El Shaddai - the God Who Is Enough — Paris Reidhead

Genesis Reveals the Gospel Through Abraham’s Faith

Will you turn, please, to the Old Testament? I was going to say the gospel according to Genesis, hardly appropriate. Nevertheless, the gospel is on every page in the book of Genesis, and so if you will turn, I'm sure that we're going to find our hearts refreshed as we discover that all that God promises for his people is in relation to his character.

I've asked you to turn to Genesis chapter 22, and I want you to see particularly verse 14. The occasion is Abraham's obedience to the Lord in taking Isaac up to the top of the mountain to sacrifice him.

I'll begin reading with verse 5. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. I want you to notice that last clause.

We will go and worship and come again to you. Now he knew that God had commanded him to take his son as a living sacrifice, or sacrifice. The young man took the wood and he took the fire and the knife, and they went up both together.

And Isaac spake unto Abram his father and said, My father. He said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, Jehovah Jireh.

God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of. And Abram built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him.

For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. Now I want you to look back to verse 5. Abide here, and I and the lad will go yonder, and worship, and come again.

Abraham believed that when the knife plunged into the heart of his son, and the flame licked up on the altar he had built and consumed his flesh, that God would raise his son from the dead, and he'd come back, because God had said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.

Now Abraham had resurrection faith. And he said, We will come. We will come again to you. Now look, verse 13. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.

And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh. As it is said to this day, In the mouth of the Lord it shall be seen.

Now the word Jehovah-Jireh means the Lord shall provide. Exactly what he said when Isaac asked him from whence the lamb should come. The Lord will provide. But in the eyes of the father the provision had been made in this son that had been supernaturally born, this son that had been named before his birth, that had been anticipated for at least twenty-five years after God promised him a seed.

And he heard God say, Take him, and he obeyed. The point that I wish to have made to you tonight is this, that the revelation of God's character as Jehovah-Jireh came in answer to Abraham's faith and his obedience.

Inevitably this is the pattern. God desires to reveal himself. Now it is quite easy for you to read Genesis chapter 22. It is quite easy for you to familiarize yourself with the words spoken by Abraham and Isaac and by God to them both.

But it does not become yours until in the crisis of obedience you obey him. God may not ask you, and I'm sure he will not ask you, to do literally what Abraham did, but I am equally certain that the pathway of obedience will be equally difficult and strenuous and costly in some respect at least.

And thus, be it understood to you that according to what I consider one of the primary hermeneutical principles of the word, the first mentioned principle, that when you find Jehovah-Jireh mentioned, it is in relation to obedience and faith.

Now obviously these two are inseparable. He only obeys who believes. The reason Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac was because he believed God. He didn't think it was any harder for God to raise his slain, pierced, burned son and restore him in health and enable him to walk back to where the servant stood, than it had been for God to give him that son in the first place.

And so because he believed God, he obeyed. He believed God and he obeyed. But you understand that if he hadn't obeyed, he wouldn't have believed. Faith and obedience are utterly inseparable. You obey because you believe.

You believe when you obey. And the two are inseparable. And inevitably the revelation of Jehovah as provider is going to come to you when you are brought to the place of test, when it's necessary for God to ask you to do that which you haven't hitherto done.

And in this obedience of faith comes the revelation of God's character. God was waiting, sought, yea, he even created a time when he could show Abraham another aspect of his character. And so here was the situation that God developed.

And he proved to him that he was Jehovah Jireh. Now our theme this evening, El Shaddai, divine healing in the church today, must be postulated upon grand biblical principles. And the one principle that I lay at the very outset of our consideration is this, that the revelation of God's power, the revelation of God's grace, can only come in the pathway of obedience and faith.

Instruction, as good as it is, is only valid when it initiates action, and when it initiates faith and obedience. And we see it here. Now if you will turn to the portion that we were considering such a few hours ago in the morning service, we will discover in Genesis chapter 35 the unfolding of this second name.

The first of the Jehovah compound names is the one we've just considered, Jehovah Jireh. Now this is, to my knowledge, the last of the names that are given. I do not recall, I haven't checked, but I do not recall of any additional name given to Isaac.

