Talk on Healing — Edwin H. Waldvogel

Healing in the Atonement

It's wonderful news. The great physician of our souls and bodies is Jesus Christ. I'm so thankful that we can take a song like this and realize that here, at least it's suggested that healing is in the atonement.

It's part of God's great atoning work on the cross. Atoning for our sins and all the effects of the fall. We realize that Jesus took our sins upon himself. Sickness and death came into this world because of sin.

We're told that aren't we in the Bible. We have to realize that and realize that's part and parcel of his salvation. Now, if you'll take your Bible and begin to underline the sections, I have one of these felt pens, you know, that's called a highlighter.

And in one of my Bibles, I went through and I just underscored all the stories of healing in the New Testament. You'd be surprised how many there are. And it'll impress you. I don't do that with my good Bible, but I have a Bible at home that I mark up and color like that.

And then I decided I was going to take the gospel of Mark and take out all the passages of healing on healing, just blot them out and see how much was going to be left. Well, you know, my Bible started looking pretty dark and I just did that to impress upon my mind and heart how much we have in the New Testament in the life of Jesus about healing.

Jesus' Mission and the Father's Will

We ought to be aware of that. We ought to notice that Jesus came into this world to do the Father's will. He said, I've come not to do my will, but the will of him that sent me. When he healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, he said, my Father works hitherto and I work.

This is the will of the Father that men and women be healed from their sicknesses. This man was sick 38 years. Sometimes we have more faith, I suppose, for something that has happened recently or some problem that starts, you know, we always ought to pray right away, right away.

And we ought to expect God to answer right away. He wants to, but if he prolongs the trial, if the trial is prolonged and many times it comes that way, perhaps God is after a greater work in our souls and bodies to reveal himself.

And he wants to teach us to continue in prayer, to grow in faith, but he has given his word of promise. And that's the thing we need to hold on to and become established upon the promises of God. I was reading a missionary story.

We often read them different ones and we're surprised how people get healed on the foreign field. People at first hear the gospel. Well, they haven't read any healing magazines and occupied themselves with some messages and books on healing.

They've just read the Bible and they've heard the Bible preached and heard Jesus brought to them. And they're very simple in their faith in the word of God. Marvelous what God could do. Praise the Lord.

Testimonies of Simple Faith

I was reading over in China, a woman, I think I told the folks here the other morning about a woman who was really saved and was evangelizing in the tribes in China. And a poor lady came to her crying.

She said, my cow just got sick and laid down and she's dying. And that's all I have. And this mother's grandma, she was, but she said, you don't have to mourn about that cow. The Lord will heal your cow.

He prayed for the cow and the cow shook his head and jumped up and they kept right on plowing. Well, now I was amused by that, of course, but it just showed the simple faith of knowing that God answers prayer and we can bring every problem to him.

Of course, there are many instances recorded there. And I was telling one on Wednesday of the, a man who had fallen off the roof of his house and was crippled, couldn't walk at all. When he heard the gospel and heard about Jesus healing, he just stood up.

He got up. He said, I had to get up and I had to start to walk. God just put it in him. He put that faith in him through the preaching of the word of God and blessed are those people who can get the word of God into their hearts.

We try other ways to build up faith by reading testimonies and reading different things that are written about healing, but faith comes by hearing the word of God. What did God say? I ought to become acquainted with what God has said, all of us.

And as we meditate in what God has said, God will put faith into our hearts. We've had some wonderful testimonies to what the Lord can do. You remember brother Tetzlaff, how he fell through the skylight.

Faith Through the Word of God

They had a, they're putting some chairs up on the roof of their church, a flat roof and storing. They had built a storage place up there and they were reaching them up to him and he was up by the skylight and he fell and fell down flat on his back and broke a vertebrae in his back.

And they took him to the hospital in great pain and he was paralyzed or he, they said he could be paralyzed. He wasn't yet. They took him in, they strapped him in bed, put him in traction to get rid of the pain, rid of the pressure.

