The last couple of days I’ve been writing my sermon for this weekend and if you watch the video when it’s uploaded or you read the transcript below, you will soon realise I have wrestled with the topic of healing for many years. I still don’t profess to have all the answers but I now have peace, praise God, and I want to share what brings this peace with everyone. Read on I say! 
Or if you can, come hear this sermon in person this Saturday at 11.00am!
Sue Redman – October 17, 2009
It was February, 1986 and it was my older sister’s birthday. For some reason we were only allowed to have birthday parties with more than one friend every seven years as a kid, so being my sister’s 14th birthday, this meant a grand occasion. Grand occasions on wheat and cattle properties usually meant things like Dad teaching our friends how to ride the horses. Or building bonfires and cooking damper on sticks. Or making cakes together and leaving half the mixture in the bowl so everyone could eat the leftovers while the other half cooked.
In all honesty I can’t remember a lot about this particular party and that’s probably because there’s a bit of a gap in my memory. I can still remember being on my brother’s BMX and wanting to race him and the boy next door home. But I also remember there being a slight problem in that they were riding a motorbike and I a push bike. The next thing I remember is lying on the front patio and looking up and seeing people all around me.
The long story short is that I fell off Neil’s bike that day. I hit my head on the handlebars and fractured my skull, and unbeknownst to us for almost a week, my brain haemorrhaged. Of course this was the butt of many jokes for years to come. My head injury was blamed for every dumb or ditsy thing I did or said, but for many years, this injury was also blamed for my subsequent poor health.
By the time the next year was out my parents had taken me to every kind of doctor, specialist, naturopath, osteopath, chiropractor that they could think of. I was no longer excelling at school. I was tired all the time. My anxiety levels were through the roof. No-one seemed to have the answer however, and the best advice I got was to simply remove sugar and dairy products from my diet which I did for the next five years as if my life depended on it.
When I got to dorm life at Avondale College however, every form of discipline I’d ever practiced went out the window. Diet. Sleeping habits. You name it! By the time I got to 3rd year I was living a crazy life, attempting 20 hours of work each week to pay for my fees, overloading subjects, and committed to something like 6 or 8 extracurricular activities. In this context I guess it’s no wonder my body crashed. At that point I had to withdraw from my studies and for the next 18 months I did little to nothing except work an hour/day at a private retirement village in exchange for food and accommodation. You heard me right. I’ve lived at a retirement village!
At the end of that 18 months I fully believe God opened the door for me to go back to Avondale but for now as an Office Administration student because I still wasn’t ready for Theology. When I did return to Theology the next year, I lasted one semester before I had to take another off. And it was at the beginning of the following year, when I was at Yarrahapinni Summer Camps where my parents were the caretakers, that I asked to be anointed. I was so frustrated by my lack of energy and so moved by a call to mission one Sabbath that I thought surely God would want to heal me for such a purpose.
Pr Wayne French and Wes Tolhurst were the Youth Directors at that time and we had a special anointing service during closing Sabbath. For days, weeks afterwards, I did not want to doubt that I had been healed. I knew it only took the faith of a mustard seed to move a mountain and I would do anything to have that mountain moved.
I managed to finish my Theology degree that year but as most of you know my health has never fully recovered. I guess this is why I was somewhat confronted a couple of months ago when I heard that someone else who had been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was actually healed. I knew this person had asked for anointing before she was anointed but I was sceptical about the results. After all, why would God heal her and not me? Months later however, I’m still hearing stories from her mother and cousins and friends about how she went for a jog the next day and as I understand it, hasn’t looked back.
I guess this is a John the Baptist kind of story. Some of you may remember that it was while John the Baptist was in prison that he sent his disciples to ask Jesus if He was the One or if they should wait for another? Would Jesus really leave His forerunner to suffer at the hands of Herod if He was the Messiah? Listen to Jesus’ response. It’s in Matthew 11:4-6,
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
In The Ministry of Healing, Ellen White says that when John’s disciples came to Jesus, Jesus didn’t actually answer them right away. While John’s disciples stood there, waiting for an answer to the question, the blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf, they all came to Jesus for healing.
