If I go to the doctor and he looks at me and says, you look great and are obviously doing everything right. You will be fine from a health stand point. Just keep doing what you are doing. That would be an appointment I would enjoy...but it would be a lie and down deep inside I know it. However, it makes me feel good to hear it, so I keep going back. The doctor who does this will have lots of patients lined up at the door every week. But the doctor who really cares about my health will look at me and say, Obviously you are not eating right and getting any exercise. Let’s do some blood work and see what issues this has caused. This is an appointment I don’t enjoy, but it’s the truth he’s telling that will help me actually live in a way that benefits me and those who care about me. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” I teach on the unusual and difficult verses of the Bible so you will be complete and equipped for God’s work. While I was away last weekend, I read an article from a pastor who had just preached his last message. He was leaving his
church and the ministry...and not because he was ready to retire. And not because he was walking away from God. He was leaving mostly because of his discouragement in one main area. He summed it up with this statement. “Most Christians don’t want their thinking challenged. They come to church to reinforce what they’ve believed their entire lives. From their perspective, the job of the pastor is not to push them to grow, but to reassure them that they are already on the right track. Any learning should support the party line and comfort them that their investment of resources in the church will result in a payoff somewhere down the line, particularly once they reach the afterlife.” What this pastor experienced is very common. This is supported by the Center for the study of global Christianity at Gordon- Conwell Theological Seminary. Their study estimates that there are at least 45,000 different christian denominations worldwide. That is a shocking number. But I believe there are many more than that. A denomination is defined by the point of difference between the beliefs that people hold according to their understanding of scripture. Which means probably every christian is their own denomination. I doubt that you can find two christians in this very room who will completely agree on the meaning of every verse of the bible. This translates to the idea that there are as many denominations as there are christians. As a general rule, we believe what we want to be true, not necessarily what actually is true. Is your view, the only correct view? Are you open to learn more? Are you on a truth quest or a happiness quest? If you are on a happiness quest, there are plenty of churches that will focus on all the blessing verses in the Bible and avoid the rest of scripture.
Now to be clear...those blessing verses are true in their context, but they are not the whole truth. Discovering the whole truth will take more than just reading a verse that talks about the blessing. It requires digging into the context of the entire chapter and sometimes the entire book itself. Who wrote it? Who were they writing to? Is the verse descriptive or prescriptive? Is there an “if/then” requirement? It’s easy to read a verse out of context and say, that’s for me! But what if it’s not? When I started this series, I said there may be times you are presented with information that makes you uncomfortable or offends you, based on the church tradition you grew up in. Well, today is that day for me and those who grew up in the tradition I did. So, as you listen to what I’m saying, please know that it is just as hard for me to say as it may be for you to hear. Today and over the next couple of weeks, I will ask you to do one thing for me. Be openminded. I would like for you to try and put away any preconceived thoughts or church traditions you were taught about these subjects and consider the scripture as it is presented in context. After which I recommend that you research the Bible for yourself and pray to come up with your own conclusions. I don’t need for you to agree with me 100% of the time. But I do need for you to dig into the word for yourself and know what it says. There are the three hot button topics in the modern church we will discuss over the next couple of weeks. Healing, prosperity and tongues.
People on the extreme ends of these topics are the ones who I’ve had the most difficult time working with since becoming a pastor. They are the ones who want to argue with me, in order to fix my theology. Either they firmly believe that all christians should be healthy, wealthy and speaking in tongues...or they firmly believe that none of those things are active in the church today. The problem is that both of those positions are too extreme to be fully supported by scripture. Both have really good points, but at some level they each require some scriptural gymnastics to prove their point. This causes so much division, I would venture to say that there has been more damage done to the citizens of the kingdom of God over these three topics than any other in modern church history. For all of them there is a baby and also some bathwater. We will be careful how we approach each topic, because sometimes you will see the unintentional misunderstanding of scriptures and at other times you will see the out right abuse of them. If we really want to follow what the Bible says about these things, it may put us at odds with what we have believed based on the denomination we grew up in. So, here we go. Let’s start with a topic that every human who has ever lived on earth can relate to. Healing. It is something that you will deal with at some point in your earthly journey, because none of us are going to make it out of this alive. We all get sick...and we all eventually die. But there is good news. There are at least 26 passages in scripture that tell us about specific people being healed of various ailments and diseases by Jesus. Let’s look at a few other verses that show a lot more healings than that.
