Stability for growing darkness yet to come

Not long before his death, renowned Bible teacher Keith Blades (1953-2010) posted an article to his quarterly e-newsletter (www.enjoythebible.org) in which he succinctly summarized what Believers could expect going forward.

“Man’s ungodliness will not only continue to evolve, but it will worsen; in particular man’s emphasis will be upon proudly promoting himself and his achievements like never before,” wrote Blades.

“Accordingly, therefore, rather than acceding to the truth of evolving ungodliness, man will boldly and increasingly protest against any such thing. He will profess evolving humanness, and will describe the ‘course of this world’ as one that shows him achieving mastership over it. In support he will point to his impressive achievements in areas such as scientific knowledge, discovery, advancements, invention, technology, exploration, culture, society, quality of life, and the like.

“In short, man will become more and more impressed with himself and with his accomplishments. Wherefore he will define the present ‘course of this world’ in terms of man’s evolving greatness, as he defiantly denies the truth of his evolving ungodliness and fervently works to replace it with a substitute reality.”

*****

Blades emphasized that the “growing darkness” accompanying a man-devised alternative reality should make it all that much more apparent to us that ‘the wisdom of this world’ is useless and worthless to us.

“But more than this, we should begin to clearly see that it is not only fraught with the foolishness and emptiness of ungodly men’s vain imaginations, sophistry, and corrupt reasoning, but that any attempt to incorporate any of it into our ‘sonship education’ actually will do damage to our edification and to our vocational training. Hence we should recognize that it is harmful and even dangerous to us.

“In like manner should we also become increasingly disenchanted with, and so unimpressed with ‘the fashion of this world.’ For this world’s criterions for determining what is meaningful in life, what is noble, what is honourable, what is worthwhile, and the like, are clearly not founded upon godliness.

“Instead, ‘the fashion of this world’ is primarily and predominantly hedonistic. As such its pronouncements regarding what can bring a person happiness, satisfaction, and contentment, and therefore what makes one’s life full and rich, are founded firmly upon the pursuit of carnal pleasures, and the acquisition and possession of material things.

“ . . .  Now though we naturally should not be favorably impressed with any of these 'works of darkness,' the expectation is that as we are taught more about them we would become even more unimpressed with them, perceiving them to be even more distasteful and detestable than what we first recognized.”

*****

While Paul says in the KJV, "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus," the New English Bible translates the verse to incorrectly state that God will supply ALL your needs.

“He doesn’t say God’s going to supply all of your needs, or rather greeds,” says Jordan. “People, do you realize most of things we want and desire strongly we can do without? Did you know you can do without health, wealth, education, social standing? You know Paul did all that.

“He says in I Corinthians 4:9, ‘We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.’ You reckon that’s a pretty good social standing?! Not much. He says, ‘We are fools for Christ’s sake.’ The world didn’t think he had much education. They thought he was a nut. One guy said to him, ‘You’re mad; you’re a crazy man.’

“Paul says to the Corinthians, ‘You’re honorable but we’re despised. We’re weak but you’re strong. Even in this present hour we hunger and thirst.’ Paul says, ‘I warn you that there's a lot you can face.’

“If the health and wealth preachers are right, Paul must have been one of the most wicked men who ever lived because he’s a guy who says, ‘I’m hungry right now. I don’t have enough to eat. I’m thirsty. I’m naked. I haven’t got clothes to wear.’

“He didn’t open up a closet and say, ‘I can’t figure out what to wear today.’ He said, ‘I don’t have it to wear.’ He says, ‘Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place.’ And yet he says, ‘I labor with my hands.’

“Now, there’s a guy working and still can’t make it! You ever had that problem?

*****

“This idea about health you hear preached all the time on the radio and tube—let’s be honest, you can get by in your life without being healthy.

“Go to the bookstore and get the book by Joni Eareckson Tada. Read the stories of people like her if you want to see the victory of God’s grace and His power being made perfect in weakness. In fact, you’ll see the kind of victory few of us who are whole physically ever enjoy.

