God’s will part 3.
God has a plan for each one of us.
Psalm 139:16, 23-24. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.....
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Jeremiah 1:5-10. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Alas, Sovereign LORD, I said, I do not know how to speak; I am too young. But the LORD said to me, Do not say, ‘I am too young. You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you, declares the LORD. Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.
God has a plan for each one of us.
Psalm 25:4-14.
Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, LORD, are good. Good and upright is the LORD;
Therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful toward those who keep the demands of his covenant. For the sake of your name, LORD, forgive my iniquity, though it is great.
Who, then, are those who fear the LORD? He will instruct them in the ways they should choose. They will spend their days in prosperity, and their descendants will inherit the land. The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.
A checklist to determine God’s will for us.
Have I been obedient to the guidance God has already given me?
Am I willing to give up my personal desires to do God’s will?
What does God’s Word say about my present situation?
Have I approached the question on hand with earnest, persistent and believing prayer?
Have I received confirmation from my spiritual leaders?
Am I about to act out of impulse or emotion?
Do I tend to limit God’s guidance through my intellect?
Do I expect God to always lead me in extraordinary ways?
Can I recognise confirmation or denial by the circumstances?
What does my God-given common sense say?
Have I chosen to wait for God’s timing?
How has God led other Christians in similar situations?
Does that which I believe to be God’s will for me violate Scripture?
God’s will and circumstances.
Illness guided Paul to Galatia.
Galatians 4:13-14.
As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you, and even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself.
Paul wanted to go and preach in Asia.
Acts 16:6-7.
Paul and his companions travelled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.
Trophimus and our Need for Resilient Faith Tony Cooke.
Ephesians 4:20. Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus sick in Miletus.
Paul ascribed no fault or blame upon Trophimus. Such as:
“He must not have had enough faith.”
“There must have been sin in his life.”
“He must have missed it somewhere.”
Paul felt no need to defend the doctrine of healing or his own ministry. He didn’t express the idea that he had “failed” to get Trophimus healed.
Paul did not try to make this into a theological or philosophical issue at all.
Paul simply stated the fact of Trophimus’ illness as it existed at that moment.
Trophimus and our Need for Resilient Faith Tony Cooke.
I am addressing this topic because many believers have faced great anguish when someone they love has not recovered or even died in spite of much prayer. Some surviving loved ones have even been victims of judgmental attitudes and condescending remarks by rigid and insensitive believers.
Regardless of one’s theology about the role of faith in healing, I think that all believers will agree with Paul’s statement in
1 Corinthians 13:13.
“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Notice that Paul placed love, not faith, at the top of the list. If there are times when we don’t understand why something did not occur according to one’s faith, the least we can do is to make sure that we are walking in love toward those that are hurting, and release compassion, care, and concern – not speculative judgement – toward them.
God’s will and sickness and healing.
Years ago Sam Ennis told me of a breakaway from Roodepoort Assembly.
An Elder said that a lady who had cancer was going to be healed (The Lord had supposedly revealed this to him)
She subsequently died and the Elder left the church with a breakaway group stating that the death was because of a lack of faith.
I heard Brian Downwood relay a story while he was ministering.
A bible-study group in a church was told to go home and examine Paul’s thorn in the flesh and come back the next week to discuss it. The subsequent discussion led to the church splitting over the different views.
Sickness blamed on generational curses.
The Jews believed that if something was wrong with them, it was because their father sinned. People still believed this in Jesus day
and it is still prevalent today.
John 9:1-3.
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Neither this man nor his parents sinned, said Jesus, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
This false belief was based on a proverb the Jews had that is recorded in Ezekiel 18.
Ezekiel 18:1-3.
The fathers eat sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.
The Lord tells Ezekiel to correct this proverb which he hated.
Sickness blamed on generational curses.
Deuteronomy 5:9.
Visiting the iniquities of the father upon the children until the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.
What is overlooked in this passage of Scripture is the fact that it is visited upon those that hate God. An iniquity is a sin that shows up at a later stage.
