WWUTT 665 Q&A Sabbatical Good Friday Prayers for Healing?

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When a pastor takes a sabbatical, what is that and is it biblical? What day of the week was

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Jesus crucified on? And is it God's will to heal everyone? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, opening the word of God that we may find all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ Jesus.

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Visit our website, www .utt .com. Now here's your host, Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. How are those new headphones on your head there? They're different. They're nice.

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All right. Yeah. They don't feel like they're falling apart. How were they compared to the

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Sony headphones that you were wearing on this podcast before? You're clearer. I'm clearer now?

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I am much clearer than I was before. But as far as comfort goes, I think

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I like these better. Okay. The other ones were just round and these are more oval shaped.

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Yeah, they do. They close the ear. Right. Those other ones kind of sat on your ears, but didn't really envelop the ear.

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Right. And these cover all of your ear. Right. So a few weeks ago, I made a recommendation on a pair of headphones, which was the

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Sennheiser HD202. So that's what I'm wearing on my ears right now. And I said, hey, go find them on Amazon because I think you can buy them for like 25 bucks.

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That's how much I got mine for. Right. And some folks went to go look for them and couldn't find them anywhere. They were gone.

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They were discontinued. Instead, they had the Sennheiser HD2022 headphones, which were 50 bucks.

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Oh, my. So the second version of these headphones were higher in price and too high in price for me to invest in a pair to find out if they were as good as these are.

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So I saw on Amazon the pair that you're currently wearing. It's the HD206.

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Okay. And they're about 35 bucks. That's not bad. Now I've tried those also. You're comparing them to the

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Sony headphones that you were previously wearing. I am. Those were also about a $20, $25 pair of headphones.

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And those are better than those Sonys. They are not better than the pair

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I'm currently wearing. This pair is definitely better. So the HD202s are still the best headphones for the buck that I have ever worn.

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It's too bad you didn't stock up. I know it. And those HD206s, which are higher in price than I paid for these, but lose a little bit of something in the quality.

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I don't know if Sennheiser realized, hey, we could be charging more for these headphones. I don't know what was going on there.

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Obviously, they went up to 50 bucks. These are spectacular. And like I said, better than Beats. I've even worn and used like a $400 pair of Bose headphones.

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These are better. I would buy these before I would buy a pair of those. Well, you can't. Well, let's say

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I was a millionaire and had all manner of money to spend on headphones.

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I would still hunt them down. Right. I would still get these. There is a warehouse somewhere that has

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Sennheiser HD202s stocked up. I still recommend this pair. If you can find a pair of the older headphones, grab those.

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But apparently Sennheiser knew they had a good deal going on, and so they upgraded it to the

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HD202 to headphones, of course, and doubled the price. So the

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HD206s, they're good. I mean, they're worth the money. If you spend $35 and they're very spectacular, but they are very clear.

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They're durable. They're very durable. In fact, I would say that the HD206s are more durable than the pair

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I'm wearing. The HD202s. But the HD202s sound better. And for me, sound is more than the durability.

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Yes. Sound is very important to you. So anyway, I'm sorry, folks.

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I'm sorry that I made a recommendation that you can't even follow through on. I know. That's too bad.

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But like I said, if you can still find the HD202s made by Sennheiser, I would recommend that you pick up a pair and then sell them for double the amount on eBay.

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Yes. Just kidding. You can send them to me if you don't want them. All right. You ready?

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I am. Are you ready? Am I ready? Are you? Getting to our questions here. You can submit a question to the podcast when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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Speaking of that, I had the intention from December of 2016 to December of 2017, not deleting any emails in the what inbox.

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In our email address inbox, because I wanted to see how many emails we got over the course of a year.

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Right. The answer is 500. Wow. 500 emails in one year. That's awesome. Yeah. So if you have...

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And not all those questions were presented on the podcast, and some people will write questions and say, hey,

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I don't want this on the podcast. Right. So if I can get to it... And sometimes you actually put them on anyway. One time.

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That was one time. You won't live it down. And it wasn't a personal matter. I just overlooked that he had the statement in there.

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Please don't put this on the podcast. It was a general question. But anyway. Yeah. So you can...

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If it was something dire or serious, I would have taken it out, would have deleted the podcast. But anyway. What was

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I talking about? 500 emails. Yes. Now, that's 500 emails, but that's not 500 responses to those emails.