They did the best they could to with him. But he lay there in this contraption and he began praying and he was reading and he read the Bible, Matthew eight, Matthew nine. Now the Lord has put those chapters and put healings in those chapters.

He brought them together there for us. And he said, I read those chapters again and again and again and people everywhere were praying for him. But he said he felt a current like an electric current began to flow through his body.

And I said, I just lay there looking to Jesus, reading those stories. And I knew he was working, he was healing. And after a day of that, I suppose about a day of it, he, he asked his wife to bring his clothes and she brought them and he managed to help himself out of that harness and sat on the side of the bed when the nurse came in and she just about fainted, of course, ran and got another nurse and they began telling him he couldn't get out of bed.

And he was dressed and sitting there. The doctors came and they talked to him and told him he's going to be paralyzed from the waist down or from, don't watch out. But he stood up and walked out of that hospital.

He had to sign himself out. He said, we won't be responsible for you. But you see, faith had come into his heart through the word of God. And that faith that come into his heart, he knew that Jesus would take care of him.

And they had to sign a paper that said, I'm going out to this hospital on my own, at my own risk or responsibility. And he added in there, I'm going out of the hospital on the responsibility of Jesus Christ, Agart Tetzlaff.

Out he went and he got stronger every day. God healed that man perfectly. And these are, these are lessons that we need to learn. The faith came as he read the Bible and he read the Bible again and again and again.

He kept just reading those healings. There's power in the word of God. As our sister said, there's healing in the word. And we thank God for the testimonies that people give and the experiences that people have.

They encourage us, but we must get our own feet grounded upon the promises of God ourselves. We have a lot today, a lot of people that claim faith and they don't have real faith. They get help. They get encouragement from hearing something and reading something.

My brother Walter used to say those testimonies, healing testimonies, they don't give you faith. They just make you jealous. And maybe they provoke you through jealousy. But people often feel that they have faith then, and then they're disappointed.

But God gives us faith in himself through his word, through the Bible. And it's so marvelous for us to realize. And I think one of the lessons that God wants to teach us is simply that healing is in the atonement.

Salvation, Healing, and the Paralytic

Now there's this thing that people argue about there. Used to be a man, Mr. Nelson, P .C. Nelson, a Scandinavian Methodist minister who came into Pentecost and was preaching in the South. And he was attacked by the other preachers in town.

And they came to him, if healing is in the atonement, why isn't everybody healed? And he said, brother, if salvation is in the atonement, why isn't everybody saved in your meetings? It's a matter. He had them.

It's a matter of faith. It's a matter of believing God. A lot of people think they're saved that are not saved. You'd see no evidence of it in their lives. And they claim to be saved. We are saved by faith in Christ and we need to get rooted and grounded in the word of God.

And when we are, our lives will be transformed by believing in Jesus. Things I loved before have passed away. But that, of course, is something that people can claim. And you can't see the change that takes place in their hearts, excepting by the fruits.

And you can't just say, but Jesus solved that for us, didn't he? When he said to the paralytic man or the man who was sick with a palsy, he said, son, thy sins are forgiven thee. Be of good cheer. And the Pharisee said, huh, who can forgive sins but God?

And Jesus says, is it easier to say thy sins are forgiven thee or to say, rise up and walk? Well, that's a good question, isn't it? Which is easier? Well, Jesus came to die, came to bring us the full deliverance.

So he said to that man that you might know that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins. Rise up and walk. And up he jumped. And so the power of Jesus was manifested in forgiveness and in healing.

And he came to do that for you and for me. And as we have sung here in the song, Isaiah 53, such a marvelous passage of scripture. Where do we find that this passage of scripture, which speaks of the death of Christ on the cross, where would you find that this also applies to the healing of the body?

Isaiah 53 and Healing in Matthew 8

Come on, you scribes, now tell me where that is. Matthew 8. I think it's 17. Let's look at it, shall we? This is a marvelous text and we need to get it into our hearts. Matthew 8. Here Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day.