Isaiah 53:5. says that Jesus was “bruised for our iniquities” A bruise does not show up straight away. Somebody can hit you on the arm and you will look at your arm and you won’t see anything. It may hurt, but you won’t see anything. The next day you will notice that you have a bruise there and that is what iniquity is. It’s a sin that’s in your family, that if you do not serve the Lord, will almost surely show up in your own life. You will find that often when husbands beat their wives, their sons beat their wives. Often when people abuse alcohol, their children become alcoholics etc, etc. There is a very strong possibility that whatever your father does, you will end up doing - if you hate God.
NB: the iniquities will be visited upon the children up until the third and fourth generation of them that hate God.
*Parental influence is huge.
Sickness blamed on generational curses.
Ezekiel 18:1-3.
The word of the LORD came to me: What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel.
And yet people today quote that proverb and people today use that proverb as a basis for teaching generational curses and blood line curses. God hated that proverb then and I can guarantee you that he still hates it now.
The Lord goes to great lengths to clarify this:
Ezekiel 18:1-4.
The word of the LORD came to me: What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child, both alike belong to me. The one who sins is the one who will die.
Sickness blamed on generational curses.
Ezekiel 18:4-20.
Suppose there is a righteous man who does what is just and right.
He does not eat at the mountain shrines or look to the idols of Israel.
He does not defile his neighbour’s wife ……..
He follows my decrees and faithfully keeps my laws.
That man is righteous; he will surely live declares the Sovereign LORD.
Suppose he has a violent son, who sheds blood or does any of these other things (though the father has done none of them):……..
Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these detestable things, he is to be put to death; his blood will be on his own head.
But suppose this son has a son who sees all the sins his father commits, and though he sees them, he does not do such things: He does not eat at the mountain shrines or look to the idols of Israel.
He will not die for his father’s sin; he will surely live.
Sickness blamed on generational curses.
Ezekiel 18:18-20.
But his father will die for his own sin, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother and did what was wrong among his people.
Yet you ask, Why does the son not share the guilt of his father? Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live.
The one who sins is the one who will die.
The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child.
The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.
Sickness blamed on demons.
Years back there was a doctrine that had quite a large appeal - where you didn’t have to accept responsibility for your own choices and your own sins. That was the doctrine of Christians being demon possessed. People would go and have the demon of nicotine cast out of them and the demon of alcohol. Everywhere you looked there was suddenly a demon to account for why people were doing what they were doing. So these kinds of fads go through the church periodically. The Bible says that we need to become mature so that we’re not blown about by every wind of doctrine.
Yet you still find that every time there’s a new teaching in the church, it seems to appeal to certain Christians who do not know the Word of God, people who do not have a good firm grounding in the Scripture. Many Christians today do not read the Bible and those who do read the Bible perhaps read a verse or two out of some devotional book. But very few people read and study the Bible and really get grounded in the Word of God. That is why these types of doctrine find a root and a base in people’s hearts and lives.
Can a Christian be demon possessed?
Some Christian’s attribute sickness to demon-possession
2 Corinthians 6:14 says:
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers, for what does righteousness and wickedness have in common? What fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?
Now this is an admonition and a command for us not to get married to unbelievers or to go into business with unbelievers. “What fellowship can light have with darkness?” And yet people have this doctrine which suggests that a demon can co-habit our body with the Holy Spirit (We are temples of the Holy Spirit).
Would the Holy Spirit and the Word of God charge us to live holy and separate lives - not to have anything to do with the darkness and unbelievers - and yet the same Holy Spirit is prepared to cohabit with a demon? I think not!
God’s will and sickness and healing.
Yoido Full Gospel Church
A Pentecostal church affiliated with the
Assemblies of God on Yeouido (Yoi Island) in Seoul, South Korea. With about 480,000 members (2015), it is the largest Pentecostal Christian congregation in South Korea,
Founded by David Yonggi Cho in 1958, the church is presently led by Young Hoon Lee.
In May 1958, Cho held his first worship service in the home of his friend, Choi Ja-shil. Only Choi and her three children attended the service, but the church grew rapidly and soon had 50 members. Cho and church members began a campaign of knocking on doors and inviting people to come to church, and within three years, it had grown to four hundred members. In 1961, the church purchased its first plot of land at Seodaemun-gu.
God’s will and sickness and healing.