“Paul says, ‘Be careful for nothing. Don’t worry about things.’ That word ‘careful’ there has the idea of anxiety and worry and fretting. Let me give you a quick illustration of that carefulness.

“In Luke 10:38, Martha’s complaining. She’s worrying, she’s overwrought, she’s weighted down with all this serving and gets distraught; she’s all in a dither about it.

“Jesus answered and said unto her, ‘Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful and Mary has chosen that good part.’

“Rather than all the fuss and fuming about having the house perfectly straightened, the roast cooked just right, the gravy just right, the potatoes just right and everything just so, He says, ‘You know, Mary’s doing the better thing sitting here getting the Word.’

“Paul says, ‘Don’t be that way. Don’t be all caught up.’ You know how you get that way? Pride.

*****

“Worry is totally inappropriate in the life of a Believer. Why? Romans 8:24 says, ‘For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?’

“We have a day coming where God is going to declare us before the whole universe as His adult sons. Paul says, ‘You look around you and see all this undeserved suffering and your participation with it. You’re saved from being dragged down into the earthy by our hope.’

“You have a realm of doctrinal understanding that tells you what you see isn’t what’s lasting and with the eye of faith you know ‘the sufferings of this present world aren’t worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.’

“Isn’t that wonderful stability? You operate in the realm of the reality of who you are in Christ. It’s inappropriate to have all the problems of life loom up and cut out the sunlight of the Book—the light from the Word of God.

“ ‘Be careful for nothing’ doesn’t mean you’re flippant; it just means you’re not going to worry about it. You’re not going to be troubled and brought to the place of inactivity through it as Martha was, just throwing up her hands and yelling, ‘Aghhhhhh!!!’ ”

No working it up or praying it down

Paul’s epistles constantly emphasize not only the apostle’s use of the first person nouns, ‘I,’ ‘me’ and ‘my,’ but the unique character of his apostleship and message. Ignore this fact and be in utter confusion; accept it and thousands of seeming contradictions throughout Scripture disappear.

In addressing the perilous times of the “last days,” Paul warns about those who are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Jordan explains, “There’s this whole system of guilt that drives and runs an uncertainty that’s pushing—ever learning , always looking for answers but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Why? Because they’re looking at the form and not the reality. They’re looking at the performance-based acceptance program—legalism, the law—as opposed to an acceptance God gives you in Christ.

“ . . . Acceptance not because of who you think you are and what you can do because you focus on yourself, but because of who Christ is and what God has done in Him, and who God has made you in Him.

“I Corinthians 1:30 is such a wonderful verse on redemption. Paul writes, ‘But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.’

“I don’t know about you, but in my life on a regular basis, day in and day out, I have to look to the Lord and say, ‘I need wisdom. I need to know how to deal with this.’

“I know what pressure is and I know what it is to sit with something and not know what to do. So I go down into my study and sit in my chair and I say, ‘Lord, I’m going to start with Romans chapter one and read all the way through to the end of Philemon; I know the answer is in there somewhere.’

*****

“I was watching a segment of Dr. Phil asking a guest, ‘What are you proud of?’ and the guy told him about the kids he teaches at school. Phil said, ‘No, I mean what are you proud of about YOU?’ The man didn’t have an answer.

"Dr. Phil said, ‘Well, we’re going to give you some things to be proud of about you.’ I thought, ‘You know, that teacher had the right attitude to start with.’ What do you have to go strutting around being proud about yourself?

“People say, ‘Shouldn’t I have a good self-image?’ You? REALLY?! Let’s put you on Jay Leno because you could be good on the comedy circuit. You don’t need a good self-image; you need a proper self-image.

“You need to understand who God’s made you in Christ. Outside of Jesus Christ, there isn’t anything good that’s going to come. That’s the problem. Men become lovers of themselves.

*****

“When you understand the righteousness God's given you in His Son, do you realize what that does as you see your failures? Instead of being condemned by the goofs in your life, and shocked by them, overdrawn by them, you say, ‘This a waste of time in my life because that’s not who I am! Why am I wasting my life with this?! That’s what Christ died to put away!’

