March 10, 2017 Show with Ron Glass on “Sickness: An Examination of the Body & the Bible” (Part 2)

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March 11, 2017

RON GLASS, former Adjunct Professor of Bible Exposition @ Talbot School of Theology, Pastor of Wading River Baptist Church, Wading River, NY, & host of the “River of Life” radio program Saturdays @ 9:30AM *ET* & Sundays @ 7:30PM *ET* heard globally via streaming @ EastGateBroadcasting.com, who will address: PART 2: “SICKNESS: An Examination of the BODY & the BIBLE”

November 27, 2017 Show with David J. Engelsma on “The Gospel Truth of Justification: Proclaimed, Defended, Developed (Part 3)”

00:01: Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
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01:10: Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 10th day of March 2017, and I am delighted to have back on the program my dear friend
01:28: Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church in Wading River, Long Island. He is back on the program to continue a series, a two -part series we began yesterday on sickness, an examination of the body in the
01:43: Bible, and Pastor Ron Glass is also a former adjunct professor of Bible exposition at Talbot School of Theology, and he is the host of the
01:54: River of Life radio program which is heard every Saturday at 9 30 a .m.
02:00: and every Sunday at 7 30 p .m. Eastern Time, heard globally via streaming at Eastgate broadcasting .com,
02:10: that's Eastgate broadcasting .com, so we hope you start listening regularly to the
02:17: River of Life program, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back for part two of sickness, an examination of the body in the
02:25: Bible, Pastor Ron Glass. Well it's good to be back with you again, Chris, thank you so much.
02:30: And in studio with me is my friend and co -host the Buzz Taylor. And I'll be listening in a lot
02:36: I'm sure today also. It was very interesting yesterday, that was amazing stuff that you shared with us.
02:42: Great, and if anybody listening would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Pastor Ron, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
02:52: chrisarnson at gmail .com, and I think it would be wise for us, for those of our listeners who did not hear yesterday's program, to begin with a caveat or a disclaimer.
03:05: My guest, Pastor Ron Glass, is not a part of the charismatic movement, he is not a part of the word of faith movement, he is not a person who believes that sickness is always a sign that someone has unconfessed sin or that their faith is too weak to be healed.
03:29: He does not believe in modern -day faith healers, although he believes that Christ can and does heal today, he does not believe in what we see very often, much to our dismay on television and and hear on the radio, so -called modern -day faith healers who will offer you health, wealth, and prosperity as long as you give them money.
03:58: Pastor Glass disdains all of that and I just wanted to make it clear that our listeners were aware of that because this is such a deep subject, in fact a lot more complex than you might think, that hearing bits and pieces of our interview may lead people to the wrong conclusion, so I just wanted to get that out of the way there and I'm sure that you concur with the essence of what
04:27: I was just saying, I'm sure, correct Pastor Ron? Yes, absolutely. And perhaps you could even just tell us briefly again something about Wading River Baptist Church for our listeners who did not hear you introduced yesterday.
04:42: Well, Wading River Baptist Church is an independent Baptist Church in fellowship with the
04:47: Conservative Baptist Association of America. We are located on the east end of Long Island and we are not a large church, we're a small church, but we hold to the historic doctrines of grace and we believe in the expository preaching of the
05:09: Word and a conservative traditional style of worship. And we're, in that respect,
05:16: I hate to say, we're becoming increasingly unique, especially out here on the east end of Long Island.
05:24: So we invite anybody who may live within driving distance of our church, and we have people who drive as much as an hour to get here, we invite them to visit us if that's what they're looking for.
05:38: We also have a very warm and loving fellowship, and put that all together and it's a great place to worship
05:45: God. And your website I know is wrbc .us,
05:51: that's wrbc for Wading River Baptist Church dot us, so if anybody would like to look up that website you may feel free to do so.
06:01: And I know that you wanted to start our program with an examination of the
06:07: Epistle of James, at least a specific portion of it, if you could start off with exactly what you'd like to launch the program with today.
06:18: Well, let me begin with something of an overview on this. When it comes to healing,
06:25: I think that contemporary evangelical Christianity is pretty confused today.
06:31: When you think back to the 19th, 20th, early part of the 20th century, many spiritual leaders who defended those debates that were going on on healing back then, and there were new denominations, you had the rise of the
06:46: Pentecostalism, the Four Square Ministry, Amy Semple McPherson and her healing ministry, which was followed by Catherine Kuhlman and that whole thing.
07:01: Many spiritual leaders firmly believed that the loss of the spiritual gift of healing, as outlined in 1st
07:12: Corinthians 12, Romans 12, was due to worldliness, an unbelief in the
07:17: Church. So the problem was that the Church had departed from a vital
07:23: Christianity, it was worldly, and therefore these gifts weren't being manifested, the
07:29: Spirit had been aggrieved. So today we have the faith healers who claim supernatural powers, and they ply their trade on their unsuspecting disciples.
07:41: Now, good health, as we also know, and you've mentioned this already over the last couple days, is a prominent feature of the word of faith movement, or we sometimes refer to it as confessional movement, name it and claim it.
07:56: And on the other hand, you have conservative evangelicals, and they've assumed that divine healing is not for today.
08:05: Essentially, that's the kind of environment I grew up in. Divine healing was for a bunch of Pentecostal crackpots, and divine healing was not something that Christians could expect today.
08:19: At most, many would agree that God could heal if he chooses. I mean, there were very few people who disagreed with that.
08:29: I mean, most pastors and churches say, yeah, God can heal if he so chooses. And sometimes he answers prayer for the healing of the sick, but usually he doesn't, so there isn't much hope for the healing of serious diseases.
08:42: So if you want to get well, you go to the doctor and you load yourself up with medicine.
08:48: But what I want to talk about today, and especially in the first hour, is that although the gift of healing is not operative in the
08:56: Church anymore, and I am firmly convinced of that, the New Testament does indicate that God has made provision for the healing of his people.
09:04: And this takes us back to what we talked about yesterday, with the healing in the
09:11: Atonement as presented to us in Isaiah chapter 53, where clearly we're told that Christ bore our weaknesses, our there is a provision that God has made.
09:26: I think this is logical to think that, you know, I mean, physical health is such an important part of our lives.
09:32: We are human beings, we have physical bodies, and we, as sinners, we get sick, we have diseases.
09:40: And God could be expected, I think, to provide for us a way of healing from these diseases.
09:49: It's part of the quality of our life that I think God has provided for. So that brings me to what
09:56: I believe is the key passage on physical healing for Christians in the
10:04: Church at this day, and that's James chapter 5, verses 13 through 18.
10:12: And I'd like to kind of work my way through these verses this hour, so feel free to interrupt me with questions or whatever, but I want to talk about this at some length.
10:27: In fact, could you, would you either read it, or would you like me to read the passage?
10:34: Well, let me begin with the first verse, which is, is anyone among you suffering?
10:42: Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. Now, let me start by saying that the illness to which
10:51: James is referring here is certainly not the routine illness that most people endure from time to time.
10:58: I mean, we're not talking here about colds, or the flu, or headaches, or indigestion, or broken limbs, or minor infections, anything like that.
11:07: Those heal in time. God has built our bodies so that they heal. And with proper care, and proper nutrition, and proper rest, those things will heal.
11:18: What James is concerned about here, I think, is chronic illness, for which natural recovery is unlikely.
11:25: The word that he uses here for suffering, is any among you suffering, is a word that means to endure hardship or evil.
11:33: And the nature of this evil, I think, is indicated in the two following verses, where he is making it pretty clear.
11:42: He speaks in verse 14 of being weak, or sick, and the one who is weary, or the word is worn out, or wasting away.
11:52: It would seem that you put these words together, the meanings of these words together, and what you have is a picture of a person who is enduring a life -threatening illness, a potentially terminal illness, or a very serious illness.
12:07: So the question is, how do I go about accessing this God, who, as opposed to doctors, is always on call?
12:18: So I want to make some suggestions about that. And the first one that we see here, the first direction,
12:25: I think, that a Christian who is facing a serious illness should be aware of, is that God wants us to express our desires for healing.
