voices God's people heard, for there were many false prophets and diviners who were spouting forth the opposite.  They claimed to have revelations from God in dreams and prophesied in God's name, but He did not send them.  The message preached by Elasah and Gemariah required faith in God to receive and submit to, to stay and send down roots in a foreign land when their preference was to go home.

Knowing the LORD God had sovereignly caused the captivity of His people helped them to walk in obedience to Him.  By faith in God they were enabled to accept the fact they may not live to see the day they would return to Israel, but in seeking the peace of the city where God brought them practically and in prayer they would find peace in the LORD's presence.  Those who trusted and obeyed God, who spent their money and made the effort to put down permanent roots in Babylon, would be fruitful and blessed by God's grace.  Paul's exhortation to servants is fitting for us in Colossians 3:22-24:  "Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. ²³ And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, ²⁴ knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ."  I expect many who were slaves could think of little else but obtaining freedom, yet they could stay in that role and be made fruitful by faith in God Who grants the "reward of the inheritance."  There is no one more free than those set free by faith in Jesus Christ.

Keep Believing in God

When I was in year 2 at a private school we learned to write in cursive and the multiplication table up to 12.  The following year I began attending a local public school where students in year 3 were taught these for the first time!  I remember the teacher being skeptical when I told her I already learned to write in cursive and she had me come up to the board to demonstrate my skill or experience public humiliation.  I ended up being her "assistant" for that portion of the class in the following months.

The style of schooling I was exposed to in both a private and public setting was to learn the basics and then move onto something new.  Students are taught to add and subtract, then multiply and divide, and then incorporate what they have already learned into problems with fractions and decimals.  There comes a time when you have taken your last formal maths course and graduate from school, likely pleased that season of life is now complete.  This concept of taking a class, learning and finishing the work can seep into the Christian life and lead us to believe once we learn facts from the Bible or comprehend the basics of the Gospel we grow up, graduate and move to our chosen electives of interest--like prophecy, eschatology and spiritual gifts!

One thing we must learn and be continually reminded of is knowing does not mean we are doing.  The ability to define sanctification does not mean we are embracing it daily; to be able to turn to passages that exhort us to forgive others does not mean we are free of resentment and bitterness towards people we know.  We may have come to Jesus and placed our faith in Him as young children, but this does not mean we are trusting Him today.  With every moment God provides new opportunities to believe and rely upon Him like never before, so we can exercise the most basic and fundamental aspects of Christian faith.  There are many examples in scripture of this, and Daniel comes to mind.  He was an intelligent man brought from Jerusalem and trained in the language and laws of the Babylonians and then was appointed to a high-ranking leadership role in the Median and Persian empire as well.

Though Daniel had been brought from his city, people and culture, he continued to pray three times a day to the almighty God.  He did this even when legislation passed that forbade praying to anyone but the king for 30 days under punishment of death.  Daniel had never faced a situation like this before.  He didn't need to know anything new or require a fresh revelation from God to continue seeking the LORD he served in prayer and thanksgiving.  Daniel was arrested and thrown into the lion's den, and God miraculously preserved his life from the ravenous beasts.  Daniel 6:23 reads, "Then the king was exceedingly glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no injury whatever was found on him, because he believed in his God."  Daniel was hauled to safety unhurt and was delivered because "he believed in his God," the living God who created all things, knows everyone who trusts Him and is a Saviour.

Daniel believed in his God when he prayed three times a day in his own room, and he also believed in his God when he was thrown to the lions--a situation he had never before experienced.  His fellow rulers were like lions, prowling around and stalking him as prey, but God delivered Daniel from their schemes because he believed in his God.  Belief in God is a simple concept a child can understand, but we are called to keep believing God in everyday situations and in unprecedented ones like being thrown into a burning furnace or a den of hungry lions.  The fact Daniel trusted God in the lion's den did not guarantee he would trust God in trivial matters later that morning or afternoon.  Belief in God isn't something we do and move on from doing because it is impossible to grow spiritually or be pleasing to God without exercising it.  To advance in knowledge while neglecting simple belief in God means we are regressing, not progressing.