El Shaddai and the Revelation of God’s Sufficiency

But now, as we saw this morning at length, God has arranged a situation in which he can give a further revelation of himself in grace to Jacob. Now mind you, when I was felt led of the Lord to indicate that this would be the theme for this Sunday evening, I had not had his guidance to speak on Jacob in the morning.

That didn't come until after agony in prayer yesterday afternoon. But it is more than coincidence that the last thing that should have been spoken over this pulpit in the morning hour was concerning the revelation of the name El Shaddai.

Let me read the Scripture for you. We go back to the first verse. And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.

And Jacob said unto his household and all with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments, and let us arise, and go up to Bethel. And I will make there an altar unto God who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.

So Jacob came to Luz, which is the land of Canaan, that is, Bethel, he and all the people that were with him. And he built there an altar, and called the place El Bethel, because there God had appeared unto him when he fled from the face of his brother.

And then verse 9,. And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padanarum, and blessed him. And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob, thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name.

And he called his name Israel. And God said unto him, I am El Shaddai. Be fruitful and multiply a nation, and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins. Now remember, the first occasion of the unfolding of the name of Jehovah Jireh was on the foundation principle of obedience and faith.

The second occasion of a further unfolding of the character of God is on the foundation of obedience and faith. It has been a long way that Jacob has come, as we saw this morning. He's gone to Padanarum.

He's served 20 years under Laban. He's come back, met God at Jebex Brook, and there had his thigh withered as God first changed his name. And then, like Jacob, still he went to Succoth near Shechem and there waited until his family had been injured and ruined and his sons had turned into assassins and murderers.

Now God still is pleading with him to come back. Come back to the place of blessing. Come back to the place of revelation. Come back to the place of communion. But it required obedience and faith. Some years ago I remember talking to a pastor concerning the way of life in the normal Christian life, and he said to me, You know, if I were to accept what you've accepted, it would cost me as much or more than it cost you.

He said, It isn't that I am not willing to pay the price. I'm willing to pay the price if I just thought God would meet me. He said, It's sort of as though there were a chute, an open door, and God asked me to step out into the dark.

I'm willing to step and go down that slide if I'm just sure that God's at the other end to catch me. But he said, You know, I'm not so sure he would be. I don't know why. And so he said, I'm going to stay right here with what I've got, rather than plunge out into the dark.

And he's stayed there through all these years since. He said, I'm willing to pay the price if I thought God would catch me, or if I thought God would honor it. And so here is Jacob at Succoth, where he has great herds and flocks, and now God says, Leave all of this and go up to Bethel.

And Bethel, as you remember, was an arid desert, filled with rocks, and no fertile, not at all. Here he was in one of the fertile areas of Canaan, and God says, Go up into one of the most difficult areas, where there's nothing but barrenness.

And yet, God was there, and God can turn the barrenness into blessing. And so, turning his back upon that which had engaged him and seemed so intriguing and delightful, he buries these idols, takes all the earrings and the gold that the people have gathered and brought with them out of the land where they had been dwelling, and he buries them.

And then he steps out in obedience and makes his way back to Bethel. There he erects the altar, and he pours the offering, and he worships God. We've told you about the nearly thirty years wasted, thirty years squandered, thirty years in which he served himself, sought to promote himself, sought to secure the things for himself that God had promised, and now he has to turn his back on all he's done for thirty years and come right back to the place he started.

But it's there, in obedience and faith, faith that moves him to step back, you know, upon the word of God, that he has the revelation that God is El Shaddai. Now, the word El Shaddai means the God who is enough.

It comes from the Egyptian Semitic word Shadid, a strong word having to do with that kind of strength that becomes kings and monarchs. And so, we would see here that he's speaking of that sufficiency of strength, that, and thus we have the word El Shaddai translated to God who is enough.

Oh, I love that. He's enough for every situation, for every problem, for every heartache. He's enough for everything that will be encountered. But, you see, if you look back in Jacob's experience, Jacob didn't know he was enough to protect him from Esau.

Jacob didn't know that God was enough to give him the wealth that he thought he should have. He didn't know that God was enough to protect his family and satisfy them. And he had to take things into his own hands.

And so, after all these years, now he's come to the place where God stripped him and broken him, touched him, and caused him to be a cripple for life. And he obeys God. And in obedience and faith is the revelation that God is enough.