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So because we got that many emails, I didn't get the chance to respond to everybody. But we will try. We will try to reply to you.

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So if you have any doctrinal or theology related question, you can send it to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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This one comes from Connor. He says, what is your opinion on sabbaticals?

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What is their origin? My pastor just announced that he was taking one for health issues and has never taken one before in 29 years of being head pastor.

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But I had never heard of such a thing before this. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Pastor Gabe at Becky Hughes.

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Hello. Well, the concept of a sabbatical does come from scripture. We read about the

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Sabbath year because that word sabbatical comes from Sabbath, which is a day of rest. So we read about the sabbatical or I'm sorry, the

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Sabbath year in Leviticus 25. The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a

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Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits.

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But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a

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Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest or gather the grapes of your undressed vine.

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It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land.

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All its yield shall be for food. And we see this come up again in Deuteronomy chapter 15, where we have the mention of the sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee.

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So this is where the concept of a sabbatical came from, is you have a minister who's given full -time service to the ministry, eventually.

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And it's full -time. Right. It's full -time. He gets tired and so he might take a year off.

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After 29 years. Right. Yeah. See, in this case, when somebody takes a sabbatical, it may not be every seventh year.

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It may not be six years of labor and then a seventh year sabbatical. But that's where the concept comes from.

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So just as you have a Sabbath year implemented in Israel, where you would work the land for six years and then let it rest in the

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Sabbath, in the seventh, in the Sabbath, in the seventh. So a person who is a minister that might take a sabbatical would do the same thing.

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He works and he labors and then takes a time of rest. So that would be a sabbatical.

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And it has, you know, it's a spiritual connotation. Just as Jesus talked about, the fields are ripe for harvest, but the workers are few.

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So this work that we do in ministry is to harvest a crop. Right. And so that same concept in Leviticus 25 and in Deuteronomy 15 applies to the minister, but in a more spiritual connotation.

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That would be where that comes from. Is it a biblical concept? Well, there's nothing in the Bible that says that ministers should take sabbaticals or have to take sabbaticals.

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But if your church has a minister who has labored like that for 29 years. And for health issues.

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And for health issues on top of that. He has been a good service to your church. Oh, yeah.

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And he can take that time off and your church can continue to provide for him and meet his needs.

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Right. Even though he's taking time of rest. I think that's a good idea. I think it's encouraged. Yeah. So that's just something, you know, case -by -case basis as those things come up within your church.

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Next question comes from Joseph. This would be in response to the video that I did prior to Easter, which was

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Jesus cleansing the temple. And it was just like an off comment that was made in the video about Jesus being crucified on a

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Friday. So I'm going to go ahead and play the video and then read you Joseph's question here after that. All right.

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Here we go. The day after Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey's colt to shouts of Hosanna and blessed is he who comes in the name of the

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Lord. He went to the temple and drove out the merchants overturned their tables. And he said, is it not written my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.

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But you have made it a den of robbers. All three of the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, tell of Jesus cleansing the temple after his triumphal entry.

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This would have been on the Monday before he was crucified on Friday. But the book of John records something different.

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It says Jesus cleansed the temple way at the start of his ministry a few years before he was crucified.

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What gives? These are actually two separate temple cleansings. It's in John's story where Jesus famously made a whip of cords, which he used to drive everyone out and he overturned their tables.

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But it's in what Jesus said that we see the biggest difference between the two cleansings. In the first cleansing, he said, take these things away.

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Do not make my father's house a house of trade. But in the second cleansing, he said, my house shall be called a house of prayer.

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In the first cleansing, the temple was his father's house. In the second, he called it his house. And rightly so.

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Jesus is God and it has always been his house. But the second cleansing was right after the triumphal entry, announcing himself as king, that he referred to the temple as my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.

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Jesus gave his life to purify for himself a people from every nation that we might become a spiritual house unto the

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Lord when we understand the text. All right, so did you catch the comment that I made in there that Jesus was crucified on a

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Friday? No. Yeah. See, it went by so fast. Yeah. Wasn't even the point of the video.