The church's expansion program suffered a setback in January 1961, when Cho was conscripted by the South Korean army for national service. He asked John Hurston, an American missionary, to pastor the church in his absence. Cho's service in the army was short-lived. He required surgery for a serious intestinal illness, and on the grounds of ill health, he was discharged from the army after just seven months of service
Following his military discharge, Cho once again began his pastoral work, despite continuing ill health. A 1500-seat auditorium was constructed on the plot of land at Seodaemun. It opened in November 1961. The church soon outgrew its premises: by 1964 it numbered three thousand.
Soon afterwards, Cho had married Kim Sung- hye the daughter of Choi Ja-shil, on 1 March 1965. In the meantime, Cho had been continuing to overwork, and suffered a collapse in 1965.
God’s will and sickness and healing.
Economic problems delayed the construction of a church on Yeouido (Yeoui Island), but in 1973, the new ten thousand-seat auditorium was completed.
Its first worship service was held on 23 September 1973.
In the same year, Prayer Mountain, a sanctuary where individuals can lock themselves away in small cubicles for prayer and fasting, was established. Expanded in 1982 to accommodate ten thousand people, Prayer Mountain is now visited by more than a million people each year, including some ten thousand foreign pilgrims.
The church continued to grow exponentially; its membership reached 400,000 in 1984
God’s will and healing.
(YWAM OLDIES FB) October 2016.
Prayer has been requested for Reinhard Bonnke. He was diagnosed with malignant throat cancer. Daniel Kolenda posted this on their official FB page: "Evangelist Bonnke has made it through surgery safely. The Dr. says it was successful. He is now resting and will need to undergo several weeks of therapy, recovery and rest. Thank you for praying for him and for all the loving concern
Health Report of Reinhard Bonnke, and more.. (17 February 2017)
As you may know, the last 6 months I had to go through a dark valley of sickness and underwent the necessary treatment. In my weakness, but His strength, I kept up my ministry on FB with great joy. It is my pulpit.
Meanwhile Daniel Kolenda, my successor in CfaN, brought in hundreds of thousands of souls for Jesus in Africa.
His Plan for Me. (Martha Snell Nicholson)
When I stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ
And He shows me His plan for me,
The plan of my life as it might have been,
Had He had His way; and I see
How I blocked Him here, and I checked Him there
And I would not yield my will,
Will there be grief in my Saviour's eyes,
Grief though He loves me still?
He would have me rich, and I stand here poor,
Stripped of all but His grace,
While memory runs like a hunted thing
Down the paths I cannot retrace.
Then my desolate heart will well nigh break
With tears that I cannot shed;
I shall cover my face with my empty hands;
I shall bow my uncrowned head.
Lord of the years that are left to me,
I give them to Thy hand;
Take me and break me, mould me to
The pattern Thou hast planned.
Martha Snell Nicholson.
Martha was a woman who suffered from four incurable diseases. She struggled with pain more than thirty-five years, an invalid, bound to her bed.
Her spirit was so transcendently triumphant through those many weary years, that she wrote some of the finest Christian poetry that has ever been written.
Martha writing about her situation. I am looking back over more than twenty years of illness and thanking God for them. Does that sound strange?
Ah, but they have brought me gifts, those weary years. I do not enjoy sickness nor suffering, nor the nervous agony and exhaustion that are harder to bear than physical pain. And an invalid must bury so many dear dreams which have death struggles and refuse to die decently and quietly.
Martha Snell Nicholson.
But God has a way of taking away our toys, and after we have cried for awhile like disappointed children, He fills our hands with jewels which “cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire.”
And what friends He has given me! Are there more loyal friends than those who stand by the sick through the years? My family and friends have prayed for me, encouraged me, quietly sacrificed for me, washed my dishes, rubbed my aching head, offered me everything from new books to their very life-blood for blood transfusions. I should like to speak of a very devoted and tender husband, but that is a matter too personal.
Poems began to appear in magazines. In 1938 she was overjoyed at the publication of her first book, Wings and Sky. Six others would follow. Eventually nearly two million of her tracts were distributed.
Sickness is sometimes a result of sin.
Weakness, sickness and death in the church at Corinth was as a result of sin.
1 Corinthians 11:28-32.
Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.
That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment.
Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not finally condemned with the world.
Sickness is sometimes a result of sin.
Numbers 12:9-15. The anger of the LORD burned against them, and he left them.