12:37: That is, our first response shouldn't be to complain, or to express self -pity, or even to look for medical intervention, but rather to prayer.
12:48: Notice how he says, is any among you suffering? Then he must pray. Now why can we pray?
12:55: Why should we pray? Well, let me give you three brief answers. One, we need to pray because of who
13:02: God is. And we saw that yesterday in Exodus 15 26, where God told
13:08: Israel, I am your healer. He declared himself to be the one who heals.
13:15: So we can come to God on that basis. Secondly, we pray because of what God has done.
13:21: And again, back to Isaiah 53, in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ lies the seeds of our healing.
13:29: Just as his blood provided the the redemptive power for the forgiveness of our sins, our salvation, so also for our sicknesses.
13:43: And thirdly, we should pray because of what God has said. I mean, we have frequent invitations, right?
13:48: Jesus said, ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened unto you. Whatever you pray, in my name, believing, you will receive.
13:58: Don't be anxious for anything, but by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
14:05: The peace of God that passes all understanding will keep your hearts, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Paul says that in Philippians 4, 6, and 7.
14:13: So we need to pray. Now, when we do that, I think that obedience to God's Word and conformity to his will is one secret to effective praying, and therefore one secret of good health for the man or the woman of God.
14:35: You remember the story in the Old Testament of Caleb and Joshua, and how these two men were faithful in bringing the report of the spies back to Israel.
14:49: So God preserved their lives. There's an interesting passage concerning Caleb, in which he says this,
15:00: Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt with fear, but I followed the
15:07: Lord my God fully. So Moses swore on that day, surely the land in which your foot is trodden will be an inheritance.
15:15: He goes on to say there, because he had followed the Lord fully, he says, verse 11 of Joshua 14,
15:23: I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me.
15:29: And that was a long time before, that was more than 40 years before that.
15:36: And so his health, his strength, is connected to the fact that he followed the
15:42: Lord fully. He obeyed the Lord. He was consistently faithful. So what should we do in this case?
15:49: It seems to me that when serious illness strikes, the first thing we want to do is search our hearts for sin. Now when we get sick, we should engage in serious biblically grounded self -evaluation.
16:02: Now it's easy to say, well, I don't think that sin is the reason why
16:07: I'm sick. But we don't know that until we have searched our hearts. So the object of this, obviously, is positive change, which the result of that would be then new health.
16:20: And we saw that even yesterday in Psalm 119 with David, good for me that I was afflicted, so that I would learn your testimony and so on.
16:29: So I think we need to devote some extended time to heart searching. A person who has gotten a bad diagnosis, or a person who's not feeling well over a period of time, sit down and open the
16:41: Word of God and pray and just say, Lord, show me if there is something in my life that needs to be confessed.
16:49: I want to read you something I found. This is from Elizabeth Elliott, and she said this in a book entitled
16:57: Discipline, the Glad Surrender. This is Elizabeth Elliott now. Much sickness, physical, mental, and emotional, surely must come from disobedience.
17:07: When the soul is confronted with an alternative of right or wrong and chooses to blur the distinction, making excuses for its bewilderment and frustration, it is exposed to infection.
17:21: Evil is given the opportunity to invade the mind, the spirit, and the body, and the sick person goes off to an expert who will diagnose his trouble.
17:29: Sometimes the patient knows well what his trouble is, and for this very reason has not consulted the
17:35: Lord, fearing what he will say. Confess. Turn around. Quit that indulgence. Do not pity yourself.
17:41: Forgive that person. Pay back what you owe. Apologize. Tell the truth. Deny yourself.
17:48: Consider the other's well -being. Lay down your life." So this is a good point that sometimes we resist because we don't want to make changes in our lives.
18:01: We don't want to have to come face -to -face with our sin, and sometimes that's why God may allow us to get sick, in order to bring us to that point.
18:09: If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, 1
18:14: John 1. And in connection with the Lord's table, the Apostle Paul made this statement. He says, if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.
18:23: So it's important that we take serious stock of ourselves spiritually. So we then seek the wisdom of the
18:32: Lord, the mind of God, for our illness. I don't really have the time to go into all of this, but there's a very interesting passage that I wish
18:42: I could. It's in Romans chapter 8, and I think those verses beginning particularly in verse 22 and following down through verse 27 are often misunderstood.
18:54: I do think that there is a primary focus there on the physical body and physical illness, and the promise there is that we have the
19:06: Holy Spirit, and this is the key verse, verse 26, the Holy Spirit helps our weaknesses.
19:13: That's that same word that means sicknesses. For we do not know how to pray as we should, but the
19:19: Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, and he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the
19:27: Spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So when we're sick and we're not sure how to pray, we're told that the
19:36: Holy Spirit intervenes to pray for us. So there are times when perhaps the suffering is so severe that all you can do is groan.
19:42: But in that groan, the Spirit intercedes, and God the Father, who searches our hearts, understands the
19:47: Spirit's pleading, because, according to this passage, he's interceding according to God's will.
19:53: That's our confidence as far as healing goes. So that's important, that we should pray.
20:00: Now when it says he must pray, I want to also just suggest that I think we can see in that the opportunity to enlist our brethren to pray as well.
20:12: When illness occurs, we ought to ask others to pray. I mean, this was a frequent pattern in our
20:18: Lord's ministry. A relative or friend came to Jesus and asked earnestly for the healing of the afflicted person.
20:25: You know, there was the lame man who was brought by four of his friends and lowered down through the roof to Jesus.
20:32: I mean, they were in a sense interceding for him. Jairus with his daughter, and the man with his lunatic son, to use his words,
20:44: Matthew 17, and so on. Somebody else interceded for the sick person.
20:50: So their faith, that is the faith of the friend or family member, was often the key.
20:57: There are times when we're so sick we can't even pray for ourselves, and that's when the prayers of others is really needed.
21:05: And this wasn't new with the New Testament. In fact, if you go back to Job, Elihu recommends the benefit of a concerned intercessor or counselor.
21:14: If you look in Job 33, you'll find that. So such a faithful friend is going to counsel his hurting brother, but he'll also pray for him, and if there's sin involved, the
21:25: Lord may respond by providing conviction of that sin, even possibly through that friend, leading the sick person to repentance and then restoring him to health.
21:37: I think that's what verse 13 tells us. The first step for a person who is sick is to pray, and enlist others to pray, and in the process do some serious heart searching.
21:48: A couple of things I wanted to ask you about. Since you and I believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace, and we believe that all that Christ intended to accomplish on Calvary was accomplished.
22:10: In fact, Christ could have very appropriately hung a banner on the cross after he gave up the ghost, as it were.
22:22: He could have hung a banner there that said, mission accomplished, if he so chose to do so.
22:29: In fact, he said that. He said, it is finished. Yes, right. And we don't believe that Jesus tried to do anything on Calvary.
22:39: We believe he accomplished all that he sought to do, which we would obviously be all in agreement that that would be, first and foremost, the propitiation of the wrath of the
22:55: Father being turned away from his people, and that his people were redeemed on that cross.
23:03: And when it comes to your inclusion of Christ dying for physical illnesses, some might wonder then, especially if they are
23:13: Calvinist, like you and I, why is it then that Christians are still sick if he indeed died for those sicknesses?
23:21: So I have to draw the conclusion that just as even though Christ died not only to remove the penalty of sin, but he also freed us from enslavement to sin in his death, and since we are still, however, on this earth always going to be contaminated in some shape or form with sin, we will never be sinless on this earth, and we will never be sinless until we enter glory with him,
23:55: I'm assuming then that we will never experience that full healing physically until we are in glory, because as I just mentioned, people are still sick.
24:05: Even the best of Christians are still sick. Well, sin and sickness go hand in hand, and because we, even though we have been justified positionally, forensically we are justified, declared righteous by God, nonetheless we still retain the remnants of our native corruption, which means that sanctification is not complete yet, and it won't be until we're glorified, and therefore as long as sin is in our bodies, we're going to have a battle with it.
