When Healing Waits and What We Can Possibly Do About It

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I am your host, Mark John.
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Thank you for tuning in.
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Why God doesn't heal.
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There are many reasons why God may not heal someone, but more importantly, what we can do about it in case we are on that list.
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For prayer, call 747-4 Prayer.
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747-the number four in the word prayer.
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God may have a purpose in weakness.
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This is number one.
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Paul asked three times, you remember the story.
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Paul has asked thrice for his thorn in the flesh to be removed.
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But God answers him, which is kind of unique.
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And it's a conversation, it's not an inspiration.
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It sounds like it's an audible.
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And it says, My grace is sufficient for thee.
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Second Corinthians 12, 7 through 10.
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Sometimes God's power is displayed through sustaining someone rather than immediately removing the affliction.
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This does not sound good for certain denominations.
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They don't like this verse.
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And one thing they could argue and have some merit is that this affliction, this thorn, whatever it would be, may not have been a sickness.
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And they would argue if it was a sickness, God would heal it, but because this was a thorn, that God did not have to heal it right away, or some sort of argument like that.
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The argument at this point is irrelevant because there's a man at the time who was suffering.
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And when you're suffering, you're not necessarily worried about the label of what it is.
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You're just wondering if God will remove what is causing the suffering.
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So the thorn in this case, whether it is a sickness or eye disease or the people who are Judaizers who are coming after him, whatever your theology allows for this, he didn't want it.
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And he prayed thrice, three times, that God would take it away.
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And God said, My grace is sufficient.
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That was meaning no, he is not.
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And so we need to understand for the apostle who has faith that his grace was going to be sufficient.
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Healing may be delayed rather than denied.
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This is number two.
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Lazarus, if you remember, was sick.
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So let's assume that we like are like Lazarus and we are not feeling good, and we are sick and near unto death.
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We don't know maybe that we're near unto death, but we do know we are sick.
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And Yeshua intentionally waited before going to him.
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That is always a marvelous story to read.
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If you are Lazarus, you don't know, then you just don't know.
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But there is something that Yeshua knows that he still decided intentionally to delay.
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He has something greater in mind than healing a sickness.
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But how would you feel if you are Lazarus and you are sick and you are wondering if the Lord is coming to heal you and he does not show up?
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He intentionally waited to go to him.
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The delay served a larger purpose that the people involved could not initially see.
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How you work with that in your particular denominations is completely up to you.
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Number three, we still live in a fallen, mortal creation.
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We still live in a fallen and mortal creation.
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Romans says creation groans and travails, and believers themselves groan while we are waiting for the redemption of our body.
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Complete bodily restoration is ultimately connected with resurrection, not necessarily guaranteed before death.
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That's a tough one, isn't it?
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Because this is talking about the ultimate healing.
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So some people, if you remember when Yeshua says, hey, when you bind, you know, when you're going to cast out a demon, go for the strong man.
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Well, isn't it interesting that when we think about sickness, what would be worse?
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Having a new body or praying for a headache to go away, what would be the stronger man, so to speak, when we relay that parallel over here?
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Well, the resurrection body, and here we're still groaning.
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So that which has been promised is not yet on earth.
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Now we can pray for it, but we're groaning for it, and it did not happen immediately or instantly.
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In fact, we're still waiting.
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Take note that delay is not deny, and let's also be willing to celebrate when he brings it in the form in which he wishes to bring it.
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Lazarus had something in store with his prayers, I would be assured, but yet God has something else in mind.
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We're praying sometimes for the headache or for the cancer, but we also should be praying just as diligently for the resurrection of our bodies, that we're going to be totally transformed.
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Most people don't pray for that as they isolate and pray for the little things.
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Go ahead and pray for this up here and let these other things begin to fall into place.
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We do not ignore them, but let's go after the strong man too.
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God does not heal every faithful believer immediately.
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Now, the only argument against this is that the people we're about to mention were not faithful, because what we would have to do as a preacher trying to prove a doctrine is say, well, they probably had something going on in their life.