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But Joseph caught it. He caught that I said that Jesus was crucified on Friday. Actually, in the video, it actually shows like the weeklong calendar and says it has the arrow pointing to Monday saying this is the day of the cleansing of the temple and then has an arrow pointing to Friday and says this was this.

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Is that I get that right? Yeah. Right. The triumphal entry was Sunday. The cleansing of the temple was Monday and then the crucifixion was on Friday.

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And so Joseph said, great video. I love your ministry and videos. But I saw one mistake, one which

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I thought you of all groups would have already addressed in a video. You mentioned that Jesus was crucified on a

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Friday. But if that is true, then that makes the words of the Lord in Matthew 1240 a lie.

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And then Joseph gave me a link to a website that gives the proper day of the week that Jesus was crucified on, which wasn't

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Friday. So he says blessings in Christ Joseph. But just to put this in context for you, here's what we read in Matthew chapter 12, starting in verse 38.

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Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying, teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.

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But he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet

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Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish.

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So will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So based on that text in Matthew chapter 12, there are some groups of people that are insistent

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Jesus could not have been crucified on Friday. Because if that was the case, he would have been in the tomb only two nights,

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Friday night and Saturday night. This usually comes from Hebrew roots groups.

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They're typically the most militant about it because they will say there are various kinds of Sabbaths.

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And so when it says that Jesus was buried on the day of preparation before the Sabbath, it was actually a high

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Sabbath, which wasn't a Saturday. It was something during it, like in the middle of the week, probably would have been a

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Sabbath that was on Thursday or Friday. I've seen some websites say Jesus was crucified on Wednesday, which is ridiculous because then you have him being in a tomb

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Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night. That's four nights. Wow.

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So you're going. That's a lot. Yeah, that's that's not the math doesn't even add up on that one. There are some groups that will largely center around Thursday as being the day that Jesus was crucified rather than Friday.

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Now what we read in the Gospel of John, it is unquestionably clear that Jesus was crucified on Friday because then

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Saturday was the Sabbath. And that's what's talked about in that Gospel. So Jesus had to be buried before the

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Sabbath. The women could not take their ointments and spices and everything to anoint

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Jesus body until Sunday when the Sabbath was over. Right. And that's why they were the first ones upon the empty tomb.

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That's what they were coming to the tomb to do. So anyway, that's just to say that Jesus was crucified on Friday.

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He was not crucified on Thursday. So how do we get then three days and three nights out of Matthew 1240 if he was crucified on Friday?

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Because then otherwise Jesus was in the heart of the earth for Friday night and for Saturday night.

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So, so where was that other day? Now some will just basically dismiss this as a technicality.

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Well, it's not that big a deal or they will throw in Jewish religion into it. Well, it didn't have to be literal 24 hour periods.

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And that's why some people go all the way back to Wednesday with the crucifixion of Jesus because they're trying to add it up in 24 hour periods instead of sunup and sundown.

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But here is where we get three days and three nights and understand this doesn't mean

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Jesus body was in the earth for three days and three nights simply that he was dead for that long.

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So we have the first day after Jesus death is the moment he died.

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It was still day. There's day one. Then darkness covered over the land.

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We have that recorded in Luke 23, 44 and 45. So that's the first night.

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When the sun came back up, that would be the second day. And then

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Friday night would have been the second night. Saturday you have the third day,

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Saturday night, the third night. And then Jesus rose from the grave at dawn on Sunday.

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There's three days and three nights. There you go. That's how we work the math out on that. It is unquestionable

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Jesus was crucified on Friday and rose on Sunday. And anyone who says otherwise neither understands

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Jewish tradition since days ended and the next day began at sundown nor a plain reading of the text.

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Now that may seem harsh, but it's one of the more bonkers claims that I get every year. Joseph said,

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I thought you of all groups would have already addressed this in a video. That's a good point. I should address that in a video.

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You should. I know we've talked about it. Maybe it'll come up next year. I do this every

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Easter. Every single Easter, somebody sends me an email saying, hey, if Jesus was crucified on Friday, then what he said in Matthew 12, 40 was a lie or was wrong.

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So they're taking Matthew 12, 40 and then trying to fit the day of the week to correspond with that rather than understanding what

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John says, but related to which day specifically Jesus died on and then trying to understand

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Matthew 12, 40 in light of that. I never did get a response from Joseph after I replied to him, but I hope that answer was able to shed a little bit of light on him, shed a little bit of light on it for him.