24:47: Romans chapter 7, right? Paul battles sin, yet at the same time the process of sanctification is ongoing, so we are becoming increasingly
24:59: Christ - nonetheless that sin is still there, and so sickness is also a part of our experiences as human beings, even converted human beings.
25:11: And we also have in this verse that I'd like you to read following verse 13, we have in verse 14 something that not all
25:24: Christians agree on, and not all Reformed or Calvinistic Christians agree on.
25:30: There seems to be differences of opinion on the anointing with oil.
25:36: If you could read verse 14 and exegete it for us, and answer the question about the anointing of oil, because there is some controversy attached to it in regard to modern -day practice amongst believers.
25:53: Let me take verse 14 piece by piece, alright, because I think it's extremely important that we get the whole picture.
26:03: So the first thing that we see here, and by the way, interrupt me when you have to go to a break, but the first thing we see here is that our recourse is to involve the leaders of our church's ministry.
26:20: If anyone among you is sick, then he must call for the elders of the church.
26:27: Now, this is an extremely important point, because there is no justification in Scripture whatsoever for any kind of professional faith healer, and there is no provision, no encouragement, no sanction in Scripture for healing meetings, public meetings at which the church or the people gathered, and somebody exercised a so -called gift of healing, and slays people in the
26:58: Spirit, and these people get well. I mean, that's an invention, a human invention.
27:05: The requirement, the provision that God has made for sick people, people who are seriously ill, people who may be terminal or chronic, if anyone is sick among you, let him call for the elders of the church.
27:23: Faith healers are not in the picture at all. So we're talking about those who hold the office of elder, the church's spiritual leaders.
27:35: Now, what you notice here, and this is important too, it is the responsibility of the sick person to initiate the contact with the church's leaders.
27:44: It's not the elders' responsibility to survey the congregation and determine who is sick, and then call them up and say, hey, we hear you're sick, can we come and pray with you?
27:54: That's not the way it works. God says, if you are sick and you want healing, then call the elders.
28:04: This assumes you have already gone through the process of verse 13, of praying and probably enlisting others of your family and friends to pray with you.
28:14: But you're still ill, and so you want the elders to come. The one who is seriously ill takes the initiative, requests the elders to come, and the elders go to that person.
28:28: They don't come to the elders, the elders go to them, implying that they have taken, that is that the sick person has taken the preliminary steps of prayer and heart -searching and repentance and seeking
28:40: God -given discernment. In fact, let's pick up right where you left off, because I have to go to a break right now. Okay.
28:46: And just remember that it is the person who is sick who is supposed to call upon the elders, not the elders searching through a list of members and asking them, are you sick?
28:56: Let us come over and anoint you. So let's remember where we left off there.
29:01: If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Ron Glass, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
29:10: chrisarnson at gmail .com, whether you agree with him, whether you disagree with him, whether you're just not certain.
29:16: We even welcome, in fact, we most welcome questions from people who are not even
29:21: Christians. We would love to hear from you, whether you are a Jewish person, a
29:27: Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, atheist, agnostic, Sweden -Borgenist.
29:32: We would love to hear from you, regardless of what your faith is or lack thereof.
29:38: And the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Pastor Ron Glass and our subject,
29:45: Sickness and the Christian, right after these messages. One sure way all
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36:00: Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is
36:06: Pastor Ron Glass, who is the pastor of Wading River Baptist Church in Wading River, Long Island, New York, in the east end of Suffolk County.
36:17: He is also the host of the River of Life radio program, heard every Saturday at 9 .30
36:23: a .m. Eastern and also Sundays at 7 .30 p .m. Eastern. And you can hear that anywhere in the world via streaming at eastgatebroadcasting .com.
36:35: That's eastgatebroadcasting .com. And our guest is also a former adjunct professor of Bible exposition at Talbot School of Theology.
36:46: We are entering into part two of the discussion we began yesterday on sickness, an examination of the body and the
36:55: Bible. And if you'd like to join us on the air, our e -mail address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
37:02: chrisarnson at gmail .com. And before the break, Pastor Ron, we were beginning the 14th verse of James Chapter 5.
37:13: Is any among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him.
37:20: And if you could start off where you left off there. Well, I think it's the elder's obligation to act in a timely manner.
37:30: So that would generally be that they go to that sick brother or sister in their home, perhaps in a hospital or a convalescent center, wherever they are.
37:41: Again, let me just stress that James says nothing about attending a healing service. And the nature of this provision that God has given is that the ministry of the elders is fulfilled in private.
37:55: It is not in a public service of the church. Now, we know that when you go to a doctor, a doctor doesn't treat you until he's examined you physically and determined what's wrong.
38:08: I would suggest that this is a good idea. When elders cannot, I don't think they can pray for you unless they've determined what the problem is.
38:19: So they have to give you, as it were, a spiritual examination. Now, a lot of Christians cringe at that idea.
38:26: They say, well, that's none of their business. But would you say the same thing to a doctor's questions about the state of your body?
38:35: It seems to me if you want the Lord to heal you, then you'll follow this prescription. Now, I don't have chapter and verse for these questions, but these are some questions that I think logically flow from the situation.
38:46: Questions that the elders should ask the sick person. I think the first thing they need to ask them is, what is the state of your physical health?
38:57: Is your illness serious or is it minor? I mean, are you calling us because you have a sore toe or your side hurts or something like that?
39:07: No. If that's the case, then that's really not an appropriate situation for the elders.
39:16: Then to ask, what have your doctors told you? What have your tests shown? What's your diagnosis?
39:22: What's your prognosis? I think the elders should ask those questions. Then they need to ask the question that's based on verse 13.
39:29: Have you prayed? How much time have you invested in prayer? What have you asked the Lord to do for you?
39:34: Have you enlisted the prayer support of other people? The third question I think they ought to ask is, what has the
39:40: Lord revealed to you concerning your sickness? Has he pointed out any sin in your life? If so, have you forsaken it?
39:46: Have you confessed it? Have you sought forgiveness from others? Have you attempted to reconcile a broken relationship?
39:54: Has he shown you that he's using your sickness to mature you? In other words, where are you spiritually?
39:59: How is your walk with the Lord? Is it possible your suffering is designed to help you grow as a Christian? What kinds of changes do you think the
40:07: Lord wants you to make in your life? And then, does the Lord want you to allow him to prove the sufficiency of his grace?
40:13: Do you think that maybe what the Lord is doing is wanting you to trust him for the strength to live with that chronic disease or disability?
40:21: In other words, is it possible that the Lord doesn't want to heal you, but wants to give you the grace to endure, as he did the
40:29: Apostle Paul for 2 Corinthians chapter 12? My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness.
40:37: Then the fourth question, do you believe that the Lord will be pleased to heal you? So, in other words, after protracted and earnest prayer, you've thought about it, meditated on the word of God, prayed earnestly to God, had other people praying, do you still believe that it is
40:53: God's will to heal you? I mean, we've had people, I've had people here in the church who have, one person
41:01: I can think of in particular, who basically said, you know, don't pray for my healing, because I don't think
41:08: God wants me to be healed. God wants me to have this problem, to have this illness, and to be able to be a testimony for him through it.
41:19: So the question then is, why do the elders need to ask all these questions? And I think that the reason why is because of what's said in verse 15, where it talks about the prayer of faith.
41:32: They need to be able to pray intelligently. And let me just remind you, as I'll say again, the prayer of faith in verse 15 is not the sick person praying in faith, it is the elders praying in faith.
41:47: So the elders have a right to ask questions in order that they can pray with a reasonable amount of faith that God's will is to heal.
41:57: The elders do have a right to refuse to pray if the heart of the sick person isn't right, if they sense that the person's out of fellowship with God, that they're living in sin, then they can say, no, we can't pray for you under these circumstances.
42:11: You deal with the Lord about this, and then maybe we'll come back later after you've done that. So now the elders have the responsibility to pray.
42:21: And so it says that they're to pray over him. Let me stop right there to say that they will pray over them, at the very least suggest that they will stand around the chair or the bed and that they will go around in a circle probably, and each one of those elders will pray.
