A Time to Heal

If you had a choice of living to the age of 88 in perfect health, or living to the age of 90 with two years of sickness spread out somewhat evenly over those 90 years, which would you prefer?

I think I’d choose 88 years of perfect health rather than 90 years that included two years of sickness. Why? Because if you are too sick to work for one day, then your lifespan is, in a sense, reduced by one day. An accumulation of 730 days (two years) of sickness in effect reduces your lifespan by two years. So I think I’d prefer 88 years of perfect health without the additional two years of sickness.

Even though our bodies are temporal and mortal and subject to sickness, aging, and death, physical health and healing of the body is important, because our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are instructed in Romans 12:1 to present our bodies as a living sacrifice in service to God. Even though God can use sick people to do things, a healthy body can do more things than a sick body can. Furthermore, and more importantly, the Scriptures tell us that in general, God wants His beloved children to be healthy. Therefore we should have a positive attitude and high expectations in regards to health and healing. We should be optimistic, not pessimistic.

The pessimist says, “God does not always heal. Paul left Trophimus sick in Miletum. Paul said Epaphroditus was sick nigh unto death. Paul had a ‘thorn in the flesh’ that God refused to remove. Elisha the prophet was ‘fallen sick of the sickness whereof he died.’ So it’s clear from the Bible that God does not always heal people.”

That’s all true, of course. But should we focus on a few specific examples of sick people in the Bible who were not healed, or on the multitudes of people who were healed? The Dake Reference Bible lists 30 cases of supernatural healing in the Old Testament, and 38 cases in the New Testament, and some of those cases included “multitudes” and “all the people.”

It’s true that God can use sick people and it’s true that He sometimes uses sickness to chastise and purify His children. However, our focus should be on the multitudes who were healed, rather than on the few individuals mentioned in the Bible who were not healed.

I do not have the supernatural charismatic gift of healing, and I am not an expert on the subject of faith-based healing. However, I do know that those people mentioned in the Bible who were not healed were the exception to the norm. The norm that we see in the Gospels and Acts is healing.

It’s true that Yeshua did not heal every single sick individual that He saw. However, He never once in the Gospels refused to heal anyone who asked Him for healing - except for the Syrophenecian woman, and even she eventually got her daughter healed, through her persistent pleading and her acknowledgment of her status as a non-Israelite Gentile dog.

We should have high expectations and a positive, optimistic outlook in regards to health and healing. It’s one thing to have low expectations and little confidence in people. That’s understandable. But it’s another thing to have low expectations and little confidence in the Lord - especially when the testimony of Scripture presents health and healing as the norm for God’s beloved children, and sickness among God’s children as abnormal.

Yes, there are exceptions to the general norm, but God’s will for His children in general is that they be healthy. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, “there was not one feeble person among their tribes” (Ps. 105:37).

God told the children of Israel, “I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee” (Ex. 15:26). However, this promise is conditional. The first part of the verse says: “If thou diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes...”

There is a difference between healing (getting rid of a sickness you have) and maintaining your health (keeping the wholeness you receive from the Lord). Yeshua healed many people, and some of them were no doubt living less than perfect lives. To the paralytic who was healed at the Pool of Bethesda, Yeshua said, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee” (John 5:14).

This suggests that some sicknesses (though certainly not all) come to people as a result of their sins. Although it could be argued here that by “a worse thing” Yeshua meant judgment in the afterlife, which is worse than sickness in this life. But regardless of what Yeshua meant here, some people in the Bible were smitten with sickness because of their sins.

Even before Yeshua came to earth, God gave Israel promises of health and healing. “And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and He shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee” (Ex. 23:25).

“And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of these evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee” (Deut. 7:15).

Just as some passages show a connection between sin and sickness, other passages show a connection between forgiveness and healing. David wrote: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases” (Ps. 103:2f). How many of your sins does He forgive? All of them! How many of your diseases does He heal? All of them!

We might not yet see the fulfillment of this promise, but we need to remember what David said: “forget not all His benefits,” including the benefit of having all our diseases healed.