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But let's take a look.
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There's a very famous man in the Bible that you've probably heard of.
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His name was Trophimus.
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He was sick at Meletum.
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I'm kidding.
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Not many people know his name, but he is very important to the transmission of the gospel.
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He is one of Paul's proteges that Paul was training to take over for him when he was going to be done.
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And Paul trained a lot of people fast because he knew his time was probably getting near due to the gospel being spread.
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Be that as it may, Trophimus was one of the men that he was training, and he was sick at miletus, or meletum in this case.
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Second Timothy 4 and 20, Timothy had recurring stomach problems and often infirmities, 1 Timothy 5 23, and epaphroditis became extremely ill and nearly died, and then God did heal him.
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Extremely ill and nearly died.
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Let's pretend that took more than just four hours.
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He became ill, let's say that took a few days, and then he almost died, let's say that took almost a week.
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Do you think from day one he was praying for God to heal him?
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Now, all three men have something in common.
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They each knew Paul.
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Now, what you know about Paul and what I know about Paul, they probably knew about Paul, that Paul prayed over handkerchiefs and sent them out.
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And people were getting healed just by touching that handkerchief.
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Now think about this.
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Your mentor, Timothy Trophimus, had sent out handkerchiefs so that people could be healed.
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But he sent you a letter saying drink more wine.
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Why didn't they get a handkerchief?
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Why didn't they just receive that healing?
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What is going on in God's mind where some people get a hanky and they get a letter?
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What is going on in God's mind where they can touch the hanky and all of a sudden they're healed, but somebody who's working for the gospel falls ill and almost dies, and then God says, okay, now I'll heal.
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We have to deal with that reality, do we not?
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Or we could just say they just didn't have enough faith.
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We could say that.
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I wouldn't, but we could.
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Sometimes, and this is a big one, sin can be directly connected to sickness or physical consequences.
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First Corinthians 11, 29 through 32, Paul says some believers were weak and sick, and some had died because God's discipline connected with their conduct at the Lord's Supper.
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Yeshua also told the man he had healed at Bethesda, behold, thou art made whole.
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Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee.
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That deserves his whole podcast.
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And we might do that if God permits.
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But that gives a direct biblical connection between continuing in sin and the possibility of a worse consequence.
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And then James 5, 15 through 16 also places healing, confession, forgiveness, and prayer in close relationship.
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However, scripture does not teach that every sickness is caused by an individual sin.
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It does not teach that.
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But isn't it interesting that some are?
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So what do you do about it?
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Oh, repent.
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So you go to the strong man first.
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That sin is going to be worse than a sickness.
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Get the sin out of your life.
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The sickness can follow.
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It can follow.
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If this is the one that is connected.
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But as you're saying, there's a lot of things going on.
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It doesn't appear that Paul's thorn was because of sin in his life, but because of the surpassing revelation.
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Interesting note.
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God's answer may differ from what was requested.
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How about that one?
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We are told to ask boldly, but prayer remains subject to God's will.
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If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
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Yeshua himself prayed, nevertheless, not my will, but thying be done.
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So we need to understand that what he would have in mind, Lazarus could say, Come immediately, but he intentionally waited.
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Trophimus could say, Send me a hanky, but he might get a word of encouragement instead.
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He got left behind from an apostle, from a healing evangelist.
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He got left behind.
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We left him there because he was sick.
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And Timothy might want a hanky, but he gets a letter saying drink.
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Well, what are we going to do about that?
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That's in the Bible.
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There are cases.
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There are cases where unbelief hindered the mighty works.
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Now we're home.
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Now we're there.
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This is the only one that most people know, but now we made it.
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Matthew 13, 58 says, Yeshua did not many, did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
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James 1, 6 through 7 warns about asking while doubting.
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So faith does matter.
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We're not minimizing that.
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But if that's the only thing you understand, you're missing a lot.
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And you can cause people to suffer because they think maybe it was a lack of faith, they might have needed to repent.