And then when the evening was come, that was the end of the Sabbath. You see, that prohibition was passed then to carry the sick and bring them. When the evening came, why we read that in the 16th verse, 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 Isaias the prophet saying, himself took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses.

Now here's a text where the Holy Spirit himself applies Isaiah 53 to the healing of our bodies also. And so we need to get that truth settled in our hearts. And we need to meditate in the Bible and the word of God and see how willingly God healed all that came.

In the German Bible, in the fourth chapter of Matthew, the end of the chapter there, you read of him healing the multitudes. That's before the Sermon on the Mount begins. I think you may have the same expression in English Bible.

Let's see. His fame. Well, it says Jesus went about all Galilee, verse 23 in the fourth chapter of Matthew, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

And his fame went throughout all Syria and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases. Now that word divers is an old word that means all different kinds. It has nothing to do with diving in the water, the bends, you know, but this is a sickness.

This is means many different kinds of sicknesses and diseases and torments and those that were possessed with devils and those that were lunatic. Now in the margin, it uses the word epileptic and we read those that had the palsy and he healed them.

There were all kinds of sicknesses, a great variety. And there are some people today will say, well, you know, the Lord can heal those sicknesses that have to do with your mind and your imagination, your feelings, your depressed spirit, but real organic problems are a different story.

The Bible says Jesus healed all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. Hallelujah. He is willing and he is able and he has come to destroy the works of the devil. And so we read these wonderful words and we read that all that came to him, they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with these different sicknesses and he healed them.

I believe the German Bible says he healed them all. And so in the German, you have two words, allerlei, that means all different kinds, und alle, alle means all. Every kind and everyone. And that's our Jesus.

And he did that. And he, as we read in Hebrews 13, he is the same yesterday and today and forever. The very same Jesus, our risen Lord has come to multiply that work of healing throughout the earth. And how many people today are putting their trust in this Christ who lives within them, who quickens their bodies, and they are not only healed once and again, but they receive new life in their bodies and they enjoy vitality because he lives.

We live also. We live by him and in him. And there's a great victory that has been won for us on Calvary's cross that is shown to us in the scriptures. Now you have Jesus healing. And of course, when you get into the time when Jesus went to heaven, in the book of Acts, we immediately have a healing.

Healing in Acts and the Name of Jesus

In the third chapter, right away, there's this man that was at the beautiful gate, sitting there, a crippled man. Peter said, silver and gold have I none, but what I have, I'll give you in the name of Jesus Christ, Nazareth, rise up and walk.

And if you read the fourth chapter and the third, you find that he explains that very wonderfully. He said, he has been healed by faith in his name. It is Jesus who did this healing. The name of Jesus has made this man perfectly whole.

And he has been healed by faith in that name, Jesus. And Peter leaves no doubt about that. He says, don't look at us. We don't have any wonder working power, but look at the risen Christ. He's the same.

And this man is standing before you sound because there isn't any other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Now here's another thing to notice. And that is the word salvation there in the 12th verse of the fourth chapter is a 12.

There's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. He is talking about the healing of this man and he uses the word saved. He's saved from sin. He's saved from his paralyzed condition.

There is salvation in Jesus. And you know, it's such a marvelous thing that this salvation includes soul and body. I like the German language. We say it all flows out of that one word. He brings healing well-being it's Jesus who brings it for spirit and soul and body.

As you follow on in the book of acts, you see the tremendous healings people came from all over and brought their sick to Jerusalem and laid them in the streets that the shadow of Peter passing by. Now it wasn't Peter's shadow at all that healed them, but it was God in Peter, the presence of the living Christ in him and their faith.

We bring them, Jesus will meet them. The power of God was manifested wonderfully. And you can follow on through the book of acts and you'll find almost the last chapter, Paul winds up on the Island of Malta.

And the first thing he's brought into a house there of Publius, the chief man and his father's sick. Paul prays for him and he jumps up. He's well. And then they start bringing all the sick from the Island over there to Paul.

And he gives him an opportunity to preach the gospel and to minister. Jesus wants to minister to the needs of people. And maybe you're perfectly well tonight, but you ought to get it into your heart that you have a great, great savior.