Now, this is the reason why I've chosen this name, because I recognize that this movement that we're going to consider tonight has many extensions and ramifications that might be somewhat troubling. But I would have you know that a proper understanding of the subject of bodily healing comes from an understanding of the character of God, that he is Jehovah Jireh that provides, he is El Shaddai that is enough.

It was Perry Brannon, my pastor friend in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that said one day to me, You know, I'd have to preach healing and encourage sick people to trust the Lord if there wasn't another verse in all the Bible than Philippians 419.

My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. It's therefore based, when properly understood, upon the character of God. But always this revelation of God's character is on two principles, faith and obedience.

Do not let that disappear as we engage in the consideration. Now, it's a simple matter to understand that healing occupied a great portion in the life and ministry of our Lord. We cannot escape this. We find ourselves brought to it if for no other reason than what we read in Matthew 8, 16 and 17.

Now when even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils. And he cast out the spirits with his word and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying himself took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses.

Our Lord's ministry therefore was teaching and preaching and healing the sick. For he recognized that the consequence of sin was twofold. First it was the sentence of death, eternal separation from God.

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. But God not only pronounced a sentence for sin, but he also placed upon the sinner a curse. The curse being a foretaste of the sentence given during a period of somewhat of probation in order that the sinner under the sentence might get a taste of what it was going to be forever, and finding that he didn't like it, repent and return to the Lord that he might be forgiven and pardoned.

And so we discover back in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 28 that God pronounced blessing for obedience and a curse for disobedience. And the curse has to do with sickness of the body. And if you read Deuteronomy 28 tonight, you I'm sure will be appalled as you discover how completely God has identified sickness with the curse.

You see, let's understand it. The curse of the law is a suffering that is given just as the person under the sentence of death is held in the death row in prison until the sentence is executed, it is carried out.

So God has pronounced the curse. This is upon the body, upon the goods, upon the family, upon the beast, upon all that pertains to the person. And our Lord thus identified sickness as one of the byproducts of man's sin.

Every principle of the human body is that of restoration of strength to health. When you become ill, your body rushes all the reserves and forces that it has. God has built the principle of healing into the human body.

He's given sufficient in the proper foods that we find in order to keep our bodies well and strong, and then he has built into the body this principle of repair of damage done so that we could live well and strong.

And you know from this fact that's been pointed out previously that every cell of your body is being replaced by another cell at periodic intervals. This principle alone is sufficient to demonstrate that God had intended the body to continue for a great length of time.

But because of sin, God shortened the days and limited man's years, brought us down to the place that three score and ten and perhaps four score, and we've reached the outer limits of our life. Now when you understand then that the sickness of any kind, disease in all of its forms, is in the world because of sin, just as God did not create weeds as part of man's diet, but as part of the curse that came upon man because of his sin and his rebellion.

What weeds are to the field, disease and sickness is to the body, the product in a sense of the race, the sin of the first parents and of all of us down across the centuries. So when our Lord came to minister, he demonstrated here that he was concerned not only about saving people from the penalty of the law, death, but saving them from the curse of the law.

And thus he identifies himself with the sickness of the people by healing all that were sick in relation to the prophecy of Isaiah himself, took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses. Now we understand from this same prophecy in Isaiah 53 that he said, by his stripes we are healed.

Christ’s Suffering, the Curse of the Law, and Healing

May I remind you that the atonement for our sin did not come through the lashes that fell upon him. The beating with the cat and nine tails, that horrible instrument of torture that the Romans invented, wherein a leather thong had on it steel and glass and stone, sharp and jagged, bound to the thong, so that when it was brought down upon the flesh with a flick of the wrist, it would cut and it would pull and it would tear.

Now our Lord was beaten. He was scourged. And the Scripture says by his stripes we are healed. Remember that his flesh was torn at least six hours before he died. And it was the shedding of his blood, the pouring out of his life, his death that atoned for our sin.

For it says without the shedding of blood there's no remission of sin. But it wasn't the blood that fell from his brow where the thorns pierced or from his back where the thongs had torn. It was the blood that carried the life with it.

