Title: Health – What the Bible Really Teaches

The girls name was Vicky and she was paralyzed when the car she was in rounded a curve just a little too fast. She was 14. Then the doctors offered no hope, she and her parents turned to faith healers for a miraculous cure. And they ended up with less faith, not more. I’m Charles Morris and welcome to HAVEN Today telling the great story that’s all about Jesus. This is a program – following up on the interview we had yesterday with Dr. Gordon Fee. This program is called “Health – What the Bible Really Teaches”. Let’s begin now by worshiping the Lord together.

Song: Lord I Lift Your Name On High

Starting our time together with a song called, Lord I Lift Your Name on High, on a HAVEN Today called Health - What The Bible Really Teaches. This by the way is a true story medical science offered no hope after Vicky was paralyzed, but she and her parents latched onto the promises of the faith healers. They tried the “what I confess, I possess” formula and banished all their negative thoughts. They said words of Scripture out loud, over and over again, trying to unleash the power of faith, and I’ve got to tell you because I know the family, their optimism ran high for months.

But Vicky, I changed her name from her real name, remained paralyzed and eventually the family lost hope, and each of them entered into the darkness of unbelief. The mother became cold and emotionless, Vicky was bitter and angry, her father tried to kill himself.

There is real spiritual danger in false promises of healing. People end up with less faith not more. I saw it happen in this family. False shepherds offering false hope and the sheep are the ones who suffer, sometimes they're destroyed.

The promise of total health by faith for all believers may sound like good news but its bad news because it's just not true and it's certainly not Biblical. It's a false scent, and when we follow it we end up far from the truth.

We need to stop trying to make the Word of God say what we want it to say and find out what really says.

So what does God's Word say?
• God’s Word clearly teaches that believers are sometimes healed AND
• God's Word clearly teaches that believers are not always healed.

God's Word clearly teaches that believers are sometimes healed. If we have no expectation of this ever happening, it's probably because we don't really believe God is real, we don't believe he hears us, we don't believe he has compassion, and we don't believe he has power. But God is real, awesomely real, he hears us, he listens intently to our prayers, he is overflowing with compassion for us.

Jesus has fully identified with all are suffering, he's with us in it, and he has power, he is able to heal right here and now all our infirmities and all her diseases. And often, miraculously, he does. But not always.

God's Word clearly teaches that believers are not always healed. Why not Lord? Why Not? Let’s listen to his Word. He’ll explain it all to us - and comfort us at the same time with a great hope - the hope of glory.

I Peter is about suffering. It’s a letter written by Peter, at the disciple and apostle of Jesus and it's a good place to go to make sense of it all. It took Peter a while to understand about suffering. When Jesus first told Peter he was going to the cross, he completely rejected the idea – “No Lord! This will never happen to you!” He thought God's Son should only experience glory, they should never suffer, never experience pain and shame.

But by the time Peter wrote his letter, he understood about suffering and he understood about glory and he knew how they worked together. In the very first chapter of I Peter he does two things -- he shows the fundamental fallacy of the false gospel of health and he lays out the beautiful pattern of suffering and glory.

• The fundamental fallacy of the false gospel of health - what is it? It’s simply this -- perfect health is promised for the future - it's not promise now.

I Peter 13 says, “God in his mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

We have a great hope - a living hope - that has come about through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Peter wants his readers to get this fixed in their hearts. Our bodies will one day be just like Jesus’ resurrected body. We will be beyond sickness and suffering and shame and death.

But, we are not beyond these things yet and we shouldn't expect to be. Perfect health now is not promised to every believer who just has enough faith. Every healing we experience now is a small, temporary foretaste of this future complete healing. Every healing we don’t receive now fixes our hearts more firmly on this future complete healing.

Phil. 3:21 says that God, “by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”

Our lowly bodies will be transformed and they will be like Jesus’ resurrection body -- full of glory. Not now but then.

Romans 8:23 says, “We who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

We groan because our bodies are still subject to sickness and decay. We haven’t experienced the redemption of our bodies yet. Sometimes they’re groans of terrible pain. Sometimes they’re groans of great frustration.

But this suffering focuses our eyes on that great day -- in the future -- when we will have new bodies. They'll be bodies full of health, free from disease and pain, no longer subject to death. But more than that, they’ll be glorious, infused with the life of God. We’ll be alive with the glory of God. Peters says this is a living hope - it's guaranteed. Why? Because Jesus is already living in his glorious body and his body is the guarantee of our bodies.

We should think about this a lot and do it with a lot of joy. As Peter says, “in this you greatly rejoice”. He puts it even more strongly in I Peter 1:13: “Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” So that's the first thing we need to get straight as we think about why God doesn't always heal us right now – it’s because that promise isn't for now. It's for then.

