Rev. David Holwick A James series #18
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
January 6, 2008
James 5:13-16
|
I. A miracle among us?
A. Mary Weaver's story.
1) Comatose-like state.
a) EEG shows no brain activity.
b) Christmas Eve she is ready to be transferred to hospice.
2) The next day she wakes up and is now almost back to normal.
B. This is what Christians pray for.
1) But what really happened?
a) A divine miracle?
b) Or normal recovery from a medication-induced coma?
2) We want to think God can intervene like this.
a) Our church has had similar experiences over the years.
b) Yet we also are aware of unanswered prayers.
II. Salvation is more than going to heaven.
A. It involves the whole person, including our physical bodies.
1) Popular verse for charismatics - "By his stripes, we are
healed."
2) Probably the majority of Jesus' miracles were healings.
B. Divine healing still grabs our attention.
1) Listening to National Public Radio (NPR) on Friday.
a) "Radio Lab" reporter attended a tent revival in upper
New York state.
b) Audience was bored when the preacher taught from the
Bible, but perked up when he announced it was time
for healings.
2) The reporter followed up on a woman who went forward for
healing of carpal tunnel pain.
a) Her pain was back.
b) She said it must be a trial from Satan.
C. Other healings are not so easily dismissed.
It was March, 1980.
Marie Hermann was 61 years old, and she had a football-sized
metastatic tumor in her abdomen.
She also had other tumors in her neck, liver, bones, and
chest.
The chemotherapy had caused her thyroid glands to fail.
In the next 6 months she lost 82 pounds.
Her husband, who was a doctor, thought she was going to die
in a few short weeks.
On September 28 of that year she went to church at Bethel Temple.
It was not a charismatic or Pentecostal church.
But on that particular Sunday the pastor asked the 1000 members
to join hands and pray for the healing of those in the church.
He never mentioned Marie, but she prayed with everyone else.
She says she would have been pleased to hold down her supper
that night.
She didn't. She got sick as usual.
But the next morning her nausea lifted [inexplicably].
She ate breakfast, then lunch, with no problems.
Her husband was skeptical of any spectacular or miraculous
recoveries.
He checked her abdomen and was surprised that he could feel no
cancer.
Ten days later she saw her cancer doctor.
No cancer was found anywhere in her body.
The doctors were baffled.
Cancers have been known to go into remission, but never this
quickly and completely.
Had Marie been healed by God?
#2737
III. The controversy of miraculous healing.
A. Some say there is no such thing as miracles.
1) It is an illusion.
2) Or it is a random coincidence.
3) Even Christians admit many "faith healers" are flashy frauds.
Investigator James Randi exposed faith healer Peter
Popoff on the Johnny Carson show.
Randi had intercepted radio transmissions from Peter's
wife that informed her husband of illnesses in the
audience.
When Peter announced the illness to the congregation,
everyone assumed he had supernatural knowledge.
Actually, all he had was a good earplug.
#4551
B. Some Christians say miracles ceased after the first century.
1) The apostles needed miracles to confirm their message of
the gospel, but we do not.
2) We live in a different age and God does not work
like this now.
3) Perhaps a few verses in support, but not a strong argument.
C. Most Christians believe the Bible teaches God can still heal.
1) He not only can, he does.
2) He will never stop as long as there is a need.
IV. What James says about healing.
A. The sick person should take the initiative.
1) They call on elders, not faith healers.
a) Elders are equivalent to pastors, or church leaders.
2) Elders pray "over," which may indicate person is bedridden.
B. Anointing oil has a variety of interpretations.
1) Sacramental.
a) It is holy and has sacred power.
b) This is basis of Roman Catholic "last rites."
1> For years, just done for the dying, ironically.
2> Some interpreters believe eternal healing is in
view, not earthly healing, so it is appropriate.
3> Now called the "rites of healing."
2) Medicine.
a) Many examples from ancient times.
1> Note story of Good Samaritan. (oil & wine)
2> The word "anoint" is not the typical Bible word
for the sacramental use of oil; more like "daub."
b) Prayer should go hand-in-hand with medicine.
3) Symbolic.
a) Perhaps represents the Holy Spirit.
b) Jesus used symbols (mud, spit) to increase faith.
1> Note that there is more emphasis on prayer than oil.
2> The prayer of faith makes them well, not the oil.
C. Faith is critical.
1) Faith is trust in God, not just hopefulness or optimism.
2) Our response is important to God.
a) A lack of faith can block his healing power. Matt 13:58
b) James says what Jesus says: all things are possible
to those who have faith. Matt 21:22
D. Physical health is intertwined with spiritual health.
1) Healing is tied with the forgiveness of sins.
a) Not all sickness is caused by sin (note the "if").
b) However, even modern people must admit that some is.
1> Alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual disease can all lead
to broken health.
2> Few things are more healing than knowing your sin
and guilt has been removed.
2) The emphasis is on our relationship with God.
V. We have a taste of God's promises, not the totality.
A. If Christians were not to be sick, we would not die.
1) Death is the ultimate sickness, and sign of the curse.
2) All Christians still die, at least until the Rapture.
B. Examples from the Bible itself.
1) Prophet Elisha performed many miraculous healings.
a) He even raised the dead.
b) Yet he died from an illness. 2 Kg 13:14
2) The apostle Paul practiced healing.
a) Yet he had to leave his friend Trophimus sick in
Miletus. Probably not due to a lack of faith.
b) Our bodies are in "bondage to decay" until the
Resurrection. Rom 8:21
VI. Don't underestimate the power of prayer.
A. Even secular authorities are taking notice.
In 1983 an unusual experiment was conducted in a large
San Francisco hospital.
393 sick people were prayed for by Christians.
A control group had no one praying for them.
The patients and the doctors did not know which group they
were in.
The people praying were born again Christians and did not
know the patients.
Results: the ones prayed for had fewer complications,
heart attacks and pneumonia.
Something found in the National Enquirer?
No, the study was published in the Journal of the American
Medical Association in 1989, which is noteworthy in itself!
#761
B. Some examples are so powerful they cannot be ignored.
At the age of 14, Barbara Cummiskey had nothing wrong with
her.
But at 15 she began to stumble and lose her coordination.
She thought it was just part of growing up.
Then her vision began to blur.
Her left hand tightened into a half-fist.
By age 19 her doctors knew exactly what she had - Multiple
Sclerosis, or M.S.
It is an unpredictable disease.
There were times she would get a little better, and even
walk without a cane.
But by 1977 her diaphragm was paralyzing.
A year later, one lung collapsed and withered, and the other
had only half-strength.
The M.S. proceeded to strike her intestines, proving she had
the most dangerous form of the disease.
As a result, most of her intestines had to be removed.
A hole had to be cut in her neck so she could breathe.
Three times she had a heart attack.
As a final indignity, tumors related to M.S. began to grow
on her beautiful hands and face.
She and her family were preparing for her to die.
She was only 31 years old.
22 years before, at age 9, she had said to Jesus: "My life
is yours."
For a while she turned away from God, but as the disease came
to its final stages she became closer to him than ever.
Nurses would come in and find her talking to God as if he
were right in the room.
June 7, 1981.
A local religious radio station had mentioned Barbara and
450 cards poured in.
On this Sunday, two women from her church came to read the
cards to her.
Barbara heard a voice over her shoulder.
The others in the room heard nothing.
This calm voice told her, "My child, get up and walk."
Barbara told the women she was going to walk, so they should
go get her family.
She had not walked in two years.
She got out of the bed and started down the hall.
Her atrophied legs now had muscle tone and firmness.
Her father could not say a word.
He grabbed her and danced around the room.
M.S. is incurable - her doctors say she never should have
gotten well.
Yet spinal taps showed no trace of M.S. left in her.
Her lung should have been destroyed, yet it was completely
healthy and functioning.
The lung disease, the tumors, and the nerve damage were gone.
Her health was completely restored, instantly.
God can do more than we ask or imagine.
#11
=========================================================================
SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 11 "The Power of Prayer To Heal," by Rodney Clapp, Christianity Today
magazine, December 16, 1983, p. 16.
# 761 "Prayer Experiment," original source unknown (I had photocopied it
and did not note where it came from).
#2737 "A Miraculous Healing of Cancer," by Rodney Clapp, Christianity
Today magazine, December 16, 1983, p. 13.
#4551 "Some Thoughts About Faith Healing," by Stephen Barrett, M.D.,
http://www.quackwatch.com/01quackeryrelatedtopics/faith.html.
These and 30,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
=========================================================================
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
Created with the Freeware Edition of HelpNDoc: Easy CHM and documentation editor