James likewise shows a connection between forgiveness and healing when he writes instructions for sick people: “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:14-16).

When we read “pray for one another, that ye may be healed,” we usually think of it in these terms:

Jack is sick. Jill prays for Jack, and Jack is healed.

Maybe that’s all it means. But maybe it also has a secondary meaning like this:

Jack and Jill pray for one another and for all their other friends on a regular basis, even when no one is sick. When Jack gets sick, he is more likely to be healed, because he regularly prays for his friends.

I cannot prove with absolute certainty that praying for your friends helps bring about healing. But I can’t shake this verse: “And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends” (Job 42:10). So I’m going to continue to pray for my friends, even when they are not sick.

Another passage that shows healing is connected to repentance, confession of faults, and forgiveness is Matthew 8:16f:“When the even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sickness.” This shows that Yeshua’s role as Isaiah’s Suffering Servant is the basis for the healing of physical infirmities as well as infirmities of the soul and spirit. The phrase “with His stripes we are healed” can apply to bodily healing as well as to spiritual and emotional and mental healing.

Whenever the subject of healing through prayer is discussed, the question is often asked: Is it wrong to seek healing through conventional medical doctors who poke and prod and cut you and put drugs in your body?

Some Christians are opposed to any conventional medical treatment. They claim that the English word pharmacy is connected to the Greek word pharmakeia, which means “witchcraft” (Gal. 5:20) or “sorcery” (Rev. 9:21 & 18:23). They also point out what happened to King Asa when he consulted physicians: “And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign” (2 Chron. 16:12f).

I have known Christians who thought that going to a doctor or taking any medical drugs, even a non-prescription drug such as an aspirin, is an act of unbelief and an insult to the Lord.

In the 1970s there was a charismatic Christian teacher named Hobart Freeman who taught this “no-doctors-no-drugs-not-ever” approach. A friend of mine (now dead) was a devout Freemanite. My friend refused to acknowledge the existence of any sickness in his body, and confessed by faith that the Lord had already healed him. He refused to go to a dentist to get some cavities in his teeth filled, and his teeth rotted. He refused to wear his glasses, claiming that the Lord had healed his eyes. But when he had to get his driver’s license renewed, he failed the eye exam. They would not renew his license because they, in their “carnal unbelief,” did not realize that his eyes were healed. So my friend had to rely on others to drive him places.

A lot of Hobart Freeman’s disciples, and children of his disciples, died from minor infections which could have easily been healed by antibiotics. Freeman himself died of such an infection, as he was awaiting a court date to be prosecuted for contributing to the unneccesary deaths of many of his followers.

But what about pharmakeia? And what about King Asa?

Yes, our English word pharmacy is related to the Greek word pharmakeia. However, that does not mean that modern-day pharmacists are witches and sorcerers. That idea is utter nonsense. If you look in the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary, you will learn that the Greek word pharmakeia can actually mean two different things. It can mean either witchcraft or preparing and using medicines for the treatment of disease.

In the context of witchcraft, the Bible condemns pharmakeia. But in the context of preparing and using substances to treat disease, pharmakeia is not condemned in the Bible. On the contrary, this form of pharmakeia is prescribed two times in the Bible, once in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament. The Prophet Isaiah told the people to lay a lump of figs on King Hezekiah’s boil so that he would recover (Isa. 38:21). The Apostle Paul told Timothy to drink a little wine for his stomach’s sake and for his frequent infirmities (1 Tim. 5:23). If this form of pharmakeia were sinful, you would not see Prophets and Apostles prescribing it in the Bible.

People who think that using modern-day pharmaceuticals is equivalent to using witchcraft are afflicted with linguistic superstition. If a word (such as pharmakeia) has two entirely different meanings, one negative and one positive, it is illogical and irresponsible to ascribe only and always the negative definition to the word, even when the word is used in a positive context.