42:41: Now, I think it's very common. We know that Pentecostals do this, but I think it's perfectly appropriate.
42:47: And when I've been involved in situations like this, this is what I have done and our elders have done, and that is to lay hands upon them.
42:57: Now, that was something the Lord Jesus did. Just read the gospel records of the healings of our
43:04: Lord, and you'll see that he touched them very often. And so I think it's a nice gesture, just as you feel somewhat comforted usually when your doctor at least touches you.
43:18: You want that connection. Now, that's not to imply that there's any power in the elders themselves that is going to heal you, but the prayers of the elders are going to be directed to God in your behalf.
43:37: And so I think praying over them sort of implies laying hands on them. And then the other thing is, and here's your question, anointing him with oil in the name of the
43:48: Lord. The anointing, I think, would precede the prayers.
43:54: In Scripture, anointing is always a symbolic act.
44:00: There's a lot of debate about this among Bible scholars, and especially the more conservative ones, the more conservative evangelicals, tend to view this as, well, oil was used back in those days for medicinal purposes, as though somehow they're applying some kind of medicine.
44:19: Well, I would say that's not the case. First of all, they're not physicians. That's a physician's job.
44:26: Secondly, with difficult situations, in other words, serious diseases, some of which could be terminal, these are internal conditions, and rubbing a little oil on somebody isn't going to help that.
44:39: So what's the significance of the oil? It's a symbolic act, and if you go back into the
44:45: Old Testament, particularly in the anointing of the priests in the
44:51: Old Testament, I believe that this was a symbol indicating the work of the
44:57: Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was pictured in the application of oil.
45:03: So this is an act of consecration. Both kings and priests were anointed in the Old Testament.
45:09: And this anointing, you'll notice from verse 14, is in the name of the
45:14: Lord, probably the triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, much like baptism perhaps, implying that the elders are anticipating
45:22: God's work, not their own. Now, this is a very important part. The anointing with oil is the elders' declaration that the healing for which we are trusting
45:33: God is going to come from him. It does not come from us.
45:39: The oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit. So don't look to us elders as the source of your healing.
45:45: We are simply here praying for you, authorized by the
45:50: Scripture and invited by you. We are praying for you, but the power and the healing comes from God, and I think that's the symbol of the oil.
46:01: Amen. Now let me ask you a question. I'll get really personal here about my own life. Did I break biblical protocol when my mother was dying of pancreatic cancer and she was being examined at the
46:21: Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City, and while she was there, and we were at my brother's apartment in New York City, I called one of my friends who was a pastor.
46:36: I first actually said to my mother, Would you like to be anointed with oil and prayed over by a minister,
46:42: Mom? And my mother, by the way, was Roman Catholic, although she came to a genuine understanding of the gospel during those six weeks after she was diagnosed.
46:55: She made it very clear that she was a born -again believer, and I have nothing but certainty that she is in glory with Christ right now.
47:04: She renounced prayer to saints and Mary. She was putting her total trust in her salvation on the finished work of Christ on Calvary, and she made that very clear in her explanation of why she was going to heaven without any coaching,
47:20: I might add. But I called a Presbyterian friend of mine, a pastor, and I said,
47:26: Would you come to my brother's apartment and anoint my mother with oil? She has given her permission, and he did.
47:34: Was there anything inappropriate about that? Since these were not elders of her church, because she was in a false church,
47:40: I would never ask a Roman Catholic priest to perform the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, which is superstitious in my opinion, even though they're using a biblical account for what they do.
47:54: I think that they turn it into a superstitious rite. But if you could just respond to what
48:01: I said, and I won't get mad at you if you answer in a way that I might not be expecting, but go ahead.
48:10: Well, what I would say to that is that, again, there's no magical value in that oil.
48:17: That's what you just said, and that's true. And that's why we've got to get away from a mystical concept with regard to this anointing of oil.
48:28: Yes, I didn't view it that way even when I was doing it. Yes, it's just a symbol.
48:35: And it's a symbol of the fact that those who are praying for her are trusting
48:41: God to do the work. The prayer of faith, they are investing their confidence, their faith, their trust for this person's healing in God and through his
48:54: Holy Spirit. And again, this goes back to Romans 8, which I haven't had time to cover in detail, but which
49:00: I would commend to anybody who's interested in following this up. Read very closely the last half of Romans 8.
49:07: It's very important. And so I would say
49:12: I'm sure that God is not displeased. I'm sure that God is not unhappy with you because you did this.
49:25: But the procedure that I would commend to those who are hearing today is to call the elders.
49:32: Notice it's plural. Call the elders and they come and they anoint with oil and they pray.
49:41: And I really do think that in order for them to pray intelligently, so that this isn't just sort of some magical thing.
49:51: You know, we come in and we pray like sort of saying abracadabra and put a little oil and hopefully you're all better.
49:57: It doesn't work that way. That's why I think that the elders need to invest time in interviewing the patient, in talking through the spiritual condition of that person.
50:10: Where are they spiritually? What changes do they need to make? You know, what about sin in your life? And they need to go through all of that so that they can pray intelligently.
50:19: And then when they pray and they anoint with oil, they are able to pray this prayer of faith because this now rests upon who
50:29: God is. Again, he's our creator. The spirit of God breathed into that lump of clay and man became a living soul.
50:37: He's our healer, Exodus 15, 26. It relies upon what God has done, Isaiah 53.
50:44: All these things we've talked about. So the prayer of the elders then is offered in faith, reckoning upon the promises of God.
50:54: So the elders are agreeing that God the Father, his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, made a promise.
51:01: He will fulfill it when he invites them to pray. He will honor that invitation and that prayer that the elders offer in faith then regards what
51:11: God is doing. So they've asked questions.
51:17: They've counseled. They've strongly urged perhaps important changes, repentance, and so on. But at this point, when they pray, they are praying with a certainty that God is willing to provide healing.
51:31: I think that's what's meant by the prayer of faith. So now, what
51:38: James says then is that when this is offered up, this prayer of faith, that God will restore the one who is sick, the
51:47: Lord will raise him up. And that's a promise.
51:56: That's not just guesswork. That's a promise. The prayer offered in faith is a prayer in which the elders pray with no doubts.
52:05: They're unified in their conviction that God intends to heal the suffering Christian. In fact, that is where there obviously is going to be controversy because of what you just said.
52:15: It's a promise. And we're going to have to pick up on that when we return from another break right now.
52:20: If anybody would like to join us on the air, we already have several people waiting for their questions to be asked and answered.
52:26: But if you'd like to join them with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.
52:33: chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Pastor Ron Glass and our discussion of the
52:41: Christian and sickness, an examination of the body and the
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01:03:42: Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the second day in a row is
01:03:49: Ron Glass, pastor of Wading River Baptist Church on Long Island, New York, in Suffolk County's East End.
01:03:57: He is also host of the River of Life radio program, heard Saturdays at 9 .30
01:04:03: a .m. Eastern Time and Sundays at 7 .30 p .m. Eastern Time. Globally via streaming at eastgatebroadcasting .com.
01:04:16: He is also a former adjunct professor of Bible exposition at Talbot School of Theology.
01:04:23: We are addressing part two of a series we began yesterday, a two -part series titled
01:04:30: Sickness, an Examination of the Body and the Bible. If you'd like to join us on the air, our e -mail address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
01:04:40: chrisarnson at gmail .com. And please include your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the
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01:07:28: And again, our email address, if you have any questions for our guest today, Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church, and our discussion on sickness, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
01:07:39: chrisarnson at gmail .com. I thought I'd let you know, Pastor Glass, that Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker of Shepherds Fellowship of Greensboro, North Carolina, just sent an email saying, very good, sober analysis of the
01:07:54: Scripture on the subject, so refreshing. I just thought I would let you know that our listener in Greensboro, North Carolina, sent in that encouraging word to you.