It was the gushing forth of his life and the pouring out his soul unto death. Then the question is to be asked, why did our Lord have to undergo these hours of agony when his body was torn by the scourge, when men buffeted him and bruised him and drew his beard from him with patches of flesh, when the crown of thorns was pressed upon his brow, so that for six hours he was undergoing this excruciating agony?

And the answer, I say, is this. He not only died to deliver us from the penalty of our sin, but he died to deliver us from the curse of the law. This is for a curse that is every one that hangeth upon a tree.

The purpose of crucifixion was to extend agony of death. Beheading was a simple, easy, quick means of death. There was a flash of the sword and life escaped. But with the cross they were known to linger for at least sometimes as long as two or three days before death would overtake them.

And they were amazed when our Lord had died in such a short time. Now understand, therefore, that when he was buffeted, when he was bruised, when he was scourged, he was undergoing the curse of the law.

The law said, soul that sinneth it shall die. This is a prelude to it. This is a sample of it. And thus Isaiah said, by his stripes we are healed. By his stripes we are healed. He didn't say by his pouring out of his soul unto death, but by his stripes.

By this which happened nine hours before his death. When the Lord Jesus, identified with you, accepting the sentence and penalty of death, was willing to submit to this intermediate agony. This agony that came before the actual pouring forth of his soul unto death.

Now understand this. This is a principle. And our Lord now is identifying himself with the people all through these three years of ministry. He's teaching, he's preaching, and he's healing the sick. Whereas it might be fulfilled, himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.

Now the purpose, therefore, of our Lord's sacrifice was to deliver us from the penalty of the law and from the curse of the law. I say this is a principle. Come with me then to the Old Testament for just a moment.

Back in the land of Egypt, you will remember that they took the lamb, slew it, and put it over the fire. Its flesh was roasted and was eaten by the family. The blood was sprinkled on the doorpost. When I see the blood, I will pass over you.

This was redemption from the penalty of sin. This was redemption from the sentence of death. Now they've gone through the Red Sea, and they've come to a place called Marah, bitter. And the waters apparently were poisonous.

And they said, if we come out here into the wilderness to die, to drink of this water, is this why we're here? And Moses inquired of the Lord, and God told him to cut down a tree and put it in the water.

And the water above the tree was poisonous, and the water below the tree could be used for drink. And our Lord was teaching us that when the cross was put into the stream of human race, human family, that it would be possible for the poison to be taken out of it.

And I would submit to you that just as you have the shedding of the blood of the lamb of Passover, speaking of the deliverance from the penalty of sin, so the tree, speaking of the cross, put into the water, would teach our hearts that he has also died on the cross.

For remember, cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a cross that he might deliver us from the poison that's in the family of men. So we have biblical principle. Now let's understand that our Lord used this ministry throughout all of these years.

But then the question is asked, what did the early church do? What did the early church do? And the answer that comes without any hesitation is that the early church did exactly as the Lord had done. They went everywhere preaching and teaching, just as God had commanded them.

For you remember that the last words that he gave in the book of Mark were that they should go everywhere into all the world and preach the gospel, and these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents.

And you remember that Paul on one occasion lifted the firewood, and the serpent bit him and he shook it off into the flame. They drink any deadly thing poisoned by the opposition of their enemies shall not hurt them, and they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.

This, so then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God, and they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following.

And Paul writing in, as we saw it the other day, in Romans 15, 18, and 19, said, I will not speak of anything that the Lord hath not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient. By word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem around about to Lyricum.

Healing in the Early Church and the Question of Paul’s Thorn

I do not believe that there is any question or challenge from the reading of the Acts of the Apostles, but what this was part of the ministry that characterized the church. Oh, how many people have gotten comfort out of the fact that Epaphroditus was sick, and undoubtedly this has been a stumbling stone to many.

But you understand, of course, that while Epaphroditus was sick, there was undoubtedly reason for it. And Timothy took wine for his stomach's sake, and we recognize that there was undoubtedly reason for this.

And Paul's thorn in the flesh has been the means of driving many into unbelief and vindicating it. The Scripture, however, does not say that Paul's thorn was sickness. Every other place in the Bible where thorn in the flesh is used, it's used of people that tormented and hindered.