“You begin to deal with it; I begin to look at it. I begin to objectively evaluate it. I begin to say, ‘That doesn’t belong in my life and I need to put it off by putting ON Christ—His attitudes, His actions.’

“I find I need to preach the gospel to me more than anyone I know. Sanctification is to have purpose and meaning in life. Redemption is to have liberty and freedom. That’s what God gives me in His Son and that’s a reality of who I am.

“These people (in II Timothy 3) are ever learning and never able to come to know that. Why? Because they’re focusing on what they’re doing and what others are doing, rather than who God’s made them in Christ. That’s the essence of grace—what God has accomplished for you through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary.

“That truth enters into every aspect of your life—where you lived this past day and where you’re going to live in the week ahead. It’s designed to live there in those details of your life. It’s designed to live in you and out through you for others to catch the aroma of.

*****

“II Timothy 3 represents Paul’s look into the future. What should we expect the future to be like? Paul says ‘perilous times’ are ahead. Verse 2 says people will be ‘lovers of their own selves.’ The longer God’s grace is extended, the more the hearts of men will produce these perilous times. More and more, self is going to be the measure of everything.

“Verse 5 says they have ‘a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof.’ Now what’s that talking about? That isn’t talking about the world out there. Paul’s talking about the way it will be in the church as the world goes on. Self begins to take over. ‘Form of godliness’ is talking about the church—it’s that external religious performance—as a form.

“It’s form, or external religious performance, denying the power of the internal reality. Where’s the power of God? It’s in the gospel given by Paul; it’s in the Crosswork of Christ. It’s not out there in politics; it’s not in the pocketbook.

“It’s my faith resting in the reality of who God has made me through the Crosswork of Jesus Christ—when Jesus Christ died to put away all my sins; put away everything that’s wrong with me and has dealt with it, and there’s a finality to it. Then there’s the reality of His resurrection life.

“It’s what God’s already done for me. I don’t have to go try and find it. I don’t have to seek it. I don’t have to work it up or pray it down. I don’t have to go rededicate my life once a year. That’s who I am. I just need to relax and live in the reality of who God says I am wherever I find myself day in, day out.

“Paul says in that same verse, ‘from such turn away.’ That’s saying, ‘Don’t be a part of that kind of system; that kind of activity.’

“Verse 6 says, ‘For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts.’

“He’s not picking on silly women and he’s not saying all women are silly. What he’s talking about is, ‘You’re not using your mind, silly!’ You’re being captivated by the form, by the outward things; it’s the old wives tales kind of thing.

*****

“Paul says in Romans 7 that when he tries to do good works in the energy of that flesh, God won’t take it. God says all of our own righteousness is like ‘filthy rags.’ The moral law of God keeps pointing out that there isn’t any ability in this flesh of ours to stop sin or to produce works God will accept.

“When you get saved, you’re spiritually circumcised and your soul and your body are cut loose; you’re set free. Now your soul’s no longer the slave of sin. You’re crucified with Christ and your body is reckoned dead.

“In Galatians 5: 16-18, Paul advises Believers, “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”

“I Corinthians 15:56 tells us, ‘The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.’ Paul writes in Romans 7:25, ‘So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.’

“Where does the sin get its strength? It’s the law that gives sin its strength. 

Paul argues in Galatians 3:3, ‘Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?’

“Nobody thinks they’re going to be perfected by doing evil things, but the flesh can do some GOOD things that give a person the idea they’re going to be perfected by the good things they do.

“You know what Paul said about his religion and all the good things he could produce walking in the flesh, keeping himself under the law? He said it’s just dung—horse manure. You see, he lost all his confidence in what he could do on his own.

“Walking in the flesh has to do with a motivating factor that says you do good things in order that you can please God on your own. That’s the law principle.

“The motivating factor when you walk in the Spirit is recognition of your position in Christ and wanting to walk consistent with that position, and that’s grace. You walk under the grace principle. It’s about getting in line with what God’s doing today in the world and in your life, not in what YOU are trying to do.

“As Paul puts it in Romans 8:1, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.’