01:08:04: But before the break, we had just entered into the fact that in the
01:08:11: Epistle of James, the sick one rising up after the elders have prayed over this person and anointed them with oil, it seems to be a promise which is puzzling, since we all have witnessed this occur, where members of our congregation have been prayed over, people who have had terminal illnesses, at least most of us,
01:08:35: I'm sure, have witnessed this, and then the person perishes, they go home to glory, at least that is what we would hope occurred when they departed this earth.
01:08:46: But if you could explain that dilemma or that paradox. Well, I will, but let me get to it in time here.
01:08:55: I apologize, but I'm sort of systematic here. I like to approach these things in an orderly way.
01:09:03: You, systematic? I'm only kidding. So I will. All right.
01:09:08: What we've seen is that they've prayed the prayer of faith. That prayer needs to resonate with the sovereign purposes of God.
01:09:19: When it does, the answer is not in doubt. Notice, they, the elders, pray with conviction and certainty.
01:09:27: They believe healing is going to occur, even if the facts of the patient's situation are unfavorable.
01:09:34: They believe God is going to heal. The patient believes God wants to heal them.
01:09:40: They believe that God will heal them. They pray to that end. And even if, say, there's a terminal diagnosis, they are praying for God's healing in this situation.
01:09:52: And again, let me stress, nothing has been said about faith or the lack of it on the part of the ailing believer.
01:10:01: He has already proven his faith by calling the elders and expecting God to heal.
01:10:06: That faith is a settled issue with the sick person. So it's the elders.
01:10:11: So now they've prayed. Then we see that healing is assured. The words literally are the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, will heal or restore the one who is sick, and the
01:10:24: Lord will raise him up. Now, as we've just said, and you were saying, it's a dogmatic promise.
01:10:31: Some of us have hedged on that, though. I remember I ran across a quote from A .B.
01:10:38: Simpson who said, God will hold himself as much bound to honor his own word as he does you to obey it, as though God's ability to heal is related to you as a sick person.
01:10:50: So I don't think that that's the issue. Let me give you a couple of insights here that I think are important.
01:10:56: Number one, there's no time limit. Remember, this is not the direct healing ministry of the
01:11:02: Lord Jesus. Healing, when he healed, it was instantaneous. But this healing may be instantaneous if God so ordains it, or it may come fairly soon, or, as is more likely, it may come over the course of time.
01:11:18: And I've seen this in my own ministry where we have gone through this procedure with people. They didn't get well, you know, that moment, not even that day or that week.
01:11:29: It took, in some cases, several months, but God did heal them, and we've got to be prepared to wait on God's timing.
01:11:38: And the other thing that we need to remark is that God's healing does not exclude the work of skilled medical professionals or therapeutic drugs.
01:11:49: Remember, these things are gifts of God too, and he does choose to use them.
01:11:55: So if skilled physicians and medications do affect a healing subsequent to this praying, then you can thank
01:12:05: God that he chose to use these, at least in part, as the means to accomplishing his healing.
01:12:13: And then the other thing we see in this verse, this is verse 15, is that if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.
01:12:20: So forgiveness is achieved. And I want you to notice the conditional nature of that statement. That conditional statement, if he has committed sins, what that tells us is that not all sickness is the direct result of sin.
01:12:40: So sometimes it is, and there's plenty of biblical material to point us to that, but it isn't always.
01:12:48: But if, in fact, there has been confession of sin, and if there has been prayer for restoration, and this person has confessed those sins to whomever he sinned against, confessed those sins to the elders or whatever, then that physical healing presupposes a spiritual healing.
01:13:11: There's been a spiritual healing that's gone on. Now there's a physical healing. In this case,
01:13:16: God has removed the cause for the disease, and the disease itself can then be removed.
01:13:22: And that's why spiritual counseling on the part of the elders in this process is so critical.
01:13:29: With genuine confession, genuine repentance, then the elders can offer assurance of God's healing power.
01:13:39: So note the order here. Now the sick believer should be the most concerned to receive forgiveness, even more than receiving healing.
01:13:47: They want forgiveness, then healing. And the ultimate goal of this, of course, is the glory.
01:13:57: So that's the process there. Now we're not done yet, though, because we have verses 16 to 18.
01:14:04: So anyway, I'll stop here for a moment. Well, I might as well ask a couple of questions from our listeners.
01:14:11: We have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, who says, what do you make of the evangelicals, and I believe he is specifically referring to Charismatics and Pentecostals, who tend to label a spirit to everything, for example, the spirit of anger, or in this case, the spirit of sickness.
01:14:33: What do you make of that kind of thing? To be honest with you, Chris, I really don't know what they're talking about.
01:14:40: But you've heard it, though. You've heard of it anyway, haven't you? Well, yes, but what do they mean by that?
01:14:45: I don't know what they mean by that. They seem to assign every negative thing that plagues a person with a certain demon.
01:14:53: Like it's Satan has demons at his bidding, and they each will attack us for a different reason.
01:15:00: And each of our sins even have a different demon that is responsible for bringing that proclivity to us or to tempt us in that way or whatever.
01:15:10: Well, what that's implying is that they believe that all sickness is inflicted by Satan, and therefore what they need to do is remove the demonic cause of that sickness, and that healing will occur.
01:15:27: So they're not only—well, let me put it this way. Their healing so -called ministry is very closely related to a ministry of exorcism.
01:15:37: And that, I don't think, has biblical warrant. Yes, it's true, as we saw yesterday, that Satan is involved in disease.
01:15:48: There's no question about that. But see, I'm taking all this time today on James 5 to indicate to you what
01:15:55: God has given to the Church for this age, for His body now, to deal with sickness.
01:16:02: And it's not faith healers, and it's not exorcisms. Those are things that have no place.
01:16:09: I mean, they're just simply inventions. Really? You don't think that there's any role at all ever for an exorcist today in our day and age?
01:16:18: Well, I'm not saying that there isn't a place for prayer on the part of God's people for the removal of the demon from a person.
01:16:29: Yes, I mean, Jesus talked about that. But what I'm talking about is professional ministry of exorcism.
01:16:36: I see. People who are professional exorcists, who go around casting demons out of everybody. I mean, that is not
01:16:42: God's prescription here for healing. You notice there is no mention of Satan, and there's no mention of demons, here in this context in James 5.
01:16:54: And we also have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who asks a question that may be not exactly on the topic, but I'll ask it anyway.
01:17:05: Murray in Kinross, Scotland asks, How would you define unction as it is something that should be specifically prayed for?
01:17:16: And I know that the King James Version in 1 John 2 .20
01:17:22: says, But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.
01:17:28: And the New American Standard says, But ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye all know.
01:17:34: But if you could explain that unction. Well, unction means an anointing. That's right.
01:17:41: And the particular context there in 1 John is an understanding of God's truth.
01:17:49: I think an understanding of the Word, because he's talking there in terms of teachers and so on.
01:17:55: It's a different context than what we're talking about today in healing, but we do know that the
01:18:01: Holy Spirit is involved in this process, and that's clear from Romans chapter 8, and we see that in this text right here in James 5 with regard to the oil.
01:18:15: I think the oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit's ministry involved in healing.
01:18:22: And again, I would just simply go back to the fact that this all points to the fact that healing is
01:18:30: God's business. It's God's work, and that's what the symbolism of oil.
01:18:39: Reverend Buzz Taylor has something to say. Chris, how exactly did he word that question?
01:18:46: Let me look it up again, because I already deleted it. Did he say extreme unction?
01:18:52: No, he did not. He said unction in reference to praying for it. Yeah, because it is on the subject in a sense,
01:18:58: I think. Isn't that what the Catholic Church refers to when the priest goes and gives last rites or something like that? Yes, they call that extreme unction.
01:19:05: Yeah, now it's interesting that the sacrament of unction in the
01:19:13: Roman Catholic Church was actually originally this process, more or less.
01:19:20: But it was based on James chapter 5, and it was a healing sacrament. It was not something originally that was applied to those who were at the end of their lives, who were dying or have just died.
01:19:36: It was an anointing for sick people to get well, originally. So the sacrament of extreme unction actually changed from its original form.