The day will come when you'll be tested. And it's not good to wait until we're tested to get into the Bible and to get the promises of God into our souls. But I'd like to encourage all you young folks, get the word of God into your hearts.

Responding to Unanswered Prayer

Now, here's another thing, of course, that you're thinking about, I know, because we all are tempted the same way. You say, what about the people that didn't get healed? I think about those things too.

They come to all of us, those tests and those, the devil tries to make us doubt. And Jesus helped me just recently with that wonderful word he gave to John the Baptist. John was in jail, suffering, and he sent his disciples to Jesus.

He said, now, are you the one that's supposed to come or should we look for somebody else? Are you the one? He couldn't figure out how he could be left there to languish in prison. If Jesus were the Messiah, he wouldn't do something for him.

Jesus talked to them. He just sent his messengers back. He said, give him this word. The sick are healed, the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the poor have the gospel preached unto them. And he added something, you know what he added?

And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me. John didn't understand perhaps why he should be there, but his work was finished. It was time for him to go home. Jesus said, there isn't a greater prophet born of women than John the Baptist.

And here he is there in that prison waiting execution, his ministry curtailed or just hindered by Herod's power. And he's there and he gets his head taken off. Why? God had something better for him. He wanted to take him home and his plan was to get out of there.

And you know, God had a higher plan. And Jesus said, blessed is he that shall not be offended in me. It's always good to look to the word of God. The enemy will try to have you look around and, you know, people will even preach.

They'll dig into the Bible and they'll see what Paul said. I left this fellow who wasn't in Miletus sick and some other fellow didn't get healed right away. And they'll dig all those things out and they try to convince you that God is not the same, but you know, there are many things we don't know, but the things we do know, we ought to believe with all our hearts.

The Bible says that there are secrets. God has secrets, but the things he has revealed, he has revealed unto us for our good and for the rest, I'm going to trust him. I'm going to believe him. Praise the Lord.

And he'll do all things well. And there may be many things that the enemy will try to put a doubt into your heart that we cannot understand. We can't look behind the veil. We don't know what's coming or what's going.

Trusting God's Greater Plan

And tomorrow is camp rally. And it was during camp rally a year ago that Sister Gardner died. I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I was praying for her in my room about a week before she died.

I had gotten up early in the morning and they were just burdened. And I got up and I prayed for Sister Gardner. And as I knelt there, I don't know if I had gone off to sleep again or dozed or something, but suddenly someone came into my room and spoke to me.

I may have dreamed this, but it was very real to me. And he said, Sister Gardner wants you to know how happy she'll be to go with Jesus. You know, that just made me thank God. And I realized at that time the Lord is going to take her home.

Home. And this message came to me that God just gave it to me in my soul. She wants you to know how glad she'll be to go to be with Jesus. Now, many people prayed for her healing. God had something else in his mind for her.

And someday we're going to rejoice with her in it. And we'll thank Jesus for his great faithfulness. You see, there are these tests that come to us along the way, and we're in a battle along this line.

There's this conflict and it's among God's people and many people have their questions. But if we get rooted in the promises of God, thus saith the Lord, this is what God says, you will find that God is faithful to his word.

And I have noticed another thing. I've noticed that when we trust God for healing, and sometimes God does not answer our prayers the way we would like them to be answered. I didn't, I didn't, what did I, shall I, how shall I put that?

I wasn't in total agreement when he took Edith home. It bothered me. But on the other hand, when you pray and seek God earnestly, the powerful and mighty presence of God is manifested in a most wonderful, wonderful way.

God honors those that trust him and he blesses them. And I'd rather go to heaven trusting Jesus in the consciousness of his presence than to be well without that. I don't know about you, but to me, oh, to know him, to love him, to have him, to find him.

Let's believe Jesus, shall we? And let us not allow the enemy to rob us and then go back and lose ground. We're in a great conflict. My brother Walter was sick over in Europe and prayed and prayed that God would make him well.

