Thinking Theologically about Sickness and Healing, Part 2

So for countless people are dealing with pain, sickness, and physical setbacks that it makes us wonder when people of faith pray for healing. Why doesn't God provide a miracle today on Insight for living. Chuck Swindoll continues our study on the Holy Spirit called flying closer to the flame in the next portion of the series will be dealing with the mysterious topic of miracles to be absolutely accurate will be consulting God's word as the final authority.

Chuck titled his message thinking theologically about sickness and he I want to step into this segment of the Holy Spirit in his ministry of healing which is by the way, packed with enormous emotion on every side. I want to step into it reasonably and cautiously and carefully. I don't want to hurry so I think will need to spend more than one session in it turned briefly, if you will to second Corinthians chapter 11 and for the sake of clarification. Let me let me come right up front with you and tell you why I want to be cautious about and then I want to share with you what I would call for possible sources of of phenomenal events such as healings, as we have described. Second Corinthians 11 is a is a chapter written with passion by the apostle Paul to people he loved dearly, and deeply the believers in Corinth verse two.

I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy.

He writes about the way as a pastor I feel deeply the same feelings as Paul who writes these things. I am jealous for you, you who are under our ministry and within the scope of our influence. I'm jealous for you with a godly jealousy. Jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin that's my hope. I have had the privilege of leaving some of you to Christ. I had the opportunity of introducing to you the joy, the privilege and the gift of eternal life, and therefore my heart is linked with you in that spiritual experience and in your growth. But I agree with Paul. Verse three. I'm afraid I am afraid lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness in your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. I don't know of a pastor worth his salt who doesn't struggle with that. That same fear. If you wonder what I worry about when I think and worry about you as people within the scope of my ministry. It is that sort of thing I worry about what you turn to in your in your aches in your heart aches in your brokenness and in your need for relief because there are so many offering answers which will only deceive and disturb and bring greater confusion and perhaps even deeper suffering at the same time I admit there is a living God, who certainly has the power to heal. I have said all of my ministry and I underscored now.

I believe in divine healing hi simply don't believe in divine healers. I don't think I've ever ministered to anyone more disillusioned than those who had been promised healing by a healer and they were not healed and they in fact died and so it is my very real world that I bring to this subject. Admittedly, and is my own human limitations as a man is a minister that I speak on the subject that is profound and even when I'm through. I will admit there is enormous mystery and it all for the sake of simplicity, in time, let's limit this list of of the sources of phenomenal events before we do that, I think once people speak of some kind of phenomenal manifestation as I and analyze it and as I have witnessed some of it firsthand. I believe I could put a list together of four sources that they come from. In no particular order. Let's just list them number one would be the manifestation could be self-induced healing.

No so-called healing could have a psychological explanation.

It might not be an alleged healing. It might be a real healing. It could have taken place because of a conscious because it was consciously or unconsciously self-induced psychosomatic illnesses or numerous doctors tell us all the time. Many of them come from disturbed emotions.

Many of the illnesses and when those emotions are healed. There is a remarkable healing of the physical part of it.

There are occasions when illnesses are relieved simply by the removal of that which was troubling and individual so that healing is self-induced. Second, the phenomenon could find its source in highly charged emotional meetings it would fall in the category of mass hysteria or mass hypnosis. Let's face it, very gifted speakers and preachers can do amazing things with suggestible audiences. I have seen it and heard it with my own eyes and ears.

I have been in such meetings.

I have witnessed it happen. They quote healing of the spirit often is the result of what could be otherwise called brainwashing mindbending techniques known by those who know how to move an audience, and many are extremely experienced in that third the source could be satanic as you read in second Corinthians 11, as the serpent deceived even his concern was that they in Corinth might have their minds led astray demonic forces a the work of God. When will we ever learn that when Satan is involved in something, it is more often in the realm of light that it is in the realm of darkness. It looks right. It sounds good.

It seems plausible, yet it is to the core satanic.

Lucifer revealed himself as the angel of light.

Not the angel of darkness.