“Victory is obtained by objectively being occupied with who God’s made you in Christ. ‘With the mind, I shall walk with God.’ ”

You're not doing yourself any favors . . .

When a Believer doesn’t respond positively and/or rejects the truth of Paul’s distinct apostleship in God’s Word, hardness develops in the soul and it’s like a callous.

Bible scholar C.R. Stam’s quintessential 1950s expose book, The Controversy, details the apostate nature of so-called fundamental Bible-believing preachers from his day, including the one-time nationally famous Philadelphia preacher Dr. Donald Barnhouse.

Stam writes, “. . . depend upon it, God will never give us further light on the Word until we stand true to the light we have already received.”

“ . . . Where financial need does not cause men to capitulate, ‘the fear of man’ often does, and where ‘the fear of man’ fails to silence them, love of position and popularity often succeeds, as it did with certain spiritual leaders of our Lord’s day.”

Stam quotes John 12:42-43: “Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.”

*****  

Paul admonishes Believers at Galatia for being lured back into their religious system of performance. They were incorporating elements from Israel’s law program into their worship of Jesus Christ.

Paul argues, “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?”

Jordan explains, “If there’s a family down the street and we say that family has suffered some problems and are destitute, what do we mean? They’re poor; they’re beggarly. So Galatians 4 describes religion as lacking any strength—it’s weak, feeble, destitute.

“Paul marvels, ‘That’s what you’re trying to go back to?!’ and notice he says, ‘whereunto ye desire . . .’ This is a will problem! You know why people are so enticed by religion and enticed by the law; enticed by performance, rituals, ceremonies, all that kind of stuff?

“We read in Colossians 2:23 about those things which have a ‘shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body.’ They look wise. In Galatians 6:12, you’ll see that again—that show: ‘As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh.’

“Paul says, ‘I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.’ Paul travailed in getting them saved and now he’s afraid it’s all just going to be wasted!

“When he says, ‘Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am,’ who’s the pattern they’re to follow? Paul is. He’s their pattern.

“Notice how Paul qualifies it in Galatians 4: ‘But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God.’ They are saved—the Lord knows them that are His—but they really don’t know the Lord in any in-depth way or they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing.

“It’s not a question of them being saved; he’s saying you just don’t know much about Him or you’d never turn back.

“It’s fascinating, if you study through your Bible, when Satan wants to do something, he’ll get it as close to God’s (stratagem) as he can, and when God laid aside the Kingdom program and introduced a new program with Paul, Satan came along and picked up the program God laid down and made it equal to another paganism.

“It’s that real and dangerous and serious! This is not simply a matter of arguing about how many angels dance on the head of a pin!"

*****

In a Q&A period following an online Bible study, Southern California preacher John Verstegen (www.helpersofyourjoy.org) was asked about the Apostle Paul’s admonition in I Corinthians 9 regarding a Believer’s “prize” and striving for an incorruptible heavenly crown.

Verstegen answered, “It’s all going to be glory for us (out there), but it has to do with the ability to take God’s Word and function with it here, and hence when we get there we’ll be put into a position that is parallel to that capacity and functioning in grace developed here.

“By the way, I should say as well, that even when we’re there in the heavenly places we will continue to grow and develop in our capacity to serve. We’ll be studying and learning forever. Learning will never end. The Word of God is eternal in nature. Your soul and my soul—you and I will be learning forever.”

*****

As Jordan once outlined grace, “Grace exalts the Lord Jesus Christ as nothing else can because it holds up what He accomplished at Calvary and says, ‘That’s the answer! That’s it!’

“God’s grace enables the Believer to recognize sin has been successfully dealt with, totally conquered and vanquished. You can walk as a son. You can live and be who you are in Christ, not who you are in yourself.

“Listen, the way to get victory isn’t focusing on you; it’s focusing on what God’s given you in Christ. That’s the path of victory.

“You check Paul’s Epistles and you’ll find the principle is ‘put off and put on’ and it’s never anything else. That’s why there isn’t any victory over sin in confessing sin.

“You beg God, you plead with Him and get Him to forgive you but you know there’s never any victory over sin in that. Never is. That never stops you from sinning. It just doesn’t do it. You check your life; it doesn’t do it.