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Yes. All right. This next question comes from Rhett in Tennessee. He says, I got a question that I want your take.

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In my experience working as a hospital chaplain, bless your heart, because that is a hard job.

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Oh my goodness. I've done that very little in my time as a pastor, but it's hard.

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It's really hard work. He said, I was trained to not pray for healing or say things like, it's

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God's will for us to live and be healthy. Instead, I was to pray for comfort and peace and wisdom for decisions by the family and doctors.

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It was the chaplain director's theology that guided this practice. Now my current boss at a different company prays things like, it's

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God's will for us to live and be healthy and we aren't under the curse of death, et cetera, et cetera.

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I bring this to your attention because our differing views on this cause some tension, especially right now as a coworker's brother is potentially on his deathbed.

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Our boss prayed over her that he will be healed because that's

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God's will. I had to bite my tongue while she did because I'm smart enough to know when to pick my battles, but I'd still like to see what you believe scripture teaches on this point.

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Well, I actually wrote a blog about it and I'll send Rhett the blog. This was in response to an article that Dr.

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Michael Brown wrote after Nabeel Qureshi died of stomach cancer. And so Dr. Brown wrote an article about basically why did

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Nabeel die? Why didn't God heal him even though there were so many people, including

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Nabeel and his family, praying for Nabeel to be healed? And here is something that Dr.

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Brown said, what was my conclusion after these years of intensive study and prayer?

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I concluded that healing was God's ideal will for his obedient children. And that rather than praying,

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Lord, if it be your will to heal, we should pray with the expectation that it was his will, sometimes even rebuking the sickness at its root.

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I am absolutely astonished by that statement because he's writing that in light of the fact that they did pray for Nabeel and he was not healed.

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So clearly it was not God's will to heal Nabeel of his cancer.

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It sounds like he's trying to take it upon himself, like I can tell God what to do, kind of thing.

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Yeah, something. I don't know what his intentions are there exactly. I mean, Dr. Brown is through and through a charismatic.

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And so he believes you can name it and claim it. If you believe that it's

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God's will for somebody to be healed, you can claim healing over them and they will be healed. But Jesus himself prayed in the garden of Gethsemane before going to the cross.

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He prayed, Lord, not my will, but your will. This was Jesus Christ, the son of God, praying to the father, not my will, but your will.

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And he taught us to pray that way as well. Matthew 6, 10. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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And James, the brother of Jesus, rebuked believers for not saying, if the

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Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. And here Dr. Brown is saying that we shouldn't pray,

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Lord, if it be your will to heal. James is going, no, that's exactly the way you should pray.

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And he said, you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

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That's James 4, 3. The Bible gives absolutely no promise whatsoever that you will be healed of your disease in this lifetime, none.

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So it is utterly foolish for Dr. Brown to suggest that we should not pray, Lord, if it be your will to heal.

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We are not magicians that we can utter some magic words and magically heal people of their diseases no matter what any name it and claim it preacher will tell you.

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And so this is absolutely the way that we should pray for one another, that if it is

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God's will for them to be healed, then let them be healed. In John chapter 9, right at the beginning of John 9,

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Jesus saw a blind man from birth and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?

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And Jesus answered, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

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We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.

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As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with saliva.

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Then he anointed the man's eyes with mud and said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent.

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So he went and washed and came back seeing. This man was blind so that the power of God might be displayed in his healing.

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It was God's will for him to be blind so that he could be healed. And you'll have these name it and claim it teachers saying it is not

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God's will for anyone to be sick, which is what Dr. Michael Brown said right there. God's ideal will is that a person will be healthy.

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Well, let me ask you this. Why is there sickness in the world? Where did that come from?

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Who put sickness in the world? Because we're fallen. Right. God did. Yeah. God cursed the world because of our sin against God.

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And so he sent sickness onto the world as it says in Romans eight, all things subjected to futility by him who subjected it.

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And so we, all of creation is cursed. Everyone is sick in their bodies.

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Tomorrow you will be a little bit sicker than you were today. Because your body is gradually decaying and it will eventually die.

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We have it written for us in Romans eight, nine to those who are in Christ Jesus and are indwelt with the spirit of God.

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Paul said this, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

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But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.

