Why Some are not Healed
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We will now endeavor to give a few reasons why some are not healed. Please understand that we are all
marching on the road to the manifestation of perfect health, though none is perfected in it. This chapter
and the chapter on
“Causes for Sickness”
are meant for those who have been prayed for over and over
again and are running from one place to another to have their healing manifested.
If somethings are hard to understand or accept, please do stay on and do not lose heart. Please do not leave this site. Take a break and come back for we want to see healing manifested. Not everything that the physicians and the surgeons do to a patient are pleasant. The treatment is often painful, but the patient quietly submits to the treatment. So please do stay under the ministry of the Word for some more time. It may pierce like a two-edged sword, but it will go between the bone and the marrow, to the place where the blood cells are created and bring about a permanent healing.
Faith is essential for healing. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). God cannot heal in an atmosphere of unbelief. Jesus could not do any mighty work in His own hometown because of the unbelief of the people. Mark 6:5 - “And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them” Unbelief, either on the part of the individual or on the part of his family or church (community unbelief), will hinder the healing work of God. There has been many a time when God is healing people and suddenly a wave of unbelief or envy or resentment by a section of the clergy or the laity comes, and the healing power of God ceases. The Holy Spirit is grieved and withdraws His manifestations. Be absolutely humble, contrite on the inside and the outside, during a time of healing. Shut out thoughts and words that generate fear, unbelief, doubt and resistance and do your best to co-operate with the minister of healing. A person who has claimed the healing power of Calvary must believe that he is healed and confess the same with his mouth and not lose heart by looking at the symptoms of the disease, which may persist or worsen before healing is manifested. We believe in our heart and confession is made unto salvation or deliverance (Romans 10:10). Faith does not say that healing will come. That is hope. Faith says that healing is done! Praise the Lord who bore the stripes for it!. How often, hope is mistaken for faith. Just as our salvation was accomplished on Calvary, even so, our healing was accomplished at the cruel whipping post. The eye of faith sees it. Hearing about it has brought faith, but faith moves on to seeing! Faith calls upon and speaks those things which do not exist as if they exist. Peter, walking on the water, began to sink, when he took his eyes off Jesus - to look at the threatening waves (Math 14: 19-20, 30). Similarly, if we keep focussing on what we see and feel, our faith will be hindered and healing delayed. The things that can be seen, felt or heard, the things that are subject to the five senses – they are all temporal, That means they are subject to change, either for better or for worse according to the reaction of the individual. When Jesus healed a certain dumb boy (Mark 9: 17-19) the boy fell down as one dead and all the people believed him dead. Yet, when Jesus lifted him up, he arose, fully healed. Often when a disease is leaving the body, it flares up. There is always a conflict between the spirit world and the world of matter. When sickness caused by germs or spirits leave the body, the condition might seem to worsen. Do not be alarmed. It is only for a very brief time. But your reaction at this stage is important. Hold your ground, do not cast away your confidence and thereby the manifestation. Therefore, do not be moved by the evidence of your eyes. “Walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7) and nothing will hinder your healing. Fear is one of the ever present companions of illness. Fear may come, but it need not overcome. “The thing that I greatly feared is come upon me" says Job 3:25. If you are filled with the fear that you will not be healed or recover from your sickness you can be sure that you will not be healed. Fear is of the devil and it attracts evil. 2 Timothy 1:7 says “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind”. Fear is a favorite weapon of satan and he uses it in times of sickness to prevent children of God from receiving healing. The result of fear is deadly, stimulating changes in the body that causes psychosomatic diseases and precipitates severe malfunction in the entire human system. The human body was not designed to handle fear ! It is more faith compatible! Doctors will not operate upon a person who is filled with fear. They will try to calm the person down first by sedating him because they know that all their efforts to heal the person will be nullified by a fearful and depressed attitude. Doctors find it easier to treat a cheerful patient and the physicians of old have a saying, “Medicine given through the ears is as important as the medicine given through the mouth!” Fear is abnormal to the human system and those who think that fear is a natural thing to be put up with and tolerated, remember this final scripture about fear in the Bible: Rev. 21:8 says that the fearful shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. 