01:19:49: Yes, well thank you, Murray in Kinross, Scotland. Please keep listening to Iron, Sharp, and Zion, and keep spreading the word about our program in the
01:19:58: UK and beyond. But you could continue now with your exegesis of this passage in James.
01:20:06: Well, you have the word therefore at the beginning of the 16th verse.
01:20:13: And so he is saying that there's another step involved here.
01:20:19: Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed.
01:20:27: Now this is interesting, because what he's saying is, or what he's implying here, is that there's conflict in the
01:20:34: Church. And we know that there was, because if you go back to chapter 4, where he says what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you is not the source of your pleasures that wage war in your members, and you lust and you do not have, you commit murder, you're envious, all this stuff going on in the
01:20:51: Church body. So what he seems to be saying here is that the sin that was going on in the
01:21:00: Church was an impediment here. So what he's telling the Church to do is to confess their sins to each other.
01:21:10: Mutual confession. The members are to confess their sins against each other to each other so that they can pray effectively for each other.
01:21:23: Now I think we can safely say that it doesn't mean you need to hang out all your dirty laundry for everyone to see.
01:21:30: But it is saying that where offenses and sins have been committed against each other within the
01:21:35: Church body, those sins need to be confessed mutually. And then when those sins are confessed, those offenses are removed, then the
01:21:45: Church is free to pray for each other. Now see, this is important because what this is implying is that the healthy
01:21:54: Church, the Church where sins have been confessed, is a praying Church, and then the praying that goes on in this
01:22:05: Church will include prayer for these sick people. Notice how he puts it at the end of the verse, that it's the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
01:22:17: A righteous man is one whose sins are confessed and is in a right relationship with his brethren where there's been confession.
01:22:26: This righteous praying then accesses God. It's effective and it's working. It gets through to God.
01:22:33: So intercessory prayer for the sick can't penetrate the barrier of unforgiving spirits, grudges, hatred, or the desire even for retaliation.
01:22:42: Now you see what's going on here. What is being said is that the sick person is called the elders.
01:22:48: The elders have interviewed him, gone through that process, have prayed for him, and are now convinced that the healing is going to happen.
01:23:00: But the praying doesn't stop there. Now notice the process. You started off in verse 13 with the person who's sick praying for himself.
01:23:10: Then in verse 15, we have the elders who have been called to his bedside praying for him.
01:23:17: And now in verse 16, the strong implication here is that the
01:23:23: Church body itself is set to praying for this person. But the warning here is that if you've got all these sins that are clogging up the open access to the throne of grace, then these prayers aren't going to get through.
01:23:38: But if you have a Church body where the members are in right relationship with each other, then they can pray effectively for those who are sick.
01:23:49: And that kind of righteous praying accomplishes much. And I think within the context, that's telling us that it will help accomplish the healing of the sick person.
01:24:03: So the congregational responsibility for confession and prayer is really the first.
01:24:11: First of all, an individual responsibility. And that's why James speaks in the singular.
01:24:17: Every praying member of the congregation needs to pray righteously.
01:24:22: So that's why they need to confess their sins one to another, and why he speaks in the singular, the effective prayer of a righteous man.
01:24:31: And the hope is that every person in that Church, man, woman, young person in that Church, is in a right relationship with God, then their prayers are effective.
01:24:44: Now, he goes on then to say in verses 17 and 18, he uses an illustration from the
01:24:51: Old Testament. He says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain.
01:24:58: And it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced fruit.
01:25:05: I'm not going to go back into the story of Elijah, but let me just make the two points I think are being made here.
01:25:10: First of all, he's saying that the ministry of praying effectively for the sick does not require super saints.
01:25:19: That's why he says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. You need somebody to pray for the sick, this is going to be some sort of super saint.
01:25:29: You know, whether it's Benny Hinn or whoever, you know, some sort of person who has a status far exceeding my meager spirituality.
01:25:39: Yeah, when I think of Benny Hinn, super saint is not exactly what I think.
01:25:46: No, it's not what you or I think, but it's what a lot of people think. He may be a super something, but it ain't a saint.
01:25:54: So what he's saying, James here prefaces his reference to Elijah by reminding us that he was an ordinary human being.
01:26:02: He had feelings just like us, the same fallen nature we have. He was not a super saint and had sins and weaknesses just as we do.
01:26:10: So this praying for the sick, whether you're an elder or a member of the congregation, doesn't require that somehow you have a superior level of spirituality.
01:26:23: You just have to have your sins forgiven and an earnest desire to pray. And then the second thing he says is the ministry of praying effectively for the sick does require earnest saints, not super saints, not perfect saints, but earnest saints.
01:26:40: And what he does is points to, in verse 18, he points to the event that took place immediately after the demonstration of God's power on Mount Carmel, where God came down in fire on Elijah's sacrifice.
01:26:54: Remember, it hadn't rained for three and a half years, and Elijah said in an act of faith, he told
01:26:59: King Ahab, you better get back to your palace, it's going to rain. He looked up in the sky, and it's clear blue sky and hot sun, not a sign of rain.
01:27:08: So he went up there and prayed seven times that it would rain.
01:27:14: And finally, after the seventh time, he sent his servant up there, and he said, do you see any clouds yet?
01:27:20: Yes, I see a cloud the size of a man's head. And Elijah knew at that point that his prayer had been answered.
01:27:27: So it persevered. You see, men couldn't give rain, only
01:27:32: God could. That's why he prayed. Men can't heal the sick, only God can. So James' point is that even common average
01:27:40: Christians can pray effectively when they pray earnestly.
01:27:46: And that prayer is persevering. It doesn't give up, keeps praying until the answer comes. And so you have a sick person in the church, the elders have prayed for them, the church body needs to continue to pray for them, pray for them week after week, day after day, however long, until the healing comes.
01:28:05: And it's passionate, not perfunctory, routine, thoughtless repetition, but like Elijah prayed, prayed passionately, deeply felt prayer that springs from a heartfelt love for that sick brother or sister.
01:28:19: And that's how we as Christians reach out to our sick brothers and sisters in our congregation.
01:28:26: So it's really an amazing process when you think about it. God has given this to the church.
01:28:33: And the sad thing about it is that I don't see churches practicing this today. Yes, in fact, even amongst the most biblically sound churches,
01:28:45: I think that people, even the best of men, even the most biblically faithful of pastors and churches seem to be so paranoid about resembling a charismatic church or a word -of -faith church or a name -it -and -claim -it church that they run too far away from any kind of resemblance to them and wind up actually denying or avoiding or abandoning things that are right there in the
01:29:15: Bible that we are taught to do. When I grew up in church,
01:29:21: I always heard that this passage applied to the Jews. But wait a minute, it's given to the church, it's given to Christians.
01:29:30: Or the other thing that I heard in conjunction with that is that healing is not for today.
01:29:37: Well, that's a real encouraging thing. Well, anyway, we have to go to our final break right now.
01:29:45: And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Ron while there's still time, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
01:29:52: chrisarnson at gmail .com. But don't go away. We'll be right back after this final word from our sponsors.
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01:35:40: This is Chris Arnzen, and this is the final 25 minutes of our program. We are interviewing, as we have been for the last 90 minutes or so,
01:35:48: Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church and host of the River of Life radio program, heard
01:35:54: Saturdays at 9 .30 a .m. and Sundays at 7 .30 p .m. Eastern Time on EastgateBroadcasting .com.
01:36:04: EastgateBroadcasting .com. You can actually hear that program all over the world via streaming.
01:36:10: And we are discussing Part 2 of a two -part series of messages we began yesterday titled
01:36:16: Sickness, An Examination of the Body and the Bible. And our email address, if you'd like to join us, is
01:36:22: ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Before I go to a couple of more listeners,
01:36:30: Pastor Ron, I want you to answer the question, what should we think about doctors and drugstores?