It was used of the Canaanites that would be thorns in the flesh. It was used of the enemies that would be thorns in the flesh. It was never in the Old Testament used of sickness. It was always used of people and of nations.

And so to come down to the New Testament and say it means a sickness, I have no objection to it. The only thing I would say if you were to insist on it is this, that Paul was so convinced that the Lord should deliver that three times he besought the Lord and forced the Lord to give a special revelation as to why he didn't.

And this would prove conclusively to mean that this was the normal procedure. But then again, if you accept that it was these Judaizers that followed him everywhere that he went, and that he had used every means given to him to see them stop, and God had not pleased to take them away, then you will understand why he said, I'll glory in my weakness, harassed and hindered by these that pursue me, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

And so I recognize that there are difficulties and problems, and I do not pretend to have all the answers. But I do know this, that when you come to 3 John, the chapter, verse 2, in this one little chapter letter, you find this marvelous prayer.

Beloved, my heart's desire and prayer to God for you is that you prosper and be in health as your soul prosper. Soon, in the bookstore here, will be another book to join two others that I mentioned. I would recommend that everyone here that's interested in this theme is secure with all haste and without exception the splendid volume by Andrew Murray.

Andrew Murray, as you know, a great Dutch Bible teacher, or you may not know, was forced to leave his pastorate in South Africa because of an incurable disease of the throat. But when he returned to London, there were those that believed the Lord answered prayer that had been influenced by George Muller, and the consequence of it was he was anointed and prayed for.

God wonderfully touched his throat. He returned to his pastorate in South Africa for many years of ministry, and the result of this was that he wrote a little volume entitled Divine Healing that I consider to be the classic on this subject, and I urge all of you to secure it.

Perhaps no book has so profoundly influenced the course of American history in the last 75 or 80 years than the little book by Dr. Simpson entitled The Gospel of Healing. This, probably more than any other, has been instrumental in changing for good or ill, as you may deem wise to judge, the course of American church history since 1850.

The Historical Continuation of Healing Ministries

Now I say there is a third volume that I wish to commend to you. It will soon be available. It's been reprinted by Christian Publications and will be available in the bookstore shortly, I am confident.

It is entitled The Ministry of Healing by Dr. A. J. Gordon. Dr. Gordon was pastor of the great Clarendon Avenue Baptist Church in Boston, and this book documents the fact, and I have mentioned these books only in relation to this, this book documents the fact that the ministry of healing continued through all of the centuries.

You'll see there are those that have argued in respect to healing as to the gifts of the Spirit that they all concluded with one of two places, the completion of the canon, that's the Scripture, or the completion of the witness to Israel as a nation in 70 A .D.

But the same argument prevails here that prevailed in regard to the other gifts of the Spirit, namely this, that it has been in the church without any cessation since the earliest times. And if you will go back, I say, to the mystics of the medieval period and on through the Moravians, the Wesleyans, the Reform movements, you will discover that there was no question on this point.

In fact, the Church of England has had as part of its ritual all through the centuries a portion entitled The Ordinance of the Laying on of Hands for Healing. It has been neglected more in some centuries than others, but it has been continuously recognized.

If you study the Montanists and the Albigenses, the Waldenses, any of the movements that were outside of the Roman Church, you will discover that this matter of bodily healing has been consistently maintained across the centuries.

It is of interest to note that so much that we see today began with George Mueller. George Mueller undoubtedly was greatly taught and blessed of God, and he has had a tremendous influence on the history of the Church since the time he lived and served.

For you will understand, it was George Mueller that so tremendously influenced J. Hudson Taylor. It was George Mueller that influenced Andrew Murray and F. B. Meyer and the great men of just a previous era whose names are remembered because of their delightful writings.

So much began with him. But it remains for us in the beginning of this 81st year of Church life to realize that the first man in American Church history that ever included healing as part of the message of the gospel was A. B. Simpson.

Up until that time, it had been recognized, it had been held. But when God so wonderfully touched him after his series of breakdowns and incapacitations because of illness, he felt that this should be part of the ministry of the gospel.

Now may I remind you that in 1875 and 78 and 80, medical science was not too far out of the dark ages. And if you'll go back and see some of the practices that were there, you'll discover that they were still fighting about such things as germs, whether they did actually exist, and sterilization, some of the other things we take so for granted today.