1 John 4: 18 assures, “there is no fear in love: perfect love casteth out fear”. Make yourself secure in the immeasurable love that God has for you, fear will depart and you will be healed. A person that is entertaining fear is obviously not dwelling in the love of God. Jeremiah 17:5 says, “Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” How many of Gods’ children depend on medical science! Medical science though a gift from God has taken the place of the Word of God. Now, no Christian will admit it. But think of how much time is spent in the doctors office and how much time is spent in the prayer closet. How much of the lab reports are memorised and how much of healing scriptures are stored in the heart? How much of conversation with friends is about sickness and how little is about the healing aspects of the power of God. How much money is spent on God’s work and how much money is spent budgeting for sickness and medical insurance! Many will never break an appointment with their doctor but will think nothing about missing a church service. Many have more respect for the specialist than for their beloved pastor! Without a shadow of doubt, in many a Christian home, the Word of the Almighty God has been replaced by the reports of medical science. God knows it. Admit it, repent of it and realize that Jesus is the Great Physician, the Doctor of all doctors, yea, the Death Destroyer! Blessed be the Lord ! Just recently while ministering healing to some, the Lord said, that His people were rejecting Him. I asked the Lord to explain how His people were rejecting Him. Now, we are aware that there are common scriptures that speak of God’s people rejecting Him. But the Lord was talking of active Christians. This is how the Lord explained it. When His people reject Him as Jehovah Rapha, as the God that Healeth us, as the Balm of Gilead, as the Great Physician, then we are rejecting Him. To reject One Aspect of Him is to reject Him. He is a possessive, Jealous God and will not share us with the world. We praise Him for being Jehovah Jireh - our Provider. We are relaxed to know Him as Jehovah Roi - our Shepherd, and so on with the other attributes of God revealed to us. But when it comes to Exodus 15:26 where it is written that He is Jehovah Rapha - the Lord that healeth us, many hold back and find it hard to believe. So you see how unconsciously, many of God’s people are pushing away the blessed Saviour? God has His way of healing (see "Some Methods of Receiving Healing"). Use it. Combine it with medical science if you want. But stop putting medical science first. Take it off from its pedestal in your life and magnify Jehovah Rapha. If your faith is placed on the medical skills and healing prowess of men and not on the healing power of God or if your faith is not in any way close to Jesus, His life and redemptive work on Calvary, it will be virtually impossible to get your healing from God. Honour God, by trusting first in Him, then use the services of men. Give God the glory or the credit and the acknowledgement that is due to Him as the Creator of the human body, and He will heal you. Ministers of God are only the channels that God uses to heal people. As a scalpel is a precise instrument in the hands of a skillful doctor, so is a minister of God. It is God Himself, who is the source of healing power. Therefore, do not exalt any servant of God or his healing ministry above God. Heb 12:2 exhorts, “…looking unto Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith…”. Looking not unto Jesus, but unto a minister of God for healing will prevent God from healing you. We must have confidence in the ministers of God and in the gifts that He has given them. We must give the ministers their due honour and regard. But remember that it was Jesus who went through hell to redeem you unto Himself. There are ministers who often tempt people to put their confidence in their ministries. When a minister says something like this, “Send us your prayer request! We will pray and God will heal you, God answers all prayers from this place !”, the glory that is due to the awesome sacrifice of God is being diverted to the works of ministers. Now, for the minister to be on his knees in prayer and make bold statements is real hard work. But no human work, effort or sacrifice can be compared to Calvary. He was and is the Lamb of God and no one can take that place. The healing ministry is one of the hardest in the Body of Christ and so such must be counted worthy of the honour and respect that it is due. But we should be careful not to exalt the minister and rob the glory due to God. We should be able to discern whether that ministry has a genuine concern about the welfare of the sick and is drawing attention to the healing power of God , or it is self propagation and everything is said and done in it’s own interest and growth On one occasion, during a School of Divine Healing, the following prophecy was given which brought the fear of God on all present. “If one comes and talks about his ministry, him you will listen to; but if one comes to build you up, him you will not receive!” Many of God’s children do not like to be corrected. Many presume that they know everything or that the minister cannot teach them. Many do not like to grow and mature in Christ. Many do not like to fulfill God’s plan for them in the Church and the world. God in His mercy has overlooked many of His children’s faults; but He is also interested in the spiritual growth of His children. So, the time has come when God’s children have to turn their hearts fully to their Father. The true motive of a minister must be to turn your heart to your Redeemer and your Father, to perfect the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ. If there is any sin in your life, God cannot heal you. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” God works by certain principles and His own law bind God from healing those who stubbornly refuse to repent of their sins. Repent and confess your sins and the healing power of God will be released to you. Many stubborn illnesses that do not go despite being prayed for by the most devout servants of God indicate an inward stubbornness and rebellion against the revealed will of God. The poor sick one is actually persisting in a sinful way of living. Some sins are open, some secret and some that are not known for a long time. Remember that before Adam’s deliberate disobedience, there was no sickness. One instance comes to mind. A lady was in a terrible condition caused by several complications. To avoid embarassing her, I cannot give more details about her condition. She had been prayed for by the great healing ministries of the day. She had attended the School of Healing some years ago. I was often asked why she had not been healed. We could venture a couple of definite reasons, which were not received (do not miss “Causes for Sickness” for greater understanding). In July of 2000, she confessed some horrible sins of consulting the occult, even as a Christian. A little later, during the course of our conversation, she showed a hidden resistance to the message of being born again. We are now waiting for a full repentance for once the cause is found, the cure is certain. God is not withholding anything. When He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up to undergo such torment, will He not freely give all things that the Atonement purchased? God is trying every way He can to work His power into our lives, but it is our dullness of hearing, deceitfulness of heart and stubborn self will that hinder His blessed power from working in our bodies. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. Bless God who is merciful! Some are completely healed and delivered of sickness, but the disease returns after an interval of time. Why is this so? Jesus explained, in Math 12 : 43 - 45, “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.” Evil spirits require a human body to give full expression of their evil nature. A person cannot exist in a spiritual vacuum. Once devils are cast out of a person, he must be filled with the Holy Spirit to prevent the devils from repossessing the person. In a village, there was a demon-possessed woman. When the devils were cast out she would be well and behave normally –for a few days. Then she would be possessed again until the devils began to get bolder and bolder and began to disturb every service. I had cast the devils out of her on more than one occasion. Every passing evangelist had done so too. One day, I sought the Lord for an explanation, and He taught me. The next time I went to the village, she began to shriek and manifest demons halfway through the message. When the demons were rebuked, she collapsed to the floor. After the service, I asked her to invite Jesus into her life and be filled with the Holy Spirit. The moment she finished the prayer, she was filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave her utterance. Six weeks later, she was perfectly all right, working in the fields and paying her tithes to the church! She then remained healed. Bless God! Sickness is caused by germs or viruses, which are evil spirits. So once healed of sickness, submit to God and be filled with His Spirit. Then the returning demons of sickness cannot attack you. The minister of Christ, is an ambassador, a representative of the King and should conduct himself as such. Sometimes the surgeon’s scalpel becomes rusty!. The Bible has so much to teach about our speech. To put it all briefly, the tongue is like the steering wheel of our life (please read the book of Proverbs and James 3 carefully). Yet we do very little about correcting our speech. Often, even ministers of God are also guilty of improper speech. A minister can lose his ability to minister effectively through a loose tongue. A minister, more so than any one else, should speak as of the Oracles of God, for he is entrusted with them (see 1 Peter 4:11). Over and over again, we have watched as young or unskilled ministers pray wonderful prayers of faith and blessing and then during a time of fellowship which follows, speak idle words, coarse words. Some ministers are of the view that they can say fantastic prayers and then conduct themselves as they please. They think that once their spiritual work is over, they can be someone else! They have forgotten that they are specific instruments in the hands of God and very high standards are expected of them. God has given us the Holy Spirit so that we may be filled with the Spirit at all times. Eph 5:18 exhorts us, “and be not drunk with wine…., but be filled with the spirit.” Being filled with the spirit is not a one-time occurrence. It is a continuous stirring up and