“What’s going to stop you? I’m not talking about not identifying it—confess means to say the same thing—but under the law you did it for one reason and under grace you do the same good work for a different reason.

“I’m not identifying the sin in order to get His forgiveness—I’m identifying it and dealing with it because I am forgiven! It’s a different motivation, and it’s a motivation that will give you victory because the sin has been dealt with and therefore you can put it away.

“Grace puts you on the spot. Grace demonstrates who you love; it manifests your heart. It shows who you love. He said, ‘By love serve one another.’  Not because you have to. 

“You know what grace does? It says, ‘Okay, no judgment. Judgment’s gone; it’s passed. I want you to do this because you love me.’ You say, ‘What can I do?’ The answer is, ‘By love serve one another.’ ”

Take a walk on the poverty side

“I’m convinced that most Americans live with almost a panic-driven fear of poverty and of not having things,” says Jordan. “This has been a curse of Western civilization for centuries, and so you’re driven to have and to have.

“To me, one of the most touching things in the Book of Luke is to watch the Lord in just His human sympathies—He understood what poverty was. He understood the poor, and Luke constantly points to that.

“When He was born, there was no room for Him in the inn. If He had had an Am Ex Gold Card He probably could have gotten in, but He didn’t. He had a manger for a crib.

“In chapter 2, when He was just eight days old and His parents went to the temple, it says they offered a pair of turtle doves and two young pigeons. You know what that was? That was the poor man’s offering. That wasn’t the first offering; they didn’t have the money to offer the lamb.

“Jesus was raised in a humble home; not a home of wealth and splendor. He was raised in a home that knew what poverty was. Look at His parables—the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son.

“In Luke 5 you find the publican named Levi, who made Christ a great feast. The passage reads, [29] And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.
[30] But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?
[31] And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.
[32] I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

“A preacher once preached a message called ‘The Table Talks of Jesus.’ He went over to chapter 10 where you’re at Mary and Martha’s house and then over to chapter 7 and that woman; He said she was a sinner but she was the woman who anointed His feet with oil and washed His feet with her own hair—the one who had nothing to pay yet He forgave all.

“Then you see Him sit at the table with them. You go through Luke and there are five or six places where you come into the meal and you see the Lord sitting in somebody else’s house. Somebody else has set the meal and yet He comes and sits with them as the Great Teacher.”

*****

Pleasure is the foundation of our society today and it is pursued secretly and publicly from cradle to grave. Obviously, though, as they say, ‘pleasure brings pain.’

Finding freedom from the pain (frustration, sorrow, fear, etc.) requires understanding the whole structure of pleasure.

In what is pure counter-intuitiveness to the world’s way of seeing things, the Apostle Paul testifies, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”

Paul says any suffering we go through now isn’t even worthy of spending time on when we look at the glory that’s one day going to be revealed in us.

“Christ’s faithfulness is our resting place,” encourages Jordan. “He’s who God trusts and we can trust Him, too. There’s a lot of comfort and peace in that. A lot of, ‘I’m through with the toiling process in that.’

“Paul writes in Philippians 3, ‘Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.’

“The guy’s been saved 35 years and he’s still saying, ‘All I want in life is to know Him.’ You see how He’s to be the object of everything?”

Change in program changed everything

Religious leaders train Believers to make the excuse, “I just can’t handle the ‘ye’ and ‘thee’ stuff in the King James Bible,” but “ye” is simply like Southerners saying “y’all,” and “thee” simply refers to the individual.

“The old English had a way to distinguish between the ‘ye’ that is plural—the group—and the ‘thee’ that is singular,” explains Jordan. “When Jesus said to Nicodemus, ‘I say unto thee, ye must be born again,’ He’s saying, ‘Nick, the nation Israel’s got to be born again.’ Now, you never heard a preacher in your life preach that passage right.

“The same is true in Acts 3:19 when Peter says, ‘Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.’ It’s an appeal to the nation. Peter is following the Old Testament order with regard to national salvation and the nation’s receiving of her covenant.