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They might have a sin that they know they're continuing in that is connected to what's going on, but they're thinking they just need more faith for healing.
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Strong man, get that sin out first.
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Sometimes we simply are not told why.
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Ouch.
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Not everybody likes that.
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We want God in a box.
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We want God to be predictable.
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We want to say a formula and know that God's going to do something, and then we can take credit because I prayed, they were healed.
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Listen, a lot of you have already had that.
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We've had that.
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We've seen it overseas, we've seen it in America.
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When we pray, people are healed.
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I can tell you with guarantee it had nothing to do with me.
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There were times when I just thought there's going to be a massive amount of healing because of how I felt, and very little happened.
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And there were literally times when I felt nothing and even felt sick myself, and that's when all the massive miracles would break out.
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I've seen it happen.
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And then when they wanted to come up and touch me, like I was some great evangelist from America, I had to let them know, no, this was not me.
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I don't feel good myself.
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I'm going through some acid reflux and everything while I'm talking to you.
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I'm a little lightheaded, and yet miracles are breaking out in this church.
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It's amazing.
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And now they think I'm being humble when I say, no, no, it praise God, praise God.
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And I'm like, no, no, it's you.
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No, no, it's him.
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It really is him.
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There was nothing that I could think or sense even in me.
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What they would call the anointing, I felt nothing, and yet God was operating.
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And in fact, it's kind of humorous that one lady was walking up to me, she got healed right in front of me, so I move up because God was just right here healing.
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So I move up to see if I can get a healing.
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And I'm the one that they come to listen to.
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Faith can move mountains for sure.
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We're not minimizing faith at all.
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But there's going to be more reasons than just faith.
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And we don't want anyone to feel bad when your faith was sufficient, but maybe it was the preacher who wasn't where he needed or she needed to be, etc.
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We just went over several reasons why God may not heal.
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His grace is going to be sufficient.
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We don't like that, but that's what he told Paul.
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We have to deal with that.
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We live in a fallen world.
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Delay is not denial, and those promises are all yes and amen.
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But what if it only happened in the resurrection?
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Would you be okay with that?
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Or are you so angry at God because you're demanding your frame, your frame of reference, and your frame of time?
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Lazarus could have done that.
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He could have been very angry, and people seemingly were angry when he showed up to the city.
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But yet look what happened.
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We cannot put God in a box, we cannot control God's timing, but we can say it is God's will to heal everyone all the time.
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It is God's will for everyone to be saved, so of course he wants you to be healed.
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We know that.
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But when and how always belong to him.
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And you can hinder that.
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And that's what we want to do.
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We want to make sure that if we're not being healed right now, it's nothing we have done, there's no sin in our lives, there's nothing that we haven't confessed, there's nothing, there's no habits that we're unwilling to break.
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And that is just him saying, I'll be there when the time is right.
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So if your name is Lazarus and you're sick, or if you're apaphroditis and you're sick and near unto dying, and he didn't heal you immediately, but you're still here.
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You are still here.
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So we do pray right now that if you've repented of your sins, we pray right now that you are healed and that the healing has already begun.
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He's already secured that at the cross.
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That's already begun.
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It's already here, it's already there.
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On earth as it is in heaven, that's what we're asking for.
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That he might move on earth in this timeline, as he has in his own timeline, in his eternity.
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And that's why we pray the way we pray, and that's why it doesn't rely on me, it relies on him.
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We ask him, he gets the credit.
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We agree with him, he gets the credit.
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Yes, they say I got a gift of healing.
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However, I have to agree with him because it is a gift from him and not from me.
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Yes, we do our best to stir it up, but it's a gift from him and not from me.
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Yes, people are going to be healed by listening to this, but it is a gift from him and not from me.
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And if he doesn't heal, let's think about what's going on.
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Is it just a delay or is it a denial?
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It's not a denial, because it's already been approved at the cross.
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So now, Father, in your time, in your way, and in your will, heal in Yeshua's name.
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Let us know your testimonies.
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Let us know.
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It's time.