When the cloud lifted from above the tent, Miriam’s skin was leprous, it became as white as snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had a defiling skin disease, and he said to Moses, Please, my lord, I ask you not to hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb with its flesh half eaten away.
So Moses cried out to the LORD, Please, God, heal her!
The LORD replied to Moses, If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back.
God sometimes uses death to discipline for the righteous.
1 Kings 13:20-24. Prophet from Judah killed by a lion
While they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the old prophet who had brought him back. He cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, This is what the Lord says: You have defied the word of the Lord and have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your ancestors. When the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey for him.
As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was left lying on the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing beside it.
God sometimes uses death to discipline for the righteous.
Revelation 2:20-23. Letter to the Church at Thyatira
Nevertheless, I have this against you:
You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.
I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.
So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead.
Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
God has a plan for each one of us.
Deuteronomy 28:1-8.
If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:
You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock, the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.
The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you......
God has a plan for each one of us.
Deuteronomy 28:15 & 58-63.
However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:
If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God, the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God.
Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
God’s will and our free will.
From the Scriptures that we have just looked at we can see clearly that the situation that God’s people find themselves in does not only depend on God’s will, but on man’s free will.
God has given man a free will, meaning that man has a choice:
Man can choose to do God’s will.
Man can choose not to do God’s will
Psalm 32:8-9.
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.
But Jesus never got sick.
Jesus never got sick because sickness is as a result of sin and Jesus never sinned. Hebrews 4:15. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin.
Unlike us, Jesus did not have a human father who contributed DNA and passed on man’s sinful blood. (The life is in the blood)
Leviticus 17:11.
For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
All men are related by the blood of Adam, sinful and polluted blood, dead in trespasses and in sins.
But Jesus never got sick.
Life is in the blood.
Leviticus 17:11-14.
For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. Therefore I say to the Israelites, None of you may eat blood, nor may any foreigner residing among you eat blood.
Any Israelite or any foreigner residing among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth, because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.
Acts 17:26a
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.
We all carry Adam’s sinful blood, that is why we are prone to sin.
But Jesus never got sick.
Jesus never got sick because sickness is as a result of sin and Jesus never sinned. Jesus never had Adam’s blood. (Virgin birth)
1 Peter 1:18-19. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
The placenta that mass of temporary tissue known better as “afterbirth,” forming the union between mother and child is so constructed that although all the soluble nutritive elements such as proteins, fats, carbohydrates, salts, minerals and even antibodies pass freely from mother to child and the waste products of the child's metabolism are passed back to the mothers circulation, no actual interchange of a single drop of blood ever occurs normally. All the blood which is in that child is produced within the child itself as a result of the introduction of the male sperm. The mother contributes no blood at all. Martin R. DeHaan, M.D.
The life is in the blood.
In the human body there are many different kinds of tissues.
We define them as muscle, nerve, fat, gland, bone connective tissues, etc.
All these tissues have one thing in common, they are fixed cells, microscopically small and having a specific and limited function.
Unlike these fixed tissues, the blood is fluid and mobile, that is, it is not limited to one part of the body but is free to move throughout the entire body and touch every other fixed cell as it supplies it with nourishment and carries off waste products and the ashes of cell activity which we call metabolism.
The life is in the blood.
In the normal human body there are about five pints of this fluid, and this blood pumped by the heart circulates through the system about every twenty-three seconds, so that every cell in the body is constantly supplied and cleansed and at the same time is in constant communication and touch with every other cell in that body. This blood is the most mysterious of all tissues, being composed of scores of elements and compounds and strange chemical bodies, whose function is not yet fully understood, but all of which have to do with the mystery of life for the "life is in the blood."
Once the blood fails to reach the cells and members of the body, they promptly die and no man ever dies until his blood ceases to circulate. The life is in the blood.
But Jesus never got sick.
Jesus was able to carry our sicknesses and our sins because He was sinless, a lamb without spot or blemish.
Matthew 8:16-17.
When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.
Isaiah 53:4-6.
It was certainly our sickness that he carried, and our sufferings that he bore, but we thought him afflicted, struck down by God and tormented. He was pierced because of our rebellions and crushed because of our crimes.
He bore the punishment that made us whole; by his wounds we are healed. Like sheep we had all wandered away, each going its own way, but the LORD let fall on him all our crimes.
Healing is still for today.
James 5:13-16.
Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
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