But then Peter takes is even deeper and helps us understand

• The beautiful pattern of suffering and glory.

I Peter 1:6 “In all this - all this promise of future glory -- you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer grief and all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith -- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire -- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not seem now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”

We need to look closely at these verses in God's Word and see what they really say.What's the pattern of life for believers?

First, he says the suffering is normal.

Now, for a little while, we may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. In other words, suffering is normal. Peter is being very general here – he doesn’t limit this to one kind of suffering like persecution - he's talking about all kinds of trials and that would include illness. He is saying that it's part of a pattern.

Second, he says that the things we suffer prove our faith.

They come so that our faith which is more valuable than gold may be proved genuine. Faith is very, very precious - precious to God. When we suffer, our faith is put in the furnace and subjected to fire. Fire tests gold and proves that it's really gold. Fire tests our faith and proves that it's really faith.

Third, he helps us understand what faith really is.

What is faith? Peter gives us a clue by the way he starts this letter - he calls the believers “aliens”. He’s reminding them that this world isn’t our home. Instead he's fixing our eyes on the grace that will be given to us when Jesus is revealed. He's pointing us to the beautiful Son of God who redeemed us, the unblemished Lamb, who shed his blood for us, and he's pointing us to the day of his return when his glory will be revealed and we can all greatly rejoice.

That’s faith.

Faith looks to what’s unseen not to what’s seen. Faith looks to Jesus.

When we suffer, the eyes of faith can become even more focused.

Peter knows this by personal experience. When we suffer, the eyes of our faith grow stronger, and that causes our joy to increase. Peters says this joy is inexpressible and full of glory. He knows this by experience, too, and he knows it's not unique to him.

He says, “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.” Peter says this joy defies description and he says it's glorified. In other words, it's coming straight from Jesus, straight from the realm of hidden glory. And suffering just makes it increase. That’s the pattern - suffering proves our faith and increases our joy.

Song: Joy Comes in the Morning
Sung by: Walt Harrah

This is HAVEN Today and the program is called “Health – What the Bible Really Teaches.

One more thing about the great story:

Someday the curtain will be drawn back. Jesus will be revealed. He won't be hidden to the world anymore. He'll burst forth with all his glory and everyone will see him. AND -- everyone will see the faith of his people – faith that has been tested, tested by suffering. Everyone will see it and that will result in praise and honor and glory for Jesus.

Pray with me right now;

Father in heaven, there are some of us who are sick and we want to be healed. And Lord, there is nothing wrong in asking you to be healed, but as we talked about yesterday on this program, there are people in the Bible, like the apostle Peter, who prayed three times to be healed from a thorn in his side. We don’t really know what that was, but we know that you chose to not heal him until he received his resurrection body. Lord, if you didn’t choose to heal your apostle whom you used in mighty ways to take the Gospel to the Gentiles and you also use to heal physically other people in his day, in his lifetime - then Lord, we know that your answer for us maybe that our healing will be in our resurrected as well. But Lord you said to bring all things to you in prayer and we all know instances where people have been healed of what is hurting them - so we ask for that, and we ask for grace beyond measure, we ask for your glory to be made known in us. We ask for you to build up our faith, not so that our faith can result in our healing – it’s all from you - but so that we can have more faith to be able to share that faith with other people. Bless us, may your healing hand rest upon us, and we praise you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Now, yesterday on the program we had one of the world's best-known Greek scholars, Dr. Gordon Fee. Gordon has had an amazing track record over the years teaching. He started out at Vanguard University in Southern California, he has taught at Wheaton College, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, and as of late at Regent College in Vancouver British Columbia. He's the editor of one of the more important New Testament Commentaries series - I would say just about every pastor that I know of has a least one commentary written by Dr. Gordon Fee. And we have a little book by him and Gordon as I've mentioned before is an Assemblies of God pastor. He's written a book called The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels. I'd like to send it to you and along with that I'll send the bonus CD where we talk about the issue of health - we did that on the program yesterday with Gordon Fee. And tomorrow’s HAVEN Today we will be talking about this false Gospel of wealth, it is important for you to hear this. The book along with the bonus CD will help you figure out what the Bible really teaches. You can see it for yourself - if you'd like a copy of the book and the bonus CD we have it available for you as a thank you for your gift of $25 or more to HAVEN Today. If you give us a call and please let us know the radio station you're listening to when you call 1-800-654-2836, 1-800-65-HAVEN. You can go online and read about the book, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels, at haventoday.org.

I’m Charles Morris, thanks for being with me. Please come back again tomorrow when Dr. Gordon Fee will join us when again we will tell The Great Story; that’s all about Jesus, together here on HAVEN Today.