Ron Dunn Podcast - Does God Heal Today - Part 3

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

Christ is not only to be preached as the Savior. He should also be preached as the Healer. From Matthew 8:16-17.

All right, now open your Bibles this morning to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 8. Matthew, chapter 8, and in a moment we're going to read two verses. Matthew, chapter 8, verses 16 and 17. Before we read these verses, I want to say again that when we come to this question, does God heal today? The answer is, yes, he does. That is really not the crux of the problem. The problem, the controversy, the questions revolving around divine healing focus upon basically three questions. Number one, is healing in the atonement? In other words, when Christ died for our sins, did he also die for our sickness, so that healing is

as much a part of the gospel message as forgiveness? In other words, Christ is to be preached not only as the Savior, he is also to be preached as the healer. And we can expect healing just as much as we can expect forgiveness, for healing is in the atonement. Christ not only died for our sins, but he also died for our sickness. The second question is this, is sickness from the devil? Is all illness contrary to the will of God? So that we can say that every time a person is ill, it is simply the affliction of the devil, contrary to what God has purposed, is sickness from Satan. And finally, the third question, is it then always God's will for a believer to be healed? Does Jesus want us well? Now, the answer, the correct biblical answer to these questions, I think, is of tremendous importance, as we'll see in a little while. So we're going to focus our

attention today upon these three questions. Question number one is healing in the atonement. Did Isaiah mean in Isaiah 53 when he says we are healed by his stripes, did he mean and does the New Testament corroborate that when Christ died upon the cross, he literally atoned for our sicknesses? Now, the primary passage that is used to support this theory is found in Matthew chapter 8 and verse 17. We'll read the verse before it also, verses 16 and 17.

And when evening had come, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were ill, in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases. Now, this is the primary text that is used to support the idea that Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, died not only for our sins, but also died for our sicknesses. That healing is in the atonement. Therefore,

we have the right to claim healing from Christ as much as we have the right to claim forgiveness. Now, that is a tremendous claim to be made. And the claim focuses, as I've said, primarily upon this particular verse, that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases. So that when I claim healing, I am standing on atonement ground. I have the right to claim healing simply because Jesus Christ died for it. I have as much right to claim healing as I do to claim forgiveness. Well, let's look at this verse. The first thing that we need to ask ourselves is, when was this statement made? When was this prophecy fulfilled? Now, verse 17 says that what Jesus is doing in healing all of these

folk who were ill was done in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled. Now, when was this prophecy fulfilled? I think it is extremely important to notice that this statement is made nearly three years before the cross, and yet Matthew says that it was fulfilled right then and there. At that specific moment, it was fulfilled. Now, these words do not refer to the death of Christ on the cross. In the gospel accounts of the crucifixion, there are many prophecies are said to have been fulfilled, but not this one. It's reasonable to assume that if healing is as much a part of the gospel as many folks claim, it would have been mentioned at the cross. You see, if these words of Matthew had been

spoken at the time Jesus died on the cross, that would have been an entirely different matter. But these words do not refer to the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross they refer to the public earthly ministry of our Lord in other words when Jesus Christ came in his public ministry on this earth he came healing and Matthew says that was the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophet. He has taken our infirmities and carried away our diseases. And I repeat, it is extremely significant to understand that these words were spoken three years before the cross. They do not refer to his atoning death.

They refer to his public ministry. Another point is that the words translated took and bore are carried away. These words used by Matthew are Greek words that are never used in reference to propitiation or atonement. For instance, in 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 24, when Peter says that Christ bore our sins in his body on the cross, he uses the Greek word that is normally used for atonement, for having carried away in propitiation or atonement. But when Matthew writes these words, he uses different words, words that are never used in the Greek language with reference to atonement or propitiation.