Matthew 8:16 “16 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.” Matthew 12:15-16 “15 Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all 16 and ordered them not to make him known.” Matthew 15:29-31 “29 Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there. 30 And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, 31 so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.” Based on these verses and many more like them, you could reasonably deduce that it’s God’s will to heal everyone. That sounds great, but we must dig deeper into this belief to see if it’s really just too good to be true. Who teaches this idea? The word of faith movement that was prevalent in the Pentecostal circles I grew up in have spread this concept throughout Pentecostal and charismatic churches. Word of faith teacher Kenneth Copeland who teaches that God will always heal you...if you have enough faith...Has been a leader in this movement for decades. He has taught Devine health is the mandate and right for all Christians. The problem is that now he has a pacemaker. His heart was not working properly and he decided to go ahead and have the surgery because several of his relatives had died of heart problems. How does this line up with his faith teaching?
If any modern preacher should be able to remove an illness by a prayer of faith, you would think it should have been Kenneth Copeland. But it didn’t work for him. If you like listening to Kenneth Copeland, hear me clearly. I’m not saying Kenneth Copeland is evil or a false teacher, that’s not my call. But his teaching on healing versus the reality of his medical situation should give you pause to investigate the theology behind it. If it doesn’t even work for the main guy preaching it, there is a problem. Now this Word of Faith theology is not a prevalent belief in most churches today, but enough of it has held on in pentecostal and charismatic circles, that I felt it needed to be addressed and taught. What we see today is less word of faith and more of a teaching that leans toward new age doctrine called the new apostolic reformation (NAR.) They teach about your confession and decrees, being able to manipulate God into doing your will. And of course, your will is to not be sick. Therefore, if you have enough faith and the right words, you can fix it. Here are the big questions for us to consider: Can God heal us physically? Based on scripture, yes clearly, He has that power. Does God still heal people in modern times? Yes, He does still heal. His power has not diminished. We have all been sick, we have all know someone who is a Christian full of faith with a major disease, we have all known Christians who have passed away. And yet, there are those who still believe that God will heal every Christian of every illness that ever happens to them...because healing is always God’s will. Or is it? Can you say that God always wants you to be healed?
Is that true? Can that be proven by scripture? If not, why would we believe it? I will submit to you that we are predisposed to want to believe it. And it’s because our flesh wants to be comfortable. There is nothing comfortable about having a disease or being in physical pain...and our flesh is very happy with the idea that it’s God’s job to make us comfortable and happy. We desperately want that concept to be true. But it is not. Messages preached on this sound great to the congregation, and it will get a church all excited to give a bunch of money...but ends in disappointment when taken to its logical conclusion. The truth is that God cannot be manipulated into healing us by our confessions or decrees. The major problems arise when we believe this and put it into action...and then it doesn’t work. What then? A couple of different scenarios will arise from those who believe in this, and then try to explain why it didn’t work. They may say that you don’t have enough faith...that there is sin in your life...or that the healing just hasn’t manifested yet. I don’t see support for any of those things in scripture. This wrong belief has caused many people to be angry with God for not bending to their will and doing what they wanted when it comes to healing. Or they will mad at themselves for not having enough faith. So we have to ask again, does God heal people today? Yes, if it serves the purpose of giving Him glory and showing that Jesus is the messiah. We just don’t hear about those miracles these days, which is what makes people believe that miracles are no longer active. Let me fix that for you.
I want you to watch this video of Francis Chan. He used to be a mega church pastor in Southern California. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=r7Z5qF4zWzk&list=PPSV&ab_channel=TheObjectiveBeliever
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