He had an interesting experience too, but he said to his wife, different people wanted him to get help from man. And he said, we are in a battle and we are losing light and faith. Let's be true to Jesus.

And you know, he had a marvelous experience. He seemed to be getting well. He had had an accumulation of water in his body. God took that all away. And he was, he was improving, sitting in his chair and Joe, the assistant pastor at that time, brother Kniesel came to see him, talked to him about the meetings they had had at old man, where they were talking about next Sunday, that he would be back in church.

And just as they talked, he said goodbye to him. And he, my brother put his head back like that and was gone. And it went so quickly. And then of course they had to have an examination by physician and he examined him and he said, I don't see anything sick in this man.

The Lord just took him or God took him. Now God does those things and we don't understand why. 63 years old. I've often questioned God, why, but that's not, that's not right. How can we question our wonderful Lord?

He'll answer the questions if we'll wait on him. There isn't a question that he won't answer. If you will give him a chance and just get still for him, he'll make everything play. But in the meantime, I want to believe him more.

And I believe God would like to manifest his power. And you know, this glory of Jesus is filling the whole earth today. Everywhere you find that people have wonderful answers to their prayer. They take these promises of God, they stand on them and God manifests himself in the most wonderful way.

Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. We just had a testimony here the other day. Someone was marvelously touched by the Lord and healed quickly. God had moved in their lives and you hear that all the time. And God does his mighty work in our midst too.

And I'm so thankful for his, the answers to prayer. And here we have, this is vital for us to get into our bones. If Jesus included my physical need on Calvary's cross, then it is my responsibility to believe him and trust him, how it must grieve his heart if I doubt him along that line.

And as we said, let's pray through, let's trust God to take us through. There are cases where we need to wait on the Lord and insist on deliverance. Jesus has taught us that. Maybe we haven't done very well along that line, but the insistence in our hearts, God, you have promised.

And it isn't just that we are healed, but that he is glorified. That's vital. And in the process, when you trust God, he does something in your soul that you can never evaluate the change. I was reading today something about, and worse in Malachi, where it says, the Lord will sit as a refiner of silver.

He'll come to his temple suddenly. He'll purify the sons of Levi. You want him to purify you? And as a refiner, he sits to refine the silver. I was reading one day about Mr. Ter Stegen, a very godly man who really knew the Lord very wonderfully.

At the end of his life, he suffered a heart failure. He had to sit up a lot. He had to sit up. He couldn't lay down at all. He was troubled with pressure on his chest and heart. And he just waited, waited on God, waited on God, and God spoke to him.

And he gave him that verse, I'm going to sit as a refiner of silver. That encouraged him. He said, it takes time. God's doing something to purify and to prepare me for the day when I'll stand before him.

And God gave him patience and grace and faith, and he went right through into the presence of God in great victory. But today I was reading about a woman who read that verse and she said, I don't understand that.

But there were silversmiths in their city, so she went down to visit one. And she said to him, why do you sit down when you refine silver? And he didn't know what she wanted at all. He just, he said, well, silver is a very precious metal and you got to apply the heat, but you have to watch it very closely.

I watched so it doesn't have one minute longer, the heat than is necessary. If you let it in the crucible there longer, you hurt the metal. And that's why I sit down and I watch it closely. And she thanked him and was going out the door.

He said, wait a minute. One more thing. He said, you know when I can tell when it's just right? When the slack or the is taken out of it, the impurities. He says, it's when I can see my face mirrored perfectly in the silver, then it's right.

Then it doesn't get a minute more heat, then it's right. And she thanked him again and went out. Now she had the answer. We're in his mighty hand. And all our great desire should be Jesus perfect the work you've begun in me.

And sometimes God uses these trials to bring us closer to him. Before I was afflicted, David said, I want to stray. Now, if we believe that we're not going to go to the drug store and try to get out of the trial as fast as we can, but we're going to get to God about the matter and say, Lord, don't stop until you can see your face mirrored until I mirror Jesus Christ.