Now, you see, it seems to me that the basic fault in this idea that healing is in the atonement is the idea that sickness needs atoning. To say that reveals a gross misunderstanding of the nature of atonement and the nature of sickness. You see, you only need to atone

for something that is sinful, that is wrong. Now, only sin needs to be atoned for. Sickness is not a sin. To be sure, it is the result of sin. And the reason we have sickness today is because of man's sin, because of the fall of the human race. But being sick itself is not a sin. It is simply the consequence or the result of sin. And only sin needs to be atoned. The great fault in the idea

that healing is in the atonement is that sickness itself needs to be atoned. It doesn't. But there's something else that I think is even more significant than this. You remember Paul's thorn in the flesh that he describes in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 9. He says that when God gave him that word, that his strength is made perfect and Paul's weakness and that God's grace would be sufficient, Paul then says, I therefore glory rejoice in my infirmities. Now, the interesting thing is that Paul uses the exact Greek word that Matthew uses in chapter 8 and verse 17. Now the point is this, if Christ by his atonement, by his death upon the cross took away our infirmities, how could Paul still have them? And more to

the point, how could Paul glory in them? If healing needs atoning, if sickness needs atoning like sin, that would be the same as Paul saying, I glory in sin. I glory and rejoice in my sin. If Christ has taken away our infirmities, then how in the world could Paul say, I glory in them, I rejoice in them? I think that it is beyond question that Matthew chapter 8 and verse 17 does not in any way indicate that healing is in the atonement. It does not refer to the death of Christ on the cross. It refers to his public healing ministry.

Now, another verse that we need to look at in this matter is 1 Peter 2, verse 24. I've already made reference to it. In 1 Peter 2, verse 24, the apostle says, And he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by his wounds you were healed. Now, again, I think a very casual reading of the context will reveal clearly that Peter is referring here to healing from our sins, from going astray, from being rebellious. He's quoting, of course, from Isaiah 53, and he's making an application of it.

And he is not at all referring to physical healing. As I said, a casual reading of the context will reveal this. He is referring to our spiritual healing. But a further consideration is this. If healing is as much a part of the atonement as forgiveness, then we should be able to receive healing in the same way as we receive forgiveness. For instance, when Jesus died on the cross, he atoned for all sin, every kind of sin. And when we obtain forgiveness, we obtain forgiveness for all sin every kind of sin

every variety of sin no sin is excluded we all agree with that but that's not true in the matter of healing for instance i've yet seen anyone to claim where they have had missing teeth restored now i read last week i was in tennessee, I read last week, I was in Tennessee, and I read where some fellow was claiming that people were having their teeth filled by gold and silver in his meetings and the fillings were in the form of a cross. If you want to believe that, you can. But I have never yet seen anybody who had missing teeth replaced

or an amputated finger or an amputated arm replaced. I've never seen a bald man have his hair restored. People still wear glasses. You see, a number of years ago, I went through a real struggle at this point, and I was wanting to believe, folks, I was wanting to believe in divine healing for everyone. I have not approached this subject saying I don't want to believe in it. I approached this subject years ago with all of my heart. I had good reason wanting to believe that healing was in the atonement, and all that a person had to do was to exercise faith and claim it and he would be healed and i i was reading several books by a single author on this subject and one day i noticed something every book had a picture of the author in the front of it and i noticed he was wearing glasses and that that sort of disturbed me. If healing is in the atonement,

and if God wants everybody to be perfectly healed and whole, and healing is just as much a part of the atonement as forgiveness, then what about those glasses? You see, amputated arms and legs are not restored. Missing teeth are not restored. Missing hair is not restored. You may think this is ridiculous, but what I'm saying to you, friend, is this. If healing is on the same level and the same basis as forgiveness of sins, then we ought to receive healing just as we receive forgiveness of sins, but that is not true. Another point is this. Forgiveness is immediate. You do not have

to beg and plead and go through a long period of probation before God forgives. His forgiveness is instantaneous and immediate. But even the greatest advocates of atonement, healing, admit that healing is often gradual. There's an inconsistency there. Another point, forgiveness is never withheld because the seeker did not have enough faith. And yet this is repeatedly the case with healing. How many times have we said and heard others say, well, this person just doesn't have enough faith in order to be healed, but no one has ever yet come to Christ seeking forgiveness who was sent away because, well, your faith is not strong enough. No, if healing were as much a part of the atonement as forgiveness, then these things would not be so. In addition to that, if atonement reverses or eliminates the result of the fall,

which is what atonement healers profess, why do men still sweat and women have pain in childbirth and snakes still crawl around on the ground, and men still die. You see, for some reason, folks have singled out one part of the curse. Now, the curse upon the human race, the curse of the fall, was multiple.