“The voice of the Mighty Healer penetrated the deaf ear,” Ellen White says, “A word, a touch of His hand, opened the blind eyes to behold the light of day, the scenes of nature, the faces of friends, and the face of the Deliverer. His voice reached the ears of the dying, and they arose in health and vigor. Paralyzed demoniacs obeyed His word, their madness left them, and they worshiped Him. The poor peasants and laborers, who were shunned by the rabbis as unclean, gathered about Him, and He spoke to them the words of eternal life.
Thus the day wore away, the disciples of John seeing and hearing all. At last Jesus called them to Him, and bade them go and tell John what they had seen and heard, adding, ‘Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.’” (1)
John’s disciples took this message back to John and apparently it was enough. He remembered the prophecy of Isaiah 61 (verses 1-2),
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour . . . to comfort all who mourn.”
“Jesus of Nazareth was the Promised One.” He was recognised as the I AM by His healing. (2) Jesus the “I AM Healing” had come to take infirmities and bear sicknesses (Matthew 8:17). Jesus the “I AM Healing” had come to restore what sin had destroyed.
“During His ministry, Jesus devoted more time to healing the sick than to preaching,” it says elsewhere in The Ministry of Healing. “His miracles testified to the truth of His words, that He came not to destroy, but to save. Wherever He went, the tidings of His mercy preceded Him. Where He had passed, the objects of His compassion were rejoicing in health and making trial of their new-found powers. Crowds were collecting around them to hear from their lips the works that the Lord had wrought. His voice was the first sound that many had ever heard, His name the first word they had ever spoken, His face the first they had ever looked upon. Why should they not love Jesus and sound His praise? As He passed through the towns and cities He was like a vital current, diffusing life and joy.” (3)
“Land of Zebulun,” Matthew 4:15-16 says, “land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”
Some may wonder how John the Baptist was able to reconcile his own suffering with the healings that were taking place elsewhere but I think I’m starting to get it. Just a couple of months ago I was meeting with our Conference President, Secretary, Ministerial Secretary and Union Ministerial Secretary (yes it was a big meeting ), and they asked me about my health. I have to say I usually hate talking about my health, especially with my employers or you, my church, and I guess that’s because I’ve thought of it as a weakness.
But that day I was finally able to tell these men that I’ve come to believe my weakness truly is God’s strength. For so long I thought God would surely want me to have more energy, to be able to work more hours, to help save more people. But what I’ve realised is that if I did have more energy, if I could work more hours, I would be too busy. Too busy to pray. Too busy to spend time with God. Too busy to eat of the Bread of Life and drink of the Living Water. And without these things, I would have nothing of the passion and conviction and zeal I have. And without the passion and conviction and zeal, would I even want to be in ministry?!
“Human effort will be efficient in the work of God . . . according to the consecrated devotion of the worker,” I recently read. “God can use every person . . . in proportion as He can put His Spirit into the soul temple.” (4) The big deal for God, I am learning (and not just in theory but in practice), is not that I am physically well but that I am spiritually well. The big deal I am learning is that I am spiritually well and therefore able to help others become spiritually well.
A closer look at the Gospels actually reveals that Jesus often discouraged, even forbade people from making a big deal about His healings. To the leper, Jesus said, “See that you say nothing to anyone.” (Matthew 8:4) To the two blind men, “Jesus sternly ordered them, ‘See that no-one knows of this!’” (Matthew 9:30) After healing a multitude, Jesus “ordered them not to make Him known.” (Matthew 12:16) After raising Jarius’ daughter, Jesus ordered her parents “to tell no-one what had happened.” (Luke 8:56) When Jesus healed the deaf man with the speech impediment, He “ordered them to tell no-one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.” (Mark 7:36) (5)
What Jesus knew, Ron Dunn says, is that people would get overly excited by His miracles and assume, incorrectly, that He was setting up an earthly kingdom. In Mark 1:45 we read that the cleansed leper ignoring the warnings of Jesus, “went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country,” and still the people came to him from every quarter. On the contrary, we find in Mark 5:19 that Jesus told a man who had been demon-possessed to “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you,” because this man was from Decapolis and there was no danger of a popular uprising there. In fact, the people from that region had a negative perception of Jesus and He wanted to correct it. (6)
These stories tell us about the “I AM Healing’s” compassion and power but they also tell us about His primary mission. Philip Yancey puts it this way,
“Jesus never met a disease he could not cure, a birth defect he could not reverse, a demon he could not exorcise. But he did meet skeptics he could not convince and sinners he could not convert . . . Jesus knew that spiritual dis-ease has a more devastating effect than any mere physical ailment. Every healed person ultimately dies – then what? He had not come primarily to heal the world’s cells, but to heal its souls.” (7)
Please don’t get me wrong. I am a believer in the continued gift of physical healing. But I no longer presume God wants me physically well whilever I’m on this earth. I no longer presume God wants anyone physically well whilever they’re on this earth. The only thing I presume is that God wants us spiritually well – that He will always answer our prayers for spiritual healing – so my simple prayer these days is that God will do whatever it takes to bring us to our knees. Whatever it takes to enable spiritual healing in our lives. And this is my prayer for each of us this morning.