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So Rhett had that employer there who was saying that we are no longer under the curse of death.

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Well, yes, we are. People die. People still die. I think that would be evidence enough.

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You are not under the curse of death in the sense that your spirit is not going to die. True. Maybe that's what it was meant.

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Maybe so. I don't know. But it's, yeah. I don't have enough context for that, though. Yeah, maybe not.

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But anyway, the person is still saying that we should pray for health because that's God's will for us to be healthy.

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Right. Maybe God will heal you and maybe he won't. I pray for health and I think you should pray for health.

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I pray for health too. Yeah, right. You're praying for. My wife, who hasn't been on the podcast, the

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Friday podcast for the last several weeks and is right now even sucking on a cough drop. I am. While we're doing this.

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I am. We have paused this recording a couple of times for her to cough. Yes. I apologize. She is being reminded in her body that all things have been subjected to futility.

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But in 3 John verse 2, as John is writing to Gaius, he says,

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Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health as it goes well with your soul.

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So John prayed for health for Gaius. Right. There's nothing wrong with that. Absolutely. We should pray for health.

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At the end of James, it said, if any of you are sick, call for the elders of the church. Right. They will anoint you with oil and lay hands on you and pray that you may be healed.

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And let me tell you, it's a humbling experience when you're sick and especially whenever you're sick over a long period of time.

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It's very humbling. Yeah. And it's very frustrating because you can't do what you normally are able to or what you think you should be able to.

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Yeah. And just to ask for that extra help. But in light of things. To be reminded of your weakness and your mortality.

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It does. But to bring the body of Christ together for them to gift you with food, to gift you with watching kids, to gift you with bringing you medicine or whatever.

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Just to come visit you and see how you're doing. Yeah. And it really, I think it glorifies

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God all the more to be in that humbling where you're out of control of your body.

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Yeah. And just, I don't know. Having to rely on other people to pray for you and lift up your spirit.

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To brothers and sisters in Christ. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And that's something that I experience when

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I'm sick. You know, again, being reminded of my own mortality and it makes me seek after God all the more.

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Mm -hmm. And it makes me long for the kingdom of God more. Exactly. Because I'm - That's where I was going with all of this and I forgot.

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Yeah. Yeah. The fumes of your cough drop. Yes. Got it. So, in our sicknesses, we long for the kingdom of God even more.

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To know that that's the day when we will be perfectly healed in our bodies. Yes, it's God's will to heal you.

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But it may not be in this lifetime that he heals you. Right. It absolutely will be in the next.

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And it is very scary in this lifetime. Yeah. We don't know how we're going to go out.

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Right. Maybe it would be the Lord's will that you die in your sleep.

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You just die of old age. Maybe you would get cancer and you would have to fight that battle and ultimately it would -

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Suffer through it. Right. Like Nabeel did. Mm -hmm. And eventually it will take your body and you will go to be with the

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Lord that way. I certainly don't want that. But if that is God's will for me, then

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I hope that in these times of health that I am conditioning myself to give praise and glory to God for all things and in all circumstances.

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Right. So, if that day should come upon me, that I might be a testament to those around me.

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Mm -hmm. Still giving glory to God even though this disease is ravaging my body. Mm -hmm. So, you have the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the book of Daniel.

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And Nebuchadnezzar erects this golden statue. And when the trumpets sound, everybody is supposed to bow down before the statue except these three guys.

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Right. And so, they are threatened if you don't bow to this statue, you're going to be thrown into the fiery furnace and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego say, our

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God is powerful enough to deliver us. But even if he doesn't - Right. We're still not going to bow down.

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And so, you can say, hey, my God is powerful enough to deliver me from this sickness and this illness.

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Mm -hmm. I know he is that powerful. Amen. But even if he doesn't, I'm still going to worship him.

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That's right. I'm still going to praise God. So, we should absolutely pray, Lord, if it be your will, then please heal this person or heal my body.

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But ultimately, I know God, it is your will and not my will. And we praise you for your goodness.

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Right. Because we know whatever happens to this body, our soul is secure with the

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Lord forever in glory. Amen. Sealed for the day of redemption, a day in which we will pass from this life into the next where there is no more sickness, no more disease, no more coughing and cough drops.

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It'll be heaven. No more cavities. I'm reminded of that one occasionally.