working of the Holy Spirit so that He flows through the affairs of your life, like water flowing uninterruptedly through a channel. Jesus described this in John 7: 38, 39 saying, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified)." Instead of being filled with the Spirit, if a person has - Grieved the Spirit (Eph. 4:30)then that person will not be healed. Why does God want us to be filled with the Spirit at all times? Our soul is like a vacuum. It must be filled and not left as a vacuum. If it is left as a vacuum, it will suck in anything that is passing over it. It will get filled with the things of the world. God has warned us in His Word, 1 John 2:15 - “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Again we are warned in, James 4:4 - “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” God’s purpose is to separate you unto Himself. His will for you is good and the best. Letting go of the things of this world that hinder our healing is no sacrifice. God has many better things in store for us. Many are afraid that if they are filled with the Spirit then they cannot enjoy life or do their own thing. Repent and ask God to fill you with His Spirit again and healing will be yours. A person who has turned away from following the Lord, to follow his own ways, cannot expect to be healed by the Lord, in times of sickness. There are three kinds of Christians – Cold Christians, Lukewarm Christians and Hot Christians ! Which kind are you, O sick one? Lukewarmness and backsliding are first cousins. But there is hope for the backslidden. God calling out to backsliding Israel, tells them that He is married to them, though they have backslidden (Jer. 3:11-16). Romans 7:4 tells us that we are married to Christ. God expects a higher standard of the believer for unto whom much is given, much is expected.(See Luke 12:48) Keep the fire and the light burning in your soul and their will be no room for lukewarmness and backsliding. God is gracious to the backslider who repents and will heal him. If we repeatedly ignore God’s voice warning us, how can we expect God to hear us, the very first time we pray? God, clearly warns us in the scriptures, that if we willfully ignore Him, He will not hear our prayers, in our times of need. Zech. 7:11, 13 says, “But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear……. Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts” Your pastor and minister is not a soothsayer. If you are in the place that God wants you to be, you can be sure that God’s warning light goes on the moment you begin to step out of line. But how often have sick ones ignored the warning pleas of His servants! How often, as a Christian, you have refused to be in the place that God wants you in? Disobedience is rebellion, which is like the sin of witchcraft. If God has been warning you concerning anything, take heed and repent. Only then can God heal you. Pride hinders divine healing. James 4:6 says, “ God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble”. God’s grace and healing are available only to the humble. The proud in heart refuse to bow in humility before God the healer, nor will they submit to the divine order of healing – calling for the elders of the church, repentance and confession of sins, laying on of hands, etc. The proud even in the grip of deadly sickness will reject the ways of God. When Namaan, the Syrian, came to Elisha for healing, he was infuriated that the prophet did not receive him with honor, but only told him to wash seven times in the Jordan. His pride hurt, he would have returned to Syria, but better counsel prevailed and obeying the prophet’s words healed him (2 Kings 5: 9-14). Even today, the ‘pride of life,’ (1 John 2:16) that rejoices in wealth, education, social standing, even high positions in the church, is preventing people from humbling themselves before God for their healing. Pride, is of the devil. It is Lucifer’s chief characteristic and strongest weapon. Repent and humble yourself before God and His grace is sufficient to heal you. It is important that a person is in the right place of fellowship. John 4:23 says, ”…. True worshippers will worship the father in spirit and in truth.” The first place to worship is in spirit, i.e. in your own heart. We worship God in spirit when our spirits are bowed down before God, when we submit our will to His and acknowledge Him as Lord of our lives and go about the business of fulfilling His will. Then ask God to lead you to the right place of fellowship and He will. If you are in a place where the doctrine of divine healing is avoided or not preached with authority, remember that the laws of association will be at work. Your faith will suffer due to the atmosphere of doubt that prevails in such a place and your healing will be hindered. With God’s guidance, find a place of fellowship that believes and practices divine healing and the other fundamental truths of the gospel of Christ, as found in Hebrews 6: 1, 2, and you will be healed. General Observation A practical reason why some people are not healed, is that, the people looking after the sick, prefer that they should depart, either to relieve their loved ones from further suffering or out of some ulterior motives. This creates an atmosphere of sin and unbelief that grieves God and prevents Him from healing the person. 
Antioch House Email : wecare@antiochhouse.org |