A man would earn his living by the sweat of his brow, women would have pain and childbirth, and the serpent would crawl on his belly for the rest of his life, and the ground would bring forth thorns and weeds and such as this, and as a result men would die. And yet when folks talk about the fact that the atonement has reversed all of that, and what we lost in Adam we regain in Christ here and now physically, yet they just single out one thing and that's sickness. And yet, sickness is hardly even referred to when it deals with the curses of the fall. I tell you this,

when I see snakes walking upright and men no longer sweating and women no longer having pain in childbirth, then I'll believe that the atonement immediately reversed all of the results of the fall. You see, Paul in that tremendous eighth chapter of Romans points out that the creation still groans in travail right now.

And we also, we who have been redeemed are still groaning, you see, in this body. All things have not been reversed yet. You say, well, healing is in the atonement. Friend, it may well be, but we do not have everything that the atonement friend it may well be but we do not have everything

that the atonement made possible I'll tell you something else that's in the atonement no pain, no sorrow, no death for in Revelation it says all the former things are passed away heaven is included in the atonement too but we do not have yet everything that our salvation purchased for us

if the atonement eliminates the result of the fall, then why does it not eliminate death? Death is spoken of in the Bible far more than sickness as being a consequence of the fall. And yet, these who profess to believe in atonement healing never, never say that death has been eliminated. They can't do that. Well, if the fall and all of its curse has been reversed, then why hasn't death been taken away? You see, we are still a part of the human situation, and as Paul says, we've still grown.

Waiting for what? The redemption of the body. Our body has not yet been redeemed as it's going to be redeemed. So, in summarizing this, let me just say, atonement healing, the doctrine of atonement healing is inconsistent with Scripture. There is absolutely no scriptural basis for believing it. If it is as important as many are making it out to be, why is there no clear statement in the Word of God as such? There are plenty of clear, unmistakable statements concerning forgiveness, but there is not one about healing. It is inconsistent with Scripture.

It is inconsistent with logic. This whole theory is shot full of holes. It just will not hold water. If, as I've already said, the atonement reversed the results of the fall, why just one result? Why not the rest of them? It's illogical.

It won't hold water. But most of all, this theory is inconsistent with the facts. Folks, the plain truth is it just isn't so. That's all there is to it. It just doesn't work. I don't need the Bible. You do not need the Bible to tell you that this is not so. From our experience, we know that this idea that God wants everyone to be

well and that all we have to do is to name it and claim it, folks, that just isn't so. It doesn't work. Christians do get sick and are not healed. They do die before they reach the age of 70. But somebody says, well, the problem is they just don't have enough faith. They just didn't have enough faith. My friend, I want to know how much faith does it take? How much faith does it take? I have enough faith to be saved, and it seems to me that being saved is a greater miracle than being healed. It took the blood of God's Son to save me, but he could have healed me without ever dying on the cross, as he did. I have enough faith to be saved.

Why don't I have enough faith to be healed? Well, it just takes a special kind of faith. You have to believe right up to the very end. I have a pastor friend who several years ago got caught up into this and he came down with a disease that was treatable and curable,

but he believed that atonement covered the healing, and that if he just had faith and would claim it, that he would be healed. He refused to go to the doctor, and one night in his home, while people of similar persuasion were gathered around him praying for him, he died. He died needlessly, uselessly, tragically. In my own opinion, the people who taught him that ought to be tried for manslaughter or negligent homicide. Folks told him that he didn't need to go to the doctor, that all he had to do was simply trust God and believe and he'd be healed. And folks, he died and it wasn't at all necessary.