He is not an ugly, grotesque creature with a red epidermis. He is a handsome, intelligent, brilliant, incredibly impressive being and his demons the same. He woos us and wins us with logic and persuasion and intellectual arguments and reasonable approaches and it is not until one is caught in the trap of it that he realizes she may realize that it really is, in fact, of the devil.

So some of it is satanic, not all of it.

Perhaps not even most of it but some of it comes from the realm of the enemy and forth God doesn't God does the healing. No true evangelical that I know who loves the Scriptures and believes the Orthodox theology of evangelical faith questions the power of God to heal. That is why we pray, your will be done. Lord, in this case. Lord I pray for this child. Lord I ask for the life of this baby Lord I pray for my friend. I asked for my mate. I asked for this parishioner of mine for whatever may be the subject, and we pray believing that God heals and can do so. I have a wonderful mental list.

Perhaps I should someday write them all down of individuals that I've known. Pray for loved through times of great threatening sicknesses and they are now specimens of health. When the doctors in many cases it simply gave up on and the Lord healed them.

So please do not walk away from this from this hearing from this session sayings when doll does not believe that God heals. I do I do with all my heart but I am skeptical of many of the healings where people are telling others that God has done this. I just wonder if he is the source of all of it. I do not believe he is now of this is led me to do an in-depth study of the problem of sickness and for the next few minutes, perhaps for the better part of our time in this first session I want to present six foundational facts regarding sin and sickness and bear with me. It may not be a lot of information about the Holy Spirit. During this time, but it will give you a theological foundation upon which to think. And God knows we all need to think theologically, we need to understand our God and how he is put us together and how it relates to the whole realm of the of the sickness because they are interrelated and will help you come to an understanding on euro in your own study and in your own observation of others. So let me let me walk my way through this and share with you the these facts.

Here's the first primarily there are two types of sin or original and personal.

Let's begin there. There are two types of sin. Primarily, there is original sin. I'll explain that. And then there is there are personal sins and I'll explain it. Original sin is traced all the way back to the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve, the first couple yielded to the temptation of the devil and in the fall into sin they introduced into the human race a corruption a pollution that has spiritually ruined humanity. This is called Adamic sin or original sin.

The sin nature.

It is impossible to be born into this world without it we get it from our parents who got it from theirs who got it from theirs all the way back to Adam who acted as our federal head when he sin Sam passed upon and polluted the stream of humanity that is not my idea. That is from the Scriptures.

Look at Romans chapter 5 verse 12 let's get the let's get the facts on one side and let's put the Scriptures on the other so that there side-by-side, compared to one another.

This will help you understand the whole realm of healing as it relates to the problem of sin and as it relates.

Of course, to death. Romans 512 therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all the calls all sinned, is not a very pretty picture but it's true. The old hypothetical question if Adam if Eve had never send. Would they have live forever is answered easily. Of course, God's plan for them was a plan of innocence and perfection. His hope for them was such let's put it that way. His desire was that they walk with him throughout their life that they not yield to the temptation to eat of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil.

They disobeyed and as a result not only did sin enter the life but the body became, if you will disease and death was introduced into the human race.

It is all connected with sin had there never been sin. There would never have been sickness there would never have been death see how he puts it, and so death spread to all for all of sin that's original sin because we have this Adamic nature within us. We commit personal sins which would be in the realm of disobedience. Romans again chapter 3 verse 23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Personal sin is an individual matter.

Adamic sin is universal when you sin.

Personally, I do not necessarily sin but we all have a sin nature which we come by from birth we are sinners by birth and therefore we become sinners by choice in acting this obediently. We carry out the fruit growing from the root of part of Adamic sin, because deceit rests in my nature. IDC because disobedience rests in my nature are rebel and disobey.

I am not proud to admit it but I at times come to a red light and it stays red longer than I think it should and I I I am not justifying it sometime. I run it I should not run it. It is dangerous. I've told my kids don't run red lights. Every once in a while I run a red light.

