Faith, Fear, and Healing: Trusting God's Sovereignty

"And this would certainly be an answer to those who have said, and you've probably heard them, and I have too, no, no, no, no, you don't need anything but God. You don't need doctors. You don't need medicine. Just trust God. In fact, they've actually, I've heard them say this, if you trust in a doctor or if you use medicine, it is because of your lack of faith, that God does not heal that way, that God always heals without any means. The only problem with saying that is it's just not true." [00:00:04]

"God can heal any way he wants. He can heal with a doctor or without one, by a prescription or without one. But in this case, God used a prescription to heal Hezekiah. And I just want to stop and say, I thank God for my doctors. From the human perspective, I would not be here apart from the two men I mentioned earlier in this message." [00:00:31]

"Was God in that? Absolutely. And I thanked God every day for his leading me to them, for his using them, for his giving them the wisdom and the knowledge and the education and the wherewithal to deal with the disease. And so God used this prescription. He prescribed something for Hezekiah. And when that was applied, Hezekiah got better." [00:00:57]

"Missionary Isabel Kuhn wrote a book entitled In the Arena, in which she explained how her various adversities and problems had become platforms for the Lord to use as she tried to witness and minister. The final chapter in her book involved the loss of her health and her battle with breast cancer, and here are her words." [00:04:56]

"Every tickle and twinge was instantly interpreted as a grim new enemy. I know about that, and so do many of you. So, disease is ever-present with us, and the probability is that you have or will encounter it somewhere along the way. The probable encounters with disease, well, it started back in the garden. God created Adam and Eve in a state of perfect health, and their bodies were free from disease." [00:05:30]

"But then they sinned, and the whole order of nature was convulsed, and sickness became a grim reality, and death an unavoidable eventuality. And at least a portion of our days on this earth, whether we like it or not, are going to be spent ill, or sick, or diseased, or injured, or wounded, or dying." [00:05:59]

"And it is the fear of disease entering into our lives that sends a pulse beat of panic through our hearts, a call from the doctor's office, the look on the face of a physician, or a spasm in our chest. Whenever we think we've contracted a disease of any kind, we experience a plague of intensely personal and poignant fear." [00:06:28]

"Now, Hezekiah is an illustration of what people do when something like that happens. We've seen the probable encounters with disease, and we've looked at some primary examples. But now I want you to notice the painful emotions of disease in Hezekiah's response. What would you do when you first heard that? Well, you would do exactly what he did. If you're a Christian, he prayed." [00:14:45]

"It says in Isaiah 38, 1 to 3, In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death, and he turned his face toward the wall, and he prayed to the Lord, and he said, Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before you in truth with a loyal heart, and have done what is good in your sight. And he wept bitterly." [00:15:09]

"understandable in our response to disease whether we're the one who's sick or the one who's caring for the ones who are sick and though we can't predict how the Lord will answer we do know we do know that tears and prayers are seen and heard by God when we cry and when we pray the prayer was the first emotion and then came the promise in Isaiah 38 for we read and the word of the Lord came to Isaiah saying go tell Hezekiah thus says the Lord the God of David your father I have seen your tears and surely I will add to your days 15 years now this is kind of a conundrum in the Bible if you will because it seems to involve God in changing his mind I mean he had just said to Hezekiah you're gonna die but Hezekiah prayed and God heard his prayer and God listened and in mercy he gave him another 15 years someday in heaven we'll figure out all that works maybe it's just the way we have to understand it from our perspective but it does give us an encouragement does it not that prayer changes things not just us but prayer changes things prayer changed things for Hezekiah when he prayed and that ought to remind us that there's a lot that we can do but there's nothing we can ever do that's more powerful or more important than to pray sometimes we say well I've tried everything else and I guess all that's left is prayer and we demote prayer to the bottom of the list when it should be elevated to the top of the list by the way let's start with prayer let everything else descend from that Hezekiah prayed listen to me and God will hear your prayers and God will be in your God heard him, and God answered his prayer and gave him 15 more years. Interesting, though, that God didn't just speak from heaven and say, Hezekiah, be healed." [00:17:48]

"When we are ill, we have to work hard at staying spiritually and emotionally strong. We often need physical therapy, but God is the great spiritual therapist who can keep us strong of heart even when we're weak of body. And what we have learned, those of us who have been through any kind of sickness at all, is this, that it is our attitude which is so important." [00:29:16]

"You look at people who battle diseases and become victorious in getting past the deadlines, you will discover that for many of them, it wasn't even just the medicine or the good doctors or the therapy or whatever. It was the spiritual therapy. It was the spiritual therapy. It was the spiritual whatever. It was their own personal attitude, their own personal fortitude. And I found a verse of scripture this week that I'd never seen before, at least in this light. I wrote it down, and I want to give it to you. It's Proverbs 18, 14, and it says this, the spirit of a man will sustain him in his sickness." [00:29:39]