It was a very easy thing to treat. Now the question is, brother, if that fellow didn't have enough faith, then who does? How much faith does it take? You say, well well maybe he believed but right at the last moment he didn't believe friend if that's the truth I want to say that we have a very cruel

and heartless God a God who would toy with us and while we believe ourselves to the point of death and maybe one second before we die we somehow falter in our faith and he said well I'm sorry, all that believing you've done is of no avail.

You didn't hold out faith or zap. You've had it. Folks, I want to tell you something. That is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. What about the father of the demon-possessed boy who said, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. And I've made this statement to you many, many times

that with only two or three exceptions, everyone who ever came to Jesus wanting to be healed or needing a miracle, all of them with just two or three exceptions had a weak and imperfect faith. And yet Jesus still responded to that weak and imperfect faith. It's not the size of the faith that counts. It is the object of the faith. Those who say, well, you just don't have enough faith to be healed, don't even understand the true nature of faith. The power of faith does not lie in its size, it lies in its object. Now, I know that they say, well, this person didn't have enough faith, or there was some unconfessed sin.

I do not want to be unnecessarily unkind, but my dear friend, these things are cop-outs. That's a cop-out. These are escape clauses necessary if you're going to preach such a doctrine. If you're going to preach that anybody can be healed, that it's God's will for everybody to be healed, then you're going to have to come up with some escape clauses, some fine print in the contract that lets you off the hook where you don't have to admit that what you're preaching is wrong.

And there are three, basically, that are used. One is they just didn't have enough faith. Another one is, well, now they have perfect healing. And the other is, of course, well, there was just some sin unconfessed in their life. And as I said in our last time together, nowhere in the Bible is death ever spoken of as perfect healing. And if a fellow dies of cancer, friend, he's not healed, he's dead. Some unconfessed sin.

Well, it seems to me that those who preach this doctrine want to leave all the responsibility and guilt for failure on the doorstep of others. There's never any thought or never any consideration that perhaps they themselves are wrong. This leaves them free to go on preaching and promising anything. You see, it's a marvelous arrangement. You can promise anything. You can preach anything. And if it doesn't work, which it doesn't, it's always someone else's fault. There is no four-square, four-fold gospel.

The gospel is defined by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 through 3, where he says, This is the gospel that I delivered unto you, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture. He arose again, he was buried, and he arose again the third day. That is the gospel. The gospel, friend, is Christ died for our sins, he was buried, and he arose again on the third day. And when Jesus was giving His commission to His disciples in the Gospel of Luke chapter

24, He says that they should go and that repentance for forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in His name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. The Word of God, the Lord Jesus, the Bible never commissions us to preach healing along with and as a part of forgiveness. It never does. To offer healing, now listen to me carefully, to offer physical healing of the body as a part of the gospel of Christ, is to preach a false gospel. And those who proclaim that right along with forgiveness there comes healing and that Christ is just as much the healer today

as He is the Savior, that healing is a part of the gospel offer, that is a false gospel and it holds out a false and cruel hope to those who listen. No, I do not believe there is any scriptural evidence at all for this idea that healing for me today is in the atonement, that Christ died for my sickness just as much as he died for my sin. Now we must come to the second question. Is sickness from Satan? Is sickness from Satan? Now, those who believe in atonement healing nearly always at the same time believe that all sickness is from Satan.

Therefore, it is always contrary to the will of God. When you are living a perfectly normal life, they say you are well and happy. Now, I want it understood that sickness is a result of sin and a result of the fall. When man sinned, he died spiritually, and

he died physically, he began to die physically, and a part of that process is sin. There is no doubt about it. There is no argument. Sickness is a result of the fall. But simple answers to complex problems raise more problems. I was reading a book the other day by C.S. Lovett, a man that I admire, and I've read much of his material, and it's good, but he makes this statement. When a person becomes sick, he has in some way violated the laws of health. For a person to get well, he must cooperate with that same law. Now, here again, that is too simple an answer to too complex a problem. When a person becomes sick, he says, he has in some way violated the laws of health. I have a very dear friend who has a kidney disease he