*****

“Under the Old Testament economy, the nation Israel had a short-account system where the Jewish believer had to bring a sacrifice every time he sinned. There even had to be a sacrifice offered for ignorance and sins of omission.

“He had to make a sacrifice even in cases of sins he committed that he wasn’t aware he committed! He had to constantly bring those sacrifices—day in, day out; every morning, every evening. The man had to constantly do that because he lived under bondage and the fear of death. He was afraid of dying and there being an issue between him and God because he didn’t want to go to hell. The only way he knew to gain forgiveness was to bring that sacrifice.

*****

“The ‘good news’ today is that through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary, God says, ‘I’ve taken care of it.’

“When you move from the old covenant to the new covenant, you move from a short- account system to an absolute clearing of the issue. What you need to know is God has absolutely, totally, 100 percent forgiven you upfront and forever.

“While the Jews had to offer sacrifices for sin, the issue for them—just as it is with us today—was their faith in Jesus Christ’s shed blood, not in the works they were required to perform.

“It’s Christ righteousness that was imputed to them—just like it is to us—only it wasn’t revealed to them. God knew in time past sin was going to be dealt with on the Cross. The sacrifice of Christ at Calvary doesn’t just do it for us, it does it for all men at every age and it’s ALWAYS been the issue with God.

*****

“I read a Christian magazine article in the dentist office in which a preacher was quoted warning, ‘Faith in Christ is not enough.’ The man was quoting from James chapter 2, completely ignorant of the fact that that particular book represents pre-Pauline revelation given to the ‘twelve tribes of Israel,’ as it even states in the first sentence of the first chapter! It’s instruction for the Jewish Believer to follow during the tribulation.

“When God Almighty takes His church (the Body of Christ) out of here at the Rapture, He has more people yet in His program and those people over there deserve a part of the Bible that explains to them what God’s program is just like we deserve a part of it that explains what His program is to us.

“Those people over there need a book that will explain to them how the Cross affects their program based upon the advanced revelation given to Paul. That’s what the Book of Hebrews is all about.

“Folks, faith is just believing what God tells you, and if you believe what God tells you, you’re going to do what He tells you, aren’t you?

“Just like our faith is evidenced by our lack of works, Israel’s faith is evidenced by their works. People will tell you, ‘If you trust Christ and don’t produce good works, you’re not saved,’ but the evidence in the life of a Believer today that he’s justified is precisely that he won’t work!

“The greatest issue in the 21^st Century is the greatest issue in every age—it’s the issue of the clarity of the gospel of grace. And when you talk about the clarity, you’re talking about making it clear that the payment for sin is what Jesus Christ did at Calvary and what you do is simply have faith in it—faith alone.

*****

“Matthew 9:35 says, “Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.”

“Christ's healing campaigns weren't like what you see on TV or at some arena or tent revival. He healed EVERY sickness and EVERY disease. And He didn't make them do this superstition thing where it’s, ‘Well, the healing’s there but you just don't see it yet. Claim your healing and it will eventually come.’ ”

“During Christ’s earthly ministry, He healed people right on the spot—visibly, physically accomplishing the healings in crowd’s midst.

“In Matthew 10, Christ commissions the 12 apostles and sends them out to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, etc.

“So the question for people who don’t rightly divide the Bible is, ‘If Jesus Christ, the apostle to the nation Israel, and His 12 apostles He trained, were all able to heal sick people, why did the Apostle Paul get sick?’

“Everybody else's apostles get well, heal people, raise the dead. . . With Peter, just his shadow accomplishes miracles. By the way, when Paul's in Lystra, he heals a lame man. In Acts 19, just a touch of Paul’s handkerchiefs taken from his body healed people.

“In Acts 20, a man who falls from a third-floor loft and dies is raised from the dead by Paul. In Acts 28, Paul handles a snake that bites him but it doesn't hurt him.

“Paul had the signs of an apostle, but in his personal life—and in the life of his friends— there’s no healing. Paul says in II Timothy, ‘Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.’

“He tells Timothy to ‘take a little wine’ for his oft infirmities. What's going