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Oh, yes. Me too. Fun, fun. So, anyway, I hope that that helps you out there, Rhett. I want to conclude with one thing, because I had my

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Bible open to this, and I haven't gotten to this. There just hasn't been a way in this answer to say into this yet.

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But here we go. This is in John chapter five. And I think that... Oh, that's funny. I was going to say if you're kind of, well, it's not

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John, it's 1 John, but... What were you going to say? I was going to say that if you're questioning your faith, to go to John's gospel and read it.

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Or his epistle. His epistle. Yeah, right. Yeah. 1 John is... 1 John. Well, that's what

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I meant. But then I realized you're going to John. I'm going to John. Right. So, I kind of took that.

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But, anyway. So, here, I'll summarize my wife's thought for her. Please do. Okay. Because I'm trying to hold back a cough.

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So, if you're struggling in your body because of sickness or some sort of an ailment, and you are wondering where the

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Lord would be in the midst of this, and you're wondering if God has abandoned you because you're this sick, maybe

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I'm sick because of sin or something like that in my life, just like the disciples were asking of Jesus about the blind man, go to 1

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John and read. Because John says in the fifth chapter, we have written these things to you that you may know that you have salvation.

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It's not God's intention for us that we would be in mystery as to whether or not we're saved. I don't know what's going to happen to me when

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I die, where I'm going to go, but that we would read his word, and we would know with confidence the salvation that we have that is not dependent upon us or anything that we have done, but because it is the work of Christ on the cross and the gift of the

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Holy Spirit that has been given to us, that we know that we are saved. Amen. Was that your thought?

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Yes. Okay. There we go. All right. So, now I'm going to go to John 5. Yes. So, I think that this story perfectly illustrates that it is not

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God's will for everyone to be healed in this lifetime. Okay. So, this is the healing at the pool on the

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Sabbath, John 5, verse 1. After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

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Now there in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.

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In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years.

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When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him,

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Do you want to be healed? And the sick man answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going, another steps down before me.

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And Jesus said to him, Get up, take your bed, and walk. And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

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Wow. By the command of Christ. Right. He obeyed, and he was instantly healed. Now that day -

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That still amazes me. That's a great story. That day was the Sabbath. So, the Jews said to the man who had been healed,

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It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed. Nobody was like,

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Wait a minute. Yeah. Who healed you? Where did that come from? Well, obviously, he came from the water.

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But he answered them, The man who healed me, that man said to me, Take up your bed and walk.

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And they asked him, Who is the man who said to you, Take up your bed and walk? Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.

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Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See, you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.

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The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting

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Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My father is working until now, and I am working.

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Point I'm making with the story is this. That very place there at the pool of Bethesda was loaded with people who were sick, people who were blind, lame, and paralyzed.

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Jesus went to one man, and he said to him, Do you want to be healed? The guy said,

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Well, yeah, but nobody's taking me down into the water, and when I try to go down there, people cut in front of me. And so Jesus just says to him,

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Take up your bed and walk, and you'll be healed. And the man obeyed, and he was healed. So this man had no faith.

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He did not even know who Jesus was. Because after he told this man,

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Go, and you will be healed. When they asked him, Hey, who told you to take up your bed and walk?

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He didn't know who to tell him. Right. He didn't know. So he did not have faith to be healed.

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God just healed him because it was his will for the man to be healed.

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And Jesus did not heal everyone else in that place. He singled out this man and healed him, for it was

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God's will to do that. That story alone will tell you that it is not God's will for every single person to be healed in this lifetime, nor does healing have anything to do with your faith.

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We should pray and ask for healing, because that is obedient submission to the

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Lord. Peter said in 1 Peter 5, cast all your anxieties upon him, because he cares for you.

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That's not a suggestion. That's a command. Right. Cast all your anxieties upon God. It's actually arrogant to say,

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Well, you know what? I can deal with this issue myself. Right. I don't need to give it to God. I hate that I say that every day.

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Oh, I know. I've got this. I can do this. Yeah. I don't need to take time to stop and pray.

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Oh, my goodness. And give my cares up to the Lord. I know. I know. Even my emotions, I'm perfectly fine dealing with, as you're angry.

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I can deal with this stuff. And it seems to make me more angry. It does.

