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In this podcast, we share our sermons and teaching from our Sunday Celebrations + some other additional teaching content.
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And if you're asking why is a man who walks with a stick going to talk to us about healing? You could be justified in your question, but as we've already heard, God uses flawed, imperfect people to accomplish his purposes. Man, I was also at that in Andrew's meeting and there still lives. Yet very much in my memory. The last time I spoke here, because I have a problem with my toes, I used a seat behind this was elected, but during the meeting the seat gradually descended to a lower level.
So I decided today I'm going to stand up. I'm not risking that anymore.
I'm here to speak to you on the basis that God says in His word that he is a healer. And also on the basis of my own experience of God as a healer. If you read the New Testament, particularly the gospel accounts, you'll see there are many, many occasions Jesus went about healing people. It's worth pointing out, actually, there are only two occasions when he healed people in the synagogue.
They are equivalent to what we are in now. All the rest were outside walking here, there and everywhere, going here, going there. Somebody comes to him or they bring somebody to him and he healed them there once or twice. It was in people's homes. And that is a lesson for us. I think people of God, we can be out there laying hands on sick people in the name of Jesus.
Have we been proclaiming this morning and expecting him to heal them? Jesus, when he was here, was, of course, confined to one place at one time. And if God wanted to extend the ministry of Jesus, he had to take Jesus out of the situation and replace him. You follow me. And what happened was that Jesus died on the cross.
He rose again from the grave. He ascended to be with the father. And then they sent the Holy Spirit. He recorded in the book of acts, the day of Pentecost. The spirit came upon the Church of God. The newly formed Church of God, believers in Jesus. And then each one of them was able to go around and begin to minister in that same powerful name of Jesus.
And that same practice has gone on for 2000 years and is still happening today. And that's what we're focusing on, particularly today. Every spirit filled believer has the capacity and the capability to minister the healing power of God. I hope you believe that because it applies to you. If you are the committed follower of Jesus, you do not need a dog collar.
You do not need a title like Reverend or Bishop. This is what Jesus said. This is one of the most amazing statements that I have found in the scriptures, and there are some pretty good ones in that John 14 verse 12, Jesus says, the truth is now this is Jesus speaking. Remember, the truth is, anyone who believes in me will do not, must do.
It's not a command, it's a statement of fact. I will do the same works I have done. It is not amazing. That's not half of it. I will do the same thing. Works I have done and even greater works. What do? And even greater works than Jesus death. Is that possible? Well, it is possible in the sense that with more people filled with the Spirit of God, more people can be healed.
So greater in number, shall we say. But Jesus said that. And the reason he said was because I'm going to be with the father. So that's just what we described. He died. He rose again. He went to be with the father. The Holy Spirit came, and every spirit filled believer can now minister healing in the name of Jesus.
I want to suggest there are three categories of healing. The first is natural. If I cut my finger, all I need to do is put a cluster around it and wonder of wonders. The skin and the flesh will knit together. It's a miracle. That's the way we're constructed by a wonderful, loving, caring Heavenly Father. The second category I would classed as God plus the NHS.
You know what I mean? The wonders of medical science and the developments that they've made, particularly in the last hundred years, just fantastic. And I believe God honors people who commit themselves in that way. And. Many of us could testify to situations where we have needed medical intervention. We've also needed the power of God alongside or above that.
26 years ago, I was in a church in Bolton with my wife, Gwen, and her great nephew was four weeks old. He'd been born with part of his heart missing, and we were there at a dedication in that church to lead the congregation specifically to pray for health for the little lad whose name is Oliver. The prognosis was not good, as you can imagine, with part of the heart missing.
One doctor said, if he reaches teenage years, that will be a miracle. The medics did what they could. The people in that church in Bolton prayed. Many others prayed. Some of us here prayed. We we heard about Oliver and committed ourselves to praying. By the time Oliver did reach his teenage years, he was doing cross-country runs. Five years ago, Oliver got married, and on Tuesday of this week, he became a daddy.
Can we have the picture? Is it that. There you go. That's Oliver and Becky and Gioia, which is apparently an Italian name pronounced joy. I.
This lady, his name is Joy. If you didn't know God plus the NHS. Yes. I don't know how much the medics were responsible or are responsible for Oliver. How much? It's up to God. I just thank God we got both. Amen. So there's the natural. There's the God plus the NHS. But there is then the category that I can only describe as super natural.