inherited from his mother. What law of health did he violate? There are certain diseases that are passed on from one generation to another, and you may be born with that disease as a baby. You're born with it. Now, you've not violated any laws of health, and cooperating with the laws of health won't help you a bit. And I've known many. I've had some very dear friends who have cooperated with every law of health they've known about, and they still remain sick. What law

of health did Job violate? None that we know of. We understand the reason that he was afflicted. Folks, what I'm saying is these complex problems with these pat over simple answers just don't solve the problem or answer the questions. Well, is all sickness of the devil and does God want you well? Let me read in John chapter 9. Turn to your Bibles to the gospel of John chapter 9. Find an answer to that question. Verses 1 through 3, And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? Now, bless their hearts, these disciples, they had the common philosophy of that day, as it was in Job's day that if somebody was sick or afflicted, no doubt about it, somebody sinned, either he or his parents.

So they simply assumed the minute they saw this man blind, who sinned, this man or his parents? Verse 3, Jesus answered, It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents, but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him. Now, when Jesus said this man didn't sin nor his parents, he didn't mean that they had never sinned. Oh, of course not. We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

What he meant was there was no sin that these parents committed or this man committed that caused this sickness. No, friends, all sickness is not of the devil and a result of sin. that these parents committed or this man committed that caused this sickness. No, friends, all sickness is not of the devil and a result of sin. Sometimes God sends sickness himself for a redemptive purpose. What about Lazarus in John chapter 11? Jesus says this sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God. In Acts chapter 12, verse 23, you remember Herod, he made that great speech and everybody jumped up and down

and said, he's a God, he's a God. And immediately the Lord smote him and he was eaten with worms. Now there, God sent sickness as a judgment. The devil may be the messenger boy who delivers the sickness, but God is the source.

I hate to bring this up again, but last week in Tennessee, this subject of curses came up again. I don't know where all this started. I've got an idea, but I have been bombarded in the last few weeks by people coming to me with all these questions. And last week in Tennessee,

I heard about a fellow. They said, well, he had arthritis because of a curse that was passed down from his grandparents. Not long ago, I met a young lady, a pastor's wife, who was suffering from migraine headache. A Baptist preacher, by the way, told her that it was a curse, something her mother did, and that she'd break that curse, she could be healed. Now again, folks, this idea of curses, the teachings in James has been grossly misunderstood, and I do not want to go over all that again.

I did that last week. That is not at all what James is talking about. Those passages used from Exodus and Deuteronomy refer to the curse that comes from disobeying the law of God. And yet Jesus, the Bible says, has redeemed us from the curse of the law. I tell you, it is frightening the extent to which some people are going with this. Last week in Tennessee, it was called to my attention,

a certain fellow who refused to take money. I don't mean money in general, but specific bills, specific money, because it was cursed. Now, folks, I have a serious doubt as to whether or not an inanimate object can carry a curse. That would sound better among the voodoo religions of Haiti. I think Paul dealt with this when he dealt with the idea of meat being offered to idols. that would sound better among the voodoo religions of Haiti. I think Paul dealt with this when he dealt with the idea of meat being offered to idols. There were those in those days, the days of the New Testament, there in Corinth who believed that you shouldn't touch meat that had been offered to idols. Why? Well, because it had a curse on it.

Paul makes it very clear, he makes it very clear that that is not true, that that is ridiculous. He said, you sit down and you eat it asking no questions. And I believe that when somebody gives you money or something, you take it asking no questions and spending. It's interesting that Paul says the only occasion in which you should not eat meat that's been offered to idols if it might offend a weaker brother. In other words, here's a weaker brother over here who believes that that meat is cursed and unclean because it was offered to idols. And Paul says,

for his sake, lest you offend him and cause him to stumble, do not eat. But notice, it is the weaker brother who is offended. And so often these folks who teach and preach this kind of thing think themselves to be strong and mature, and yet Paul says they're the weaker brethren. And he says that meat offered to idols is nothing. You go ahead and eat it. There's no curse attached to it. These things are not evidences of spiritual maturity,

but evidences of spiritual immaturity and weakness. I was reading the other day over in Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and I came across this over there in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 18, where the prophets deal with this proverb that was popular among the people of that day that says, Our fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. And evidently that was really going around. That was a big thing. You see, it was a way to cop out. It was a way to lay the blame on somebody else.