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I know. It just builds it up. Yeah. When you dwell on your anger, it just makes you angrier. Well, even whenever I'm like,

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I've got this, I start getting angry, and I'm like, oh, man. Yeah, because you say that in frustration, so it just makes you right.

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Quite possibly. So that it just makes you all the more frustrated. That's so true. And so this is what

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Peter means, that we give all of our cares to Christ. That's why we pray to him for healing, even if it's not going to be

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God's will to heal us. But whether you are sick or whether you are well doesn't have anything to do with whether or not you have faith.

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Timothy had stomach ailments, which as we were going through 1 Timothy, in 1

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Timothy 5 .23, Paul told Timothy, no longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and frequent ailments.

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Why didn't Paul just drop one of those glory cloths into his letter and send it to Timothy and say, here, rub this on your tummy, and you won't have any stomach ailments.

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And you'll be healed. You'll be healed. Yeah. Did Timothy lack faith? And that's why he struggled with those ailments?

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Right. It was for Timothy to know the weakness that was in his flesh so that he would rely upon God all the more.

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Amen. As Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 1, this was to make us rely more on God who raises the dead.

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Amen. So we have that promise in Christ. You will be raised from the dead. You may not be healed in your body in this lifetime, but it is

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God's will for you that you would rise from the dead and live forever in Christ for all those who believe in Jesus.

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So, Rhett, I think I've given you enough material there, some things to dwell upon.

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I want to pray for you that the Lord would give you wisdom on how to respond to those people around you who are, quite frankly, teaching falsely on this matter.

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Right. And they are giving false hope to people. They are not submitting to the authority of God's word, but they think they have authority in their own words to make things happen that's not

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God's will to happen. And so, Rhett, let's pray for you, brother. And thank you for your question and everybody else for writing in their questions.

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And thank you, Becky, for being with me on the podcast, finally. Finally again with me today.

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Finally, you're good. All right, let's pray. Our Lord God, our gracious Heavenly Father, I pray that we would not be so arrogant to think that we can do these things on our own, whether we're talking about healing ourselves or caring for our own troubles and anxieties.

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But we would understand this command to cast all our cares upon you because you care for us.

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You want us to come to you with our needs, to share with you our hearts and our innermost thoughts.

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And when we struggle in our bodies, whether that's with emotions or illness or whatever that might happen to be, that we would submit these things to you because we know that you are mighty to save.

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And so, I pray that we would submit our full selves. When the

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Bible says that we should worship God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, that we do that with everything that we are.

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Every single thing that we would experience, we submit to you and worship you and desire that your name would be honored above whatever it is that we want for ourselves, above our own comforts and our desires for easy living.

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May it be to the glory of your great name that we do all things. I pray for Rhett, as he desires to honor

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God and be obedient to your word, I pray that you would give him wisdom on how to speak with those people that are around him, those people that have even been placed over him as his superiors, that you would give him the right words to say and lovingly be able to guide a person into the truth of what

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God's word says, and that hopefully there are people around him who would repent of the false teaching that they've been believing and sharing with other people.

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May we understand God's will for our lives, his good, pleasing, and perfect will, as talked about in Romans 12 too, instead of trying to impose our will upon what we think you should be doing for us.

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So give Rhett wisdom and give him patience, as likely the first encounter is not going to change everyone's mind, but as he patiently endures and leads with the word of God, not just with those whom he works with, but even those whom he serves in hospitals by praying for, may they hear wisdom in his words and that his words come from God's word, from the

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Bible. I pray that we would all be submissive to this and none of us ever think that we are better than this word or we think we've even got it figured out, but every day we need to come back to the word of God and see what it is that you are saying to our spirits even now.

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Thank you for your Holy Spirit, and in the name of Jesus we pray, Amen. Amen. All right, so did you catch the comment that I made in there that Jesus was crucified on a

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Friday? No. Yeah, see it went by so fast. Yeah. What even the point of the video?

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But Joseph caught it, he caught that I said that Jesus was crucified on Friday, actually in the video it actually shows like the week long calendar.

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Oh. It says the triumphal entry was on a Sunday, the cleansing of the temple.

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That is awesome. Oh goodness. Your spoonerism. Yeah, I do these spoonerisms with the kids and here it came out on the podcast.