Now some people back off. When you say supernatural, I think weird, wacky, X-Files and all that kind of garbage. New age. No no no no, we're not going there. But God, by his very nature, is super beyond, above the natural. And anything that God does is supernatural. Are we are clear on that. Okay, so we know where we stand and.
You've heard it already from so many people. I hardly to speak this morning because so many people have brought good stuff. But we're reckoning with a God who moves supernaturally. And you might say, well, it's not just for the elders, the pastors, the the profession calls the material believers. Well, there is a scenario for those who are members of a church, committed accepting the oversight of the elders in this case.
There's a verse in James which says this written, this was written to churches. any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make them well, that's pretty clear, isn't it?
And we have elders in this church who accept that as being the Word of God. It has the authority of Jesus, and they will gladly anoint you with oil and pray for you to be healed if you go to them and ask them, I did that a few years ago. I was getting arthritic pain in firstly in this wrist and then in both wrists.
I thought one day I might just try my golf clubs and see if I could do a practice swing. I could not even grip a golf club. It was so painful and I thought, I'm not having this. And I went to the elders after a Sunday morning meeting. I said, would you please pray for me? We only had two elders in those days.
Jeff. Christ, Dave, Greg is away on holiday. In a moment and they did that. They anointed me with oil and they prayed and the pain disappeared. And the pain has not come back. Praise God. Hallelujah! Is he as good as his word? Absolutely. The prayer offered in faith will heal the sick and the Lord will make them well.
That's what the word says. But that's a particular scenario for church people. But wider than that. It's not confined to elders, to ministers. Mark's gospel, the last recorded words of Jesus and the last words are always important. Not my. Before he ascended to be with the father, he spoke of signs that will accompany those who believe, not those elders who believe, not those pastors, not those ministers, those anybody who believes.
One of the signs was this they will be able to place their hands on the sick and heal them. What could be more plain and straightforward than that? There's a lady in this congregation who responded to that challenge. Must be about 25 years ago. I was speaking on a Sunday morning as I'm doing now. It wasn't here, it was over in KGB college in those days.
And while I was speaking, I sensed God break into my thoughts and say, throw out this challenge. And the challenge was to somebody in this congregation, you've never prayed for anybody to be healed. I want you to come at the end of the meeting, lay hands on my elbow, which from time to time is very, very painful. It wasn't actually that that morning, but every few weeks or so I would get searing pain in my elbow.
And at the end of the meeting, young lady called Karen. Bombs came forward very quietly, very modestly. She said, David, I think it's me that good for you. And she put her hands on my elbow. She prayed a simple, powerful prayer of faith. But I say the pain wasn't there that day. But I haven't had the pain ever since.
Anyone who believes, anyone who believes in Karen did. She acted upon her belief and I am the beneficiary. Praise God, thank you Jesus. You may know that we have a Healing Rooms ministry that meets in the other building on a Saturday morning between 10 and 12, and there are people there week by week who will pray for you because we take healing seriously.
Part of the gospel message, part of the ministry of Jesus. And I served in the healing rooms for a number of years now. One Saturday morning I used to get eczema. This is a catalog of my all my weaknesses neuroses. I'm sorry about that, but it does illustrate the point that God does heal. I used to get eczema in my ear and it would itch, and I would stick my finger in my ear.
Oh, you shouldn't do that. I learned that from the doctor. He said, what you're doing when you do that, Mr. Rayner, you are introducing bacteria and the bacteria called infection. And it would clog up and it will be painful. And I couldn't hear and it was awful. So he gave me antibiotics to take for a week. And I went back in to see him.
And he had a special instrument because he specialized in ear stuff, and he would scrape out all this gunge. and I thought, I can do without there. So Saturday morning, once when there was a lull in the healing rooms, I said to Brendan, morning, my master, who was the directors at that time, could you just lay hands on my ear and believe God, that I won't get any more eczema?
And I did that, and I've never had eczema in my head since then. Praise God, we've got a wonderful.
So my experience of healing has come through three channels, through a lady who had faith, through the elders of the church and through the Healing Rooms ministry. I recommend them all. Oh, now you've probably come across the word holistic. I've never heard holistic when I was a young fella, but it's become more accepted in the last, I don't know, 40 or 50 years.