It was a way of saying, God is punishing me for what my father did or my grandfather. And the prophet says, You shall no more say, The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. He says, Every man shall die for his own iniquity. Now my dear friend, I want to tell you that the New Testament, the Word of God does not teach in this age of grace that God punishes children for the sins of their parents.

Now, it is true, I know it to be so, that our parents can pass on to us certain psychological impressions and traits in our environment and the example that they set for us can influence us, but that's a whole different matter. God himself never lays a curse on us for something our parents did. And he says, You shall no more say, Our fathers have eaten sour grapes, and our children's teeth are set on edge. We love to be able to escape responsibility and lay the blame at the foot of somebody else, but that is not the case. And it is true, as I said, that while their lifestyle and example and psychological influences may affect me, it is not the judgment of God. The great inconsistency of all of this is that some of those who teach

this idea of curses being passed on also teach that we're new creatures in Christ. We no longer have a sin nature. We're not even supposed to call ourselves sinners saved by grace, but only saints. And yet we still have it hanging on to us like a leech a curse passed on from ancestors. Folks, that's totally inconsistent and contradictory. I do not believe the Bible teaches that all sickness is from the devil, that it's a curse of God, and as I said, the devil may be the messenger, but God is the source. To say that all sickness is of Satan,

and therefore it is always contrary to the will of God, is totally incorrect. It was the will of God for that man to be born blind. It was the will of God for Lazarus to be sick. And sometimes it is the will of God for hisus to be sick. And sometimes it is the will of God for his children to be afflicted. Which brings us to the third and final question.

Does God want us well? Is it God's will that we be healed? Is God on the side of health, someone said. Well, folks, that's not the issue. God is on the side of holiness. Well, I believe God wants us healthy. Well, I believe God wants us healthy. Well, I believe he wants us holy.

And if one of the ways to make us holy is by making us unhealthy, God will do that. God never paints himself in a corner. God never compromises his sovereignty. I do not believe here again that the Bible teaches at all that it is always God's will for us to be well. Let me just, and we've got to hurry,

let me just mention two or three scriptures. Number one, in 2nd Timothy chapter 4 and verse 20, Erastus remained at Corinth, but Trophimus I left sick at Miletus. Now, I think that Paul, if anyone ever did, had a gift of healing. We've seen him heal, and yet here he leaves one of his fellow workers sick. Why did not Paul heal him? And if it was because this fellow didn't have enough faith or because of some sin in his life, why didn't Paul mention it? Paul himself had physical problems. There's no doubt about that.

I just refer you to these passages. 2 Corinthians 12, verse 7. In Galatians 4, verses 13 and 15. In chapter 6 of Galatians chapter 4, verses 13 and 15, and chapter 6 of Galatians in verse 11. Paul refers to some physical problem that he had. 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 1 and 7 and 10. You can look these up at your leisure. But it is plain that Paul himself

has certain physical problems. And to me, one of the strongest statements of all is found in 1 Timothy 5, verse 23. Here Paul is writing to this young preacher, Timothy, and he says, No longer drink wine exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. Now, folks, what I want to know is why did not Paul say to people today, Listen, you say you've got stomach ailment? You don't have to put up with that. You don't have to have that.