I don’t what area of your life needs healing today. I don’t know if something has happened to break your trust in God and you need Him to restore it. I don’t know if a relationship with someone else has been broken and you need God to heal it. Maybe you need to confess something to God, to repent and seek forgiveness. Or maybe you need to forgive someone else? Maybe you do need physical healing? Or emotional healing? Maybe you’re afraid of something and you need God to remind you that He is in control?
Whatever you need, what I want to encourage you to do right now is to close your eyes while I tell you a story. (8) I want you to imagine that you are living in Jesus’ time and that you are a friend of blind Bartimaeus. My hope is that you too will be healed . . .
It is early morning. There is a golden glow in the sky and already you can feel the warmth of the morning sun. Today will be like most every other day you imagine: hot, dry and dusty. Another day when you will need to leave Bartimaeus in the shade of an olive tree.
For a number of years now, you have been guiding Bartimaeus to the same place on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem where you leave him to sit and beg his days away. It’s the least you can do and you know it.
As you reach the usual grove of olive trees, about 500 m from the city gates, you hear the voices of a group of people behind you and you turn to see who it is. Immediately you recognise that the group includes Jesus of Nazareth and beside him walks his keenest followers. You begin to wonder what it would be like to meet this man. “Who is He?” you think to yourself. ”What could He possibly do for me?”
Bartimaues interrupts your thoughts. “Who is that?” he asks. “Who is that making such a commotion at this time of the morning?” “It’s Jesus,” you reply, “Jesus of Nazareth.” “Jesus . . . Jesus of Nazareth, have mercy on me!” You shrink. “Quiet Bartimaeus. Quiet.” But he ignores you. “Jesus of Nazareth, have mercy on me!”
Jesus obviously heard Bartimaeus because He stops in his tracks. “Call him here,” He says to some of His followers and you watch as two of the group come toward you and gently say to Bartimaeus, “Take heart, He is calling you.”
Bartimaues throws of his cloak and springs to his feet. Running towards the direction of the voices, he stands before Jesus. “What do you want Me to do for you?,” Jesus asks. “My teacher, let me see again!” Bartimaeus sobs. Jesus replies, “Go, your faith has made you well.”
“What?!” you wonder, but before you can wonder any longer it becomes obvious that Bartimaeus can see. He is dancing all over the place, shrieking with delight. He is hugging Jesus, the disciples are hugging each other. But you are still bewildered. It’s hard to believe what Jesus has just done. You’ve got nothing to say.
And so you sit, back up against the trunk of the olive tree, and you watch as Bartimaeus pulls himself away from Jesus and runs back towards Jericho. You sit and you watch as the group recommences their journey towards Jerusalem. But then you catch the eye of Jesus. He is looking at you. He is alone. You are alone. As you look into Jesus eyes He says to you,
“What do you want Me to do for you?”
- – - – -
(1) Ellen G White, The Ministry of Healing, pp 34-35.
(2) Ibid, p 35.
(3) Ibid, pp 19-20.
(4) Ibid, p 37.
(5) Ron Dunn, Will God Heal Me, pp 134-135.
(6) Ibid, p 135.
(7) Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, pp 100-101.
(8) See Mark 10:46-52.