People who are afflicted with linguistic superstition become paranoid about possible pagan connections to just about any English word. Some people refuse to use the word holy because they hear that there is a Hindu god named Holi. So instead of saying “holy,” they say “set apart.” Just don’t let them know that there was an Egyptian god named Set, or they will have to come up with yet another new term to use. And don’t let them know that our English word cereal comes from Ceres, the pagan goddess of grain, or they will think they have to stop eating their Froot Loops and Coco Puffs for breakfast.

But what about King Asa dying because he sought the physicians for healing? Well, that’s not exactly and entirely what it says. It says that “in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.”

Asa’s error was not his going to the physicians. His error was not seeking the LORD at all: “in his disease he sought not to the LORD.”

Asa’s weakness was a complete lack of trust in the LORD, and a total reliance on the help of men. This weakness was manifested even before his disease, when he had no reliance on the LORD, and completely relied on the king of Syria:

“And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the LORD thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand” (2 Chron. 16:7).

The story of Asa does not teach that it is sinful to seek help from physicians, or that you will die if you go to a doctor. The lesson from this story is twofold:

First, seek the Lord for healing before going to a physician. Before phoning the doctor, give the Lord an opportunity to heal you supernaturally through prayer, without human intervention.

Secondly, if after a reasonable period of time it becomes obvious that the Lord is not healing you and you need to go to a doctor, continue to rely on the Lord for your healing. Even if you are being healed through a doctor’s treatment, know and understand that it is ultimately God, not man, who is bringing about your healing. Even doctors (humble ones, at least) will admit that they are simply making use of means which causes the body to heal itself.

The first year that my wife and I lived in Israel, she developed a horrible cough. It came upon her every night and only at night. We did not know any doctors in the town, and we did not have much money. We prayed for her healing but saw no change. After some time, I suggested we set a deadline and respectfully give the Lord an “ultimatum” of sorts. We told the Lord we would wait three more days. If He was going to heal her, we wanted it to happen within three days. If it did not happen by then, we would go to a doctor. After three days the cough was gone. Hallelujah!

I would like to say that this method works every time, but it doesn’t. There have been other times when we prayed for supernatural healing, but it did not come, and we went to the drug store and got some medicine to take care of the problem.

“But Daniel, if you have the option of going to the drug store or the doctor as a back-up plan, isn’t that showing a lack of trust in the Lord?”

You can look at it that way if you want to. However, I do not believe that having a back-up plan is always due to a lack of trust in the Lord. Whenever I go on a trip, I pray that I will not get a flat tire, but I still keep a spare tire in my trunk, just in case, because sometimes things happen: “time and chance happeneth to them all” (Eccl. 9:11). So if you want to criticize me for having the option of conventional medical help as a back-up plan, I suggest you first get rid of your spare tire and all your insurance policies and empty your savings account and quit locking the doors of your house and car.

The important question is not whether or not we are using means (such as a lump of figs, or a little wine, or an antibiotic, or essential oils, or whatever) to help facilitate healing or to prevent sickness. The important question is: Who are we ultimately trusting, God or men?

All our precautions to prevent disease (handwashing, vitamins, supplements, diet, exercise, etc.) are no guarantee that we will not get sick. Therefore our trust must not be in these means. And all of the treatments and medicines we take to heal disease (whether pharmaceutical or non-pharmaceutical) are no guarantee that we will be healed. Therefore our trust must not be in these means but in the Lord.

“The prayer of faith shall save the sick.” Our faith must be in the Lord and in His promises of healing in the Scriptures. Faith is not an emotion that you can work up. Faith is not a magic formula that you repeat like a mantra, insisting that you are healed when you are really as sick as a dog. Faith is a resting of the soul. It is trusting in the will of God as revealed in the Scriptures. It is a quiet confidence and assurance that God’s will for His people is normally health, not sickness. Health is the Biblical norm for God’s children, and we should aim for the Biblical norm in all things, including health and healing.

| DB

Image: A Time to Heal by Daniel Botkin from his To Everything There is a Season Gallery. See all of Daniel’s artwork on his art website, DanielBotkin.com.