Every once in a while I get stopped by a man who has a uniform on and reminds me had has ways of reminding me not to do that, but because I am a rebel by nature I am a rebel. When I am living my life and occasionally I act it out and I sin, and so do you like there is original sin. And there are personal sins.

Keep those two clear in your mind as we go to the second or original sin, introduced sickness, suffering and death to the human race. Original sin, which we got from Adam, introduced sickness, suffering and death to the human race.

Ezekiel 18 for the soul that sends shall die first Corinthians 1521 turn their for since by man came death, that man of course would be Adam, the first man verse 22, as in Adam all die, the graveyards are full of tombstones related to the fall of Adam. Every one of them because Santa entered the human race. There was introduced to the human race suffering, sickness and death. Job says, and 14 one man is short-lived and full of trouble. So true. Had there never been original sin.

How wonderful life could have been so much for the hypothetical hope. There has been sin and it will continue to pollute the race as beautiful and lovely is your little baby may be your child is born with the nature and that nature brings disobedience, sickness, suffering, and will one day bring fact number three. Often I hear you got a think here we need to concentrate often there exists a direct relationship between personal sins and physical sickness. Not always, but often there exists a direct relationship between personal sins and sickness. Numerous examples are found in the Scriptures.

I want you to turn to one that is notorious. It is David Psalm number 32.

Please turn back. It's a it's a notorious example of a man who send with Bathsheba.

This if we could call it that famous sin has been left in his legacy as a part of the heartache of his life, but the struggle. The man went through while hiding the adultery and the hypocrisy and the murder of Bathsheba's husband. All of that built to such a place that he became literally sick and then he finally came to terms with his with his rebellion with his disobedience and 32 is his testimony. Psalm 32, three through five listen when I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my what is that word what is it groaning all day long. Through my groaning.

The man is suffering because he has disobeyed his God and he has refused to come to terms with it and in his conscience, which is eaten away with guilt. He is groaning and he is physically wasting away lost his appetite. He suffered from insomnia. He could not think clearly. He was a poor leader of the nation's home was coming apart.

How often was a first for day and night your hand was heavy upon me my vitality that his energy was drained away. As with the fever heat of summer and and then he says Selah is a musical's musical pause.

The word that I sometime translate pause and let that sink in. Imagine that kind of life. If you've ever been there. You don't need any help from me and most of us have been there a period of time where we did not deal with the sand that was going on and we were what we called miserable and the misery didn't leave until we came to terms with our wrong verse five. Finally, I acknowledged my sin to the my iniquity. I did not hide. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and look at the result, thou didst forgive the guilt of mice wonderful. It was guilt that made him sick. It was guilt drained his energy, it was guilt that took away his happiness.

His smile, his ability to think his leadership skills. It was guilt that gave them the groanings all day long because in this case. Not all of them but in this case there was a direct relationship between personal sins and sickness physical, emotional, sickness. Another example would be first Corinthians 11 verse 30 turn of the New Testament.

The Corinthians. Again, it is in the context of the Lord's table and they had perverted the this blessed occasion of worship by coming as a as a group and getting drunk and and and eating too much guilty of gluttony and hardly remembering the significance of the table of the Lord.

He says to them, to their shame 1130.

For this reason, many among you are weak and sick, and a number have died your sand has resulted in weakness and sickness and even now remember, in such cases, the confession of sin begins the process of healing, it doesn't necessarily mean it is instantaneous, though I have seen occasions when more often than not it starts turns the suffering around and moves the person back a healing and recovery.

Our topic today is thinking theologically about sickness and healing your listening to Insight for living Chuck Swindoll is presenting a study on the Holy Spirit titled flying closer to the flame to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit us online@insideworld.org each of these programs can be found on the inside for living website and by utilizing this great resource you will have all of Chuck's teaching right at your fingertips, but perhaps today are looking for something more tangible like a book to read while Chuck wrote a full-length volume called embraced by the spirit. It parallels the teaching series in many ways but Chuck goes into far greater detail in the book. The subtitle will give you an idea of what you can expect embraced by the spirit.

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