Don't take any medicine. You don't need to take any wine. Just trust God. Name it and claim it. Be healed. Why didn't Paul tell him to seek healing? Why did not Paul tell him to seek healing? Why did not Paul tell him to claim healing? Here is Timothy, a young preacher who has repeated problems, frequent stomach problems, and yet Paul simply tells him not to get healed or to pray for healing or call the elders of the

church to pray for him. He simply says that he's to take a little wine. Paul's thorn in the flesh was a gift from God, and he gloried in it. It may have been sent to him by Satan. Satan may have been the messenger, but God was the source. Now, in conclusion to this question, I have to say there is no teaching in the Scripture that indicates it is always God's will to heal.

To the contrary, the Bible indicates that these things form a part of God's will to mature and deepen our spiritual life. Now, in conclusion and in summary, the idea that healing is in the atonement, that Christ died for our sicknesses, that sickness is always from the devil, therefore contrary to the will of God, and anybody and everybody who trusts God can always be healed. In closing, I want to make seven observations about this idea. Number one, it is dangerous. That teaching is dangerous. I have already referred to a preacher friend of mine who several years ago died simply

because of this teaching. I have a friend whose wife was suffering from a certain ailment, and a visiting preacher told her that it was because of a curse, something her mother had done when her daughter was a little girl, and all she had to do was to break the curse and claim healing. And they said, You just trust God and act like you're healed, and that means stop taking your medicine. They told her to stop taking her medicine. She was taking several.

The truth of the matter is, one of those medicines, the doctor had told her that if she were to stop it abruptly, that it could cause a cardiac arrest. Friend, that's dangerous. That's dangerous advice. There's another preacher who said that if we even think sickness, we give the devil permission to give us sickness. In other words, if I think to myself I may have cancer, suddenly I've given the devil authority which he did not before have.

I've given the devil authority to give me cancer. Ridiculous teaching. And so this preacher said that you ought never to even look for the signs of cancer. You know, if a woman has a lump on her breast, she must not even think about it and don't go to the doctor and get it examined because you're thinking that way. You're opening your mind to it, you're giving the devil authority to give you cancer. My dear friend, a fellow who preaches like that and is taking the life of a listener in his hand had better be sure of his doctrine. This isn't just some Bible doctrine that doesn't have any relationship to life. When people begin regulating their activities and they're living by what I'm preaching and they're saying to me something that could result in my death and that's another

matter altogether. What if suddenly a person found a growth, a woman had a lump on her breast or found a growth on her body somewhere and said, well, I'm not going to open my mind to this. I'm not going to give the devil authority. And that thing was malignant and it ate their life away and they died. Would you think that such a preacher who told them that would be guilty of negligent homicide? A doctor who gave advice like that could be tried and sued. Preachers cannot. Folks, it's a dangerous doctrine when it goes that far, when it goes that far.

And I realize, of course, that not everyone who believes in atonement healing believes that we ought not to use doctors and medicines. I understand that, and I'm thankful for it. But I know that there are others and many others who teach and preach this, and I know people who are following it, and it's dangerous. The second observation is this doctrine adds guilt to grief. I stood in Little Rock, Arkansas not long ago and talked to a young widow whose husband had died some time ago.

And the guilt that was put there by friends who said, well, if you'd had enough faith, he would have been healed. A woman in our church lost her husband, and some of these of these so-called friends came to her and said, if you had had enough faith, your husband would not have died. My dear friends, adding guilt to grief in the name of Jesus is shameful and unforgivable. It adds guilt to grief. How many people are suffering such torments of grief because they believe, if I had just had enough faith, or sometimes angry at the person who died,

if they'd had enough faith, they wouldn't have died. It adds guilt to grief. Number three, it raises false hopes, which I think is always a cruel thing to tell people who are dying well you're not dying just believe you're going to be healed everything's all right you're healed already you just don't know it my dear friend that raises false hopes number four it promotes self-condemnation. I've talked with so many people lately who've been bothered by this.

They're wanting to know what's wrong with them. Why can't they be healed? Now, they may have nothing more than an ingrown toenail or asthma or hay fever, but they've been told that if they just trust God and have faith and don't have any unconfessed sin in their life, that God will heal them, and they've not been able to be healed.