01:36:36: Should we rely on them? This is an important question,
01:36:42: I think, in this whole discussion. Probably the greatest surgeon of the
01:36:47: Renaissance, a man named Ambroise Paré, he was a Huguenot, a
01:36:53: French -Calvinist physician. His words are inscribed on the walls of the
01:36:58: Ecole de Médecine in Paris, and those words are simply this, I dressed the wound and God healed it.
01:37:07: And I think this is the proper way to look at it. A Bible -believing doctor in the 16th century who was regarded as the greatest surgeon of his day knew where healing came from.
01:37:20: And so, historically, we've had this clash between Christianity and science, but that clash is not something that we should have.
01:37:33: We, especially those of us who hold to the doctrines of grace and sovereignty of God, we believe in common grace.
01:37:39: Common grace refers to the benefits that God has provided for all men, not just for his saints.
01:37:46: And so we have doctors, we have medicines. Now the question is, when a
01:37:53: Christian gets sick, to whom should he or she turn? And I would just simply say, and I don't have time to go into depth on this, but let me just say this.
01:38:04: The majority are going to turn to physicians. We have an instance of this in Scripture, in 2
01:38:11: Chronicles 16, it is King Asa, where we read in the 39th year of his reign,
01:38:18: Asa became diseased in his feet. His disease was severe, yet in his disease, he did not seek the
01:38:27: Lord but the physicians. So too many of us begin by resorting to physicians rather than appealing to the great physician.
01:38:37: And we become chronically dependent on doctors and medications. That was
01:38:42: Asa's mistake. I think what we ought to do when we get sick, when we have diseases developing, chronic conditions and so on, the first thing we do is go to God.
01:38:54: He is where we... And we ask Him, Lord, what are you trying to teach me? Is there something that I need to change, some sin
01:39:01: I need to confess, and so on. So before we turn to doctors, turn to God, is the first thing I would say.
01:39:08: Then the Christian should turn immediately to the great physician.
01:39:14: Remember Hezekiah. Hezekiah did this. When he was told by Isaiah that set your house in order, you're going to die, not live.
01:39:23: And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and he prayed and said, Lord, I beseech you now. I've walked before you in truth and with a whole heart, have done what's good in your sight.
01:39:31: And he wept bitterly. Well, what did God do? God said, I'll give you 15 more years of life.
01:39:38: And by the way, what happened when Isaiah came back after this prayer is he said to him, verse 21 of Isaiah 38, let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil that he may recover.
01:39:53: So he had some kind of a boil. I'm never eating figs again. And did the cake of figs have medicinal qualities?
01:40:03: Well, probably not. But it was an indication. God said, you use this, and I'm going to heal.
01:40:10: So he applied a cake of figs, and he got better. Kind of strange, but it's an indication of what medicines are all about.
01:40:20: So a Christian can, of course, turn to physicians. What should our attitude be?
01:40:27: Let me just make a couple of statements about this. I think we have to realize that both doctors and medicines are a gift from God.
01:40:33: Amen. And it's part of common grace. And as we look at medicine, it is a science that has progressed over the years.
01:40:45: So you can expect medicine as a scientific discipline to develop indefinitely.
01:40:54: So, you know, they're always coming up with new technology, new diagnostic procedures, new pharmaceutical agents.
01:41:01: And these are God's gifts. So there's a sense in which, if I could put it in these terms, we as Christians may sometimes not expect as much to see the supernatural healings, because as opposed to the day in which
01:41:21: Asa or Hezekiah lived or even our grandparents, the reality is that we have much more sophisticated medications and much better trained medical personnel than ever before.
01:41:38: And these are gifts of God, and we should use them in the proper way.
01:41:43: But as a caveat here, medical science is not an alternative to God.
01:41:51: And so we have to remember that ultimately it is God who heals. We should pray to him, of course, as we've just talked about.
01:41:58: Now, sin, as we've seen, could be a significant factor in illness, and so that's something we need to deal with.
01:42:07: And so medical science then may be God's chosen instrument of healing.
01:42:13: We pray, we go through this procedure. How is this healing going to come? It may come through medical treatment.
01:42:21: And I think the ideal situation, I know it happens very rarely, but we had a case of this here in our church recently.
01:42:29: We have a young, well, I guess he's a middle -aged man now who has Down syndrome, and he had a problem with his eye, and he had to have a surgical procedure on his eye.
01:42:42: And when he went to the doctor for this surgical procedure, he told the doctor, he said, I'm afraid.
01:42:48: Can you pray with me? And the doctor said, I always pray with my patient. He prayed with him. Wonderful blessing, because once again, like Ambroise Paré, he is admitting,
01:42:59: I do the surgery, but God brings the healing. So that's the thing.
01:43:06: We should not turn from, I am very not pleased with those who claim, on the basis of the
01:43:17: Bible or Christian convictions, to force wear all doctors and medicines. That's, I don't think you can make a biblical case.
01:43:27: Yeah, in fact, people I think at times should be in prison for forbidding their members of whatever cult or religion they're in from using physicians, because some have died, even young children, because of very unbiblical and foolish not only advice, but commandments of the local church or cult leader.
01:43:53: That's correct. And of course, when you say that we should first turn to God and not physicians, obviously in an emergency, you could pray while you're waiting for the ambulance to arrive after calling 911 immediately.
01:44:07: If you can, if you can, yes. But I mean, we understand there are emergency situations like that.
01:44:13: But once again, what we were talking about primarily with James 5 is serious illness, longer -term illness, chronic kinds of things where you have the time to pray.
01:44:26: Now, B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania wants to know, how do you respond to the word of faith
01:44:32: Pentecostal who will point to James and say, see, the prayer of a righteous man availeth much, and they use this as a proof text to the stronger the faith, the more guaranteed you will be for a healing, and they will dismiss what we have to say about healing being within the divine will of God if only he chooses to heal.
01:44:59: Yeah, well, that's just what I went through with that whole thing in James 5.
01:45:05: The prayer of faith is the prayer of the elders. It's not the prayer of the sick person.
01:45:13: It's the prayer of the elders. And so you're not going to blame the sick person. That's what the charismatic
01:45:21: Pentecostal word of faith movement, that's what they do. A person goes to the faith healer, and they go through the meeting, they get slain in the spirit or whatever.
01:45:32: Then they go home, and they're just as sick as they were before. Well, you go back to them and say, hey,
01:45:38: I'm no better. Well, the answer is, you don't have enough faith. Well, that isn't the issue in James 5.
01:45:43: It's not the person who's who they have demonstrated faith by calling the elders. All right.
01:45:49: They've demonstrated faith by believing that God wants to heal them. But it's the elders who pray, and it's the church that prays.
01:45:57: And that's where the burden of the faith comes.
01:46:04: I want to say something. I will say something, if I hope I have time, to answer your question from about an hour ago and implied in the question you just asked me about what happens if there's no healing.
01:46:20: And I think that's an important question that needs to be answered. Yes. I do have an answer for that. I suppose
01:46:25: I ought to go ahead and deal with that. I have four reasons that I see from Scripture as to why
01:46:35: God may not actually answer the prayer in the way we think he should. All right.
01:46:41: One reason is disobedience, that God may not heal us because we fail to order our lives by his word.
01:46:49: And this is involved in this whole interview between the elders and the person. If there's sin in their lives and they refuse to make a change, they refuse to confess, they refuse to acknowledge sin, then whatever that sin may be,
01:47:08: God may not heal because he may still be dealing with them. And may
01:47:15: I also say that God may not heal if we don't seek our healing in his way.
01:47:21: Now, that may sound extreme, but we just spent time going through James 5, 13 to 18, and that's the way it ought to be done by Christians in the church.
01:47:30: And if we decide we're going to try to get healing some other way, God's not obligated to honor that.
01:47:36: So disobedience would be one thing. A second reason God may not heal is discipline. And that is that God is still in the process of taking us through discipline.
01:47:47: Remember what Hebrews tells us, quoting Proverbs 3, that whom the
01:47:53: Lord loves he chastens, he disciplines every son. And therefore, God may not be through with that process.
01:48:01: True, 1 Corinthians 11 .31, if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.
01:48:08: But if we don't, then God is going to deal with us, and he may get our attention through illness.