Well, let's recognize that much has happened in these years, and that in the last 50 years, more progress than the previous 5 ,000. In the last 15 years, probably more than the last 50. Tremendous strides, a geometrical increase year by year.

But when Dr. Simpson announced the gospel of healing, it was received by hungry hearts, weary-bodied men and women as the anchor of hope and the grounds of confidence. And so this work began 80 years ago, 81 now, with the testimony that Jesus Christ is our Savior, our sanctifier, our healer, and our coming King.

And this became part of the message. All of the supernatural was included in this, just as all of victory in the fullness of the Spirit, in power for fruit and for service, was included in Dr. Simpson's definition, Christ our sanctifier.

So all of the supernatural, the gifts of the Spirit and healing, was included in this Christ our healer. And we need to acquaint ourselves with what motivated that movement. It was this, that already rationalism was beginning to spring up, and there was a tendency to intellectualize Christianity, and there was the first beginning probings of liberalism.

And so at that time, God set in motion a crystallized testimony that Jesus Christ is the same today as he was yesterday. And I've told you how William Newell, down in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bill Sampson in Charlotte, North Carolina, after he'd ministered in the Calvary Presbyterian Church, where, by the way, Dr. Graham's mother and father go, and where I have met them and known them for several years.

And as they were in the Sampson home, Mr. Sampson and his wife entertaining a group from the church, and Mr. Newell, who was having a conference, someone was in the city and had been having a healing campaign.

And they turned to him and said, Now, Dr. Newell, what do you think about healing? Did you believe in it? He said, Of course I believe in it, in his inimitable, gruff way. So, we're surprised at you. He said, How come you believe in it?

And then he told how he'd been a pastor over in New Jersey, when Dr. Simpson had begun the ministry here on 44th Street and 8th Avenue. And Friday afternoon they'd have a healing service when people were standing around the walls and in the side room, and then in those days it was opened back into Fellowship Hall, I understand.

And there was a great company of people here Saturday or Friday afternoons, and they would come in response to the ministry, and Dr. Simpson and others would join him here in the front. And Mr. Newell said, Of course I believe in healing.

He said, I saw one day a little girl whose shriveled limb was in splints and was bound, and they prayed for her, and she cried out because of the pressure, and they had to hurriedly cut the straps and take it off because God was lengthening her leg and filling it out right in front of our eyes.

He said, I've seen huge cancers disappear. We've bowed our heads to pray, and when we've lifted our eyes, they were gone. He said, I've seen goiters disappear in the front of that old church. He said, Anyone that was there in those days could never question for a moment the fact that God heals, that God answers prayer, that God delivers.

Healing Campaigns, Denominational Renewal, and Excesses

And so it was back there that it was crystallized. But I told you last Sunday night, or in one of the recent messages in this series, how that in 1904 the Pentecostal church broke off from the Christian Missionary Alliance, and some 400 churches formed the assemblies of God.

And they went out, and from them broke off the Four Square, who took the fourfold gospel and made it their name, the Four Square. And then other groups, and went off and off and off, until now I understand there are over a hundred groups that have sprung out of that first company that left the Christian Missionary Alliance back there in those years.

And unquestionably there have been during the years many abuses and exaggerations and excesses, and very possibly we of this society have been intimidated because of that. And we, there's some reason for thinking that whereas we have wanted to avoid the excess, we may have moved somewhat too far to the right.

But I submit to you that while this may be the case, there has been this other phenomena of which I've spoken recently, and I refer it now particularly to the matter of healing. You realize that there's a circle.

It's been made like this, went out and on. But something, even in the midst of that with which I cannot agree, I don't believe that it is right to have healing campaigns. I stand exactly where Dr. Simpson did.

We preach Christ, not healing. Christ, yes, has a vision to be healer, but I have never had my heart at all enthusiastic about healing campaigns as such. And yet there have been those that have been able to do it, and there have been those God has touched through it.

And let's not in any desire to stand purely for the Word, ignore the fact that God has condescended to use many of us, many of us in different ways, before we knew all that God wanted to teach us. And so I'm sure that there are many of these that in the past, that have had this ministry of healing, that have seen that there might have been other ways the Lord could have been glorified more perfectly.