He'll watch the flame and he won't let it be one minute more or one degree more than is necessary. Do you believe that? I do. Oh, to be in his hand. Oh, to trust him. Oh, to love him. Oh, to commit ourselves to him and experience his glory, experience his salvation.

Divine Healing and the Full Gospel

We have difficulty today because people take the truth of divine healing and they preach it and teach it without teaching the whole gospel. Jesus is after your spirit. First of all, he wants to cleanse your heart.

The last enemy to be conquered is death. There are enemies within us that we don't realize are there. But if we really mean business with God, he'll work in us. He'll cleanse us and purify us and he'll also be our healer.

I don't mean at all that anyone has to get sick and remain sick and that God always uses these methods to discipline us. But if we're his children, we ought to deal with him about all of his dealings and say, Jesus, what are you after?

What do you want, Lord? Oh, Jesus. My uncle had a bad knee. I don't know what had happened to it, but he couldn't stand on it. It was out of joint and it would flip out of joint. What kind of a condition do they call it?

They have a name for that. When your knee goes out of joint and he had that trouble and there was something on the bones that rubbed, hurt him tremendously. And he got to the Lord over it and he asked God to heal him.

God, you know this thing. And the Lord said to him, say, listen, I talked to you about something in your spirit and you didn't respond like this. You weren't as earnest to get delivered from that as you are to get delivered from this pain now.

God talked to him and he would like me and he would like you to hate sin and to hate the flesh. And to hate these things in our natures that displease him and be just as earnest over that as we would be if we had a sore tooth or a pain somewhere else.

But let us find deliverance for soul and body. Let us walk with God and he will walk with us and he'll show us the glory of Jesus. Let's get his promises into our hearts. What does James tell us later on in the fifth chapter?

James 5 and the Prayer of Faith

How many know that? Marvelous word. Is any sick among you? Right? Here he's talking about the saints. Is any sick among you? What should he do? I had one of our older saints here, got sick Saturday night.

It was, I think it was Saturday night. I don't remember. It was called up around 11 o 'clock and I was just, just about had my pajamas on when the phone rang and she said, pastor, come and pray for me.

I'm sick. I'm sorry to bother you. I said, no trouble, no trouble at all. Glad to come. So I went over to the house. She was in great pain and she had called one of our sisters who was a nurse and she indicated that she was having appendicitis attack, but really she was in agony, but she had faith.

See, she called us. Monique and I went over there. Pastor, the Bible says, she began quoting this verse. Is there any sick among you? I didn't have any oil, but I prayed for her. I laid my hands on her and prayed for her and God healed her instantly.

Right away. Everything was gone. I went home. I, she said, everything's all right. And next day I called up and she told me everything had just cleared up instantly. Now God doesn't always work that way, but we can believe that he'll do it.

That's what he says. He'll do it right. What does it say? Verse 14. Now let's all read it together. Let's start with verse 13. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing Psalms.

Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them anoint, pray over them, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up.

And if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Now, isn't that a marvelous promise and provision? God wants us to do that, but he wants us to do the calling. When we're sick, why is that? I anointed somebody with oil one day without them asking me to do it.

Just saw their need and prayed for them. And God talked to me after a while. He said, that man was not ready to be anointed with oil. He wasn't in any spiritual condition to be anointed with oil and convicted me.

We need to have that faith. The oil speaks of the anointing of the spirit of God. And that anointing doesn't come on flesh. The Bible says it should never be on flesh. Our hearts ought to be clean. You get these little squares of cloth.

I pray with people sometimes and I see they got several of those from this evangelist and the other one. And one of them anoints his cloths with olive oil from the Mount of Olives. And he prayed over them in the empty tomb of Jesus.

That's a swindle. Is that going to make that cloth more effective? That's what he's trying to show people. And if you send your offering, we'll give you one of these special anointed cloths. That's a deception.

It isn't the cloth. It's Jesus. It isn't the oil. The oil speaks of the anointing of the spirit. It's the Holy Ghost, the quickening power of God. And our faith must not be in these outward things, but in the risen Christ.