It refers to the whole person, spirit, soul and body. Spirit, soul, which is the mind, the will, the emotions and the body, the whole person. And of course, God is interested in the whole person, but he wants us to be complete and he has the ability to make us whole. Spirit, soul and body. And the Bible doesn't actually use the word holistic, but there's so much in there which makes it clear that the word applies right across the board.
Spirit, soul and body. Isaiah 53, for example. Now, this was written over 700 years before Jesus came on this earth. And yet in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, you get such a detailed description of the suffering and death of Jesus from over 700 years before it happened. Quite amazing. But the translators had a problem. They said, well, the words in English, broad enough to cover all that the original Hebrew means.
So they give you one version and then they give you a margin version as well. So Isaiah 53 verse four says, it was our weaknesses, margin reference, sicknesses that he carried. It was our sorrows, margin diseases that weighed him down. And then in verse five, the very next verse, you get spirit, soul and body directly and implied he was wounded and crushed for our sins.
That's the spiritual. Yeah. He was beaten that we might have peace. That's the soul, the mind, the emotions, the will. Because he was whipped and we were healed. That's the physical. This is the holistic message of our wonderful Heavenly Father. He wants us to be whole. No half measures all bases covered, all needs met in what Jesus went through when he was flogged and crucified.
So. And the Bible confirms in two wonderful ways that those words in Isaiah actually became reality. The first is how Jesus came to the moment after hours of agony on the cross, when he knew it was time for him to commit His Spirit to His Father in heaven, he declared, it is finished. Now. That was not a sad acceptance that the Jews and the Romans were finally getting rid of him.
It was a clear, assured declaration that the work of salvation and healing was complete and job done. Sins can be forgiven, peace with God can be enjoyed, sickness and disease can now be healed. That was the declaration. It's finished. It's done. And the second confirmation that follows on from that was the fact that on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead.
That's the greatest miracle of all. He was flogged. He was beaten. He was spat upon. He was crucified. He was certified as dead by the Roman soldiers who knew what they were doing when they crucified people. He was laid in a stone to a big stone, was placed over the mouth of the tomb to make sure there were no dodgy business.
And on the third day the stone had been moved, the body had moved, the grave clothes was still there, but Jesus had gone. Jesus was risen from the dead, and Jesus went around. In the next six weeks or so, meeting people, talking to people, inviting people to touch him, see the print of the nails, he said. Eating fish, having a meal with them, over 500 people at one time.
So don't tell me it was a hallucination. No way. And then he ascended to be with the father. So how do we benefit from that 2000 years later? Well, I'll tell you why. Because the Bible says this. The same spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead now lives in us. Us being committed followers of Jesus. So what God's Spirit enables Jesus to do back then, the same spirit will enable us to do in our day and our generation.
Do you believe that? So do I.
Jesus taught his followers how to pray. One of the phrases he used was this your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, on earth as it is in heaven. I cannot believe that in heaven there's any pain then is sickness, is any sadness, is any sorrow. It's all joy and blessedness and just wonderful.
So Jesus is actually saying, we can ask for the reality of heaven to become the reality on earth. Isn't that wonderful? That's what he actually said and encouraged us to say, the kingdom came in a measure when Jesus was on the earth, but then he went back to be with the father. The kingdom came in a measure with the Holy Spirit upon those disciples and upon every generation of disciples, including us.
That's the age in which we live. The kingdom is here in a measure, not in full measure. It will come in full measure when Jesus returns, because he will one day come back and bring everything to its climax and conclusion. But we can pray and expect that the reality of heaven will be the reality on earth. And I believe that includes healing.
Now some people, some Christians, too many Christians, probably hide behind this thought, well, if I pray for somebody and they're not healed, they're going to be very disappointed. And so am I. So I'd rather not risk it. If you don't mind. That is pathetic. I'm sorry. It is pathetic. That is ignoring what God says in his word. It's ignoring the power of the name of Jesus.
We've been declaring declaring this morning, ignoring the power of the Holy Spirit. A man called John Wimber, whom some of us have been very blessed by his ministry. He had a healing ministry, but when he first started, he prayed for so many people and nobody was healed. Nobody at all. But he learned some lessons. He listened to some wise people.
He got before God and gradually he began to see people healed. And he said, if I pray for 19 people and none of them are healed, I'm still going to pray for number 20. And that's my attitude. I will pray for people to be healed. And I know there are people here, people of faith, and we want to make the most of what our God has made available to us.