01:48:15: And until we respond, he may keep us subject to that physical pain.
01:48:21: The physical pain may just be a warning that there is spiritual disease there that needs to be dealt with.
01:48:28: So discipline may be a case of that. Then, dependence. And let me give you two ways
01:48:36: I see this from Scripture. Sickness may be God's way of destroying self -reliance.
01:48:42: And I'm thinking now particularly in terms of chronic conditions. We have an example of this in Genesis 32.
01:48:50: Remember after Jacob wrestled with God at Peniel? As the sun rose and God took leave of that rebellious scoundrel named
01:49:02: Jacob, he touched his thigh. And from that day forward, Jacob limped.
01:49:07: It was a reminder of the fact that Jacob was not self -reliant, which is the way he had lived his life to that point.
01:49:15: And so we see in that text, in Genesis 32 .26, that once his thigh was made lame, he began to cling.
01:49:30: And I think that's a very graphic way of showing this. When we recognize that we are not self -reliant, then we begin to cling to the
01:49:39: Lord. And sometimes I think God wants us to experience that.
01:49:45: His will was brought into submission, and that's what we need sometimes. The other way is that sickness may be
01:49:52: God's way of destroying pride. Not just self -reliance, but pride. And that's what we see in the Apostle Paul, 2
01:49:58: Corinthians 12, where Paul had had this vision of heaven. And he makes it very clear that God had allowed him to thorn in the flesh, whatever it was, as a way of keeping him from being proud.
01:50:15: And sometimes that pride... And I mentioned this yesterday, just speculating, with regard to C .H.
01:50:22: Spurgeon. What an influential, well -known, great man of God that he was.
01:50:30: And yet God allowed him to suffer years with a very painful gout. And I think it was probably partly to keep him humble, making him realize that he's just a servant of God.
01:50:43: So that is another way. So I've mentioned disobedience and disciplined dependence.
01:50:49: Let me give you the last reason that God may not heal, and it's death.
01:50:56: No matter how earnest our prayers, there comes a point where we're going to die.
01:51:04: So I want you to think of it this way. As a human being, we have to realize death is the inevitable experience of mortality.
01:51:13: We all die. But as a regenerate Christian who has been sick, and even when we've prayed, death is the ultimate expression of healing.
01:51:28: How many times have we said this? A person who has been wracked with pain for years, and when they die, they say, well, they're out of their misery now.
01:51:36: They're no longer experiencing pain. They're in the presence of the Lord Jesus. They're enjoying life for the first time.
01:51:42: We understand that, except in accidents or homicide.
01:51:50: Death is normally preceded by some form of illness. So when the Lord chooses to take us, that illness will not be healed, but will result in the blessing of ushering us into the presence of the
01:52:03: Savior we love. And therefore, I think we can conclude that there is a way in which death is the ultimate act of healing.
01:52:12: When a Christian whose body is riddled with disease, wracked with pain, is released into the presence of the
01:52:18: Lord Jesus, what does he do? He awakes in heaven's perfect environment. Disease and pain are no longer there, and he's healed.
01:52:30: Now, I think that this would obviously be a very appropriate question, on the heels of what you just said.
01:52:38: Don't you believe that while it may be very appropriate to, on the person's own request, who happens to be dying of a terminal illness or a fatal injury, if they are being artificially sustained by certain breathing apparatus or something like that, that it is completely legitimate on occasion to, on the person's wish especially, or if the person is brain -dead or something like that, to disconnect them, but at the same time that it is very wicked and evil to buy into this euthanasia nonsense that is being appealed to the sympathies of men and women as mercy killing, where this is the most kind and compassionate thing that you can do is if somebody has cancer, to prevent them from going through the suffering, just give them an injection, you know, the doctor will give them an injection of something and let them just immediately pass away into comfort, or in some cases, with a non -Christian nothingness.
01:54:05: Well, what you're dealing with are two different things here. In one case, you're artificially prolonging life, and that I don't think is necessary, especially for a
01:54:13: Christian, when there's no hope of physical healing, then it's not necessary to prolong life, because they would probably rather themselves be in glory.
01:54:24: But in the case of euthanasia, you are affecting death, you're taking a life, and that is
01:54:34: God's responsibility. The fact is that when a person passes away, that God has taken their life.
01:54:42: Their life is over in God's plan. When we take the life of a person who is not at the point of death, then that is a grievous sin against God.
01:54:54: Now, what about, I think, a great travesty, a horrible injustice that was done, was what
01:55:04: I view as the murder of Terry Schiavo, where a feeding tube was removed.
01:55:10: Isn't that something different than removing a breathing apparatus? Well, you know, that's a judgment call.
01:55:22: It's hard to know. I think a family has to make a decision like that based on a number of different considerations and consultation with the doctor and so on, so it's hard to pass judgment on that.
01:55:38: I know we had cases of that in my own family, so it's a little hard to know.
01:55:45: Of course, in this case, it was Terry Schiavo's ex -husband who made the decision, not her own family.
01:55:50: That was a tragedy, no question about it. Let me just say a couple of words in the couple of minutes we've got left here about so -called holistic or alternative medicines.
01:56:05: I don't have time to go into this, but I do want to just caution those who are listening today in this subject to, if you're getting involved in this stuff, to do some serious thinking and study about what you're doing.
01:56:22: We're talking about these technologies, most of which are related to the New Age type of thinking.
01:56:28: By that, I'm talking about biofeedback, Reikian therapy, bioenergetics, neurokinesthetics, meditation, autogenic training, rolfing, structural integration, acupuncture, acupressure, acu -massage, orthomolecular psychology, applied kinesiology, electromedicine, homeopathy, hypnosis, visualization, psychic healing, nutritional therapy, psychic surgery, iridology, reflexology, aromatherapy, somatic therapy, tantric yoga.
01:57:00: The list goes on and on of all of this kind of stuff. If there's any simple word
01:57:06: I could leave to people, I would say is, by and large, avoid it. Why is that?
01:57:12: Well, let me give you one simple example, and that has to do with acupuncture, which is one of the more popular things.
01:57:20: You know that acupuncture, that physicians and people even who administer acupuncture don't know how it works.
01:57:29: And what they talk about is the energy fields of the human body.
01:57:36: When they start talking about energy fields and they can't tell you how it works, then
01:57:43: I say stay away from it, because it smacks of a cult,
01:57:48: I suspect, demonic involvement in that. And you say, well,
01:57:53: I feel better. I feel a whole lot better after I have an acupuncture treatment. Yeah, you may, for a while, because Satan has the power to do that.
01:58:02: But that is not God's way. And many of these things have emerged out of pantheism and New Age thinking, and therefore
01:58:12: I would just counsel, use these remedies with extreme caution. Personally, I wouldn't use them at all.
01:58:19: Well, of course, you did include in there some things that may be even done with Christians in mind who view, like for instance, you used the fig cake on a boil as an example earlier.
01:58:36: You might have a Christian who says, I'm just using natural plants that I have learned help in this certain ailment or whatever.
01:58:45: Not that they're going to avoid a physician on a serious issue, but don't you think that at times we don't have to rely on the multi -billion dollar pharmaceutical companies for everything that ails us?
01:58:57: That sometimes what God has made available in his creation may be a help to us?
01:59:02: And I'm not talking about the nutty extreme. I'm just saying about especially to maintain health and so on.
01:59:10: Good diet, eating quality foods, absolutely. That's appropriate.
01:59:16: I'm talking about these so -called technologies that seem to have a cult.
01:59:22: Well, I want to make sure our listeners have your website. It's wrbc .us. That's wrbc, for Waiting River Baptist Church, .us.
01:59:32: And I know your email address is office at wrbc .us. Thank you so much for being on the program today,
01:59:38: Pastor Ron. Thank you, Reverend Buzz Taylor, for being my co -host. Thank you all for listening, especially those who wrote in.
01:59:44: And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater
01:59:49: Savior than you are a sinner. Have a blessed, safe, joyful, and happy weekend and Lord's Day.