And so they walk around in a fog of self-condemnation. What's wrong with me? Doesn't God love me? I must be lost. I can't be healed. It promotes self-condemnation. Number five, it prevents God from ministering to us through sickness. I believe with all my heart the Bible teaches and experience proves that many a time God allows sickness and affliction to come into our lives as a means of ministering grace to us as Paul's thorn did.

But if we believe that all sickness is of the devil always contrary to God's will and God always wants us to be well, then we're going to be occupied with only one thing, and that's getting rid of the affliction, and we're not going to be open to receive its ministry. And we're going to waste our sickness. We're going to miss some of the greatest ministering that God could do to us. It prevents us from seeing what God is God could do to us. It prevents us

from seeing what God is trying to say to us in certain situations. Number six, it destroys compassion for those who are hurting. For me, this is the main thing. It destroys compassion for those who are hurting right now not far from where I'm preaching there is a young lady dying of cancer and she's been told by her preacher friends that the reason she's dying of cancer some unconfessed sin in her life friend when a person is in that kind of situation and they're on a deathbed and they know what they need is compassion. And here comes someone with a Pharisee attitude

that says, well, you don't have to be sick. You don't have to be sick. You could be healed if you just get right with God. You don't have to put up with that. It creates a Pharisee judgmental attitude. It destroys compassion for those who are hurting. This past week while I was in Tennessee, I was told of a certain pastor in that area who had preached this idea that healing is in the atonement. For a long time he had been preaching it,

and all of his people believed it. The church accepted it. He said it is always God's will for you to be healed, and if you're not healed, it's because you don't have enough faith or there's some sin in your life. His boy became ill. He took him to a doctor that diagnosed him as a diabetic that needed help, needed medication,

needed treatment. But this pastor refused to get the boy help because of what he had preached. And he went on and on and on, believing that God would heal him. The boy got steadily worse and worse and worse. And one day, finally, this pastor went to a pastor friend who did not hold his views on atonement healing and wanted to know what should he do. He was terrified. His boy was getting so sick he was afraid that his condition would be irreversible. The pastor friend said, I'll tell you what you'd better do. You'd better take that boy to the doctor and get him some help.

He said, but what about my preaching? What about my church? I've told these people. He said, listen, you ought to think more of your boy than you think of your preaching and of your ego and pride, and you just tell your church you were wrong. He finally relented, and just before that boy had gone too far to receive any help, he took him to the doctor.

The doctor began treating him, and it's going to take the boy a long time to recover, unnecessarily because the father waited so long. He went to his church, told his church about it, said that he was wrong in what he'd been preaching. Do you know what? He had to resign. They made him leave.

There was no compassion for the boy who was sick. They simply said, Pastor, there's some sin in your life. Yeah, we know, yeah. Something wrong with you. You've got some sin in your life. Or that boy wouldn't be sick, and he had to quit, resign. Can this be the family of God? Can this be the body of Christ? Can this be brothers and sisters

in Christ that when somebody is sick and they're not healed, we simply have to say there's some sin in your life? Of course, we have to say that because our doctrine doesn't work in their case. And so we've got to have an out. We've got to have an escape clause. And it destroys compassion for those who are hurting. For when we look at them, all we can say is, well, you don't have to put up with that.

You'd be healed. Just be positive. And what they need is sympathy and compassion. Number seven, atonement healing cheapens the gospel and holds it up to ridicule. My dear friends, I have to say that I just believe that when Jesus Christ shed his blood in that agonizing death on the cross, it was for far more than to save me from the heartbreak of psoriasis, or so I wouldn't have to have asthma. It cheapens the gospel, holds it up to ridicule when we keep saying these people are healed

and they keep dying. And we're saying it in the name of the gospel. Paul says, this is the gospel that I preached unto you, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture. He was buried and rose again the third day according to the Scripture. Folks, that's the good news. That's the good news.

We are still in a human body and we've grown in this body waiting for the redemption of the body. We do not yet experience everything that Jesus obtained for us when he died on the cross. Only when we come to the last book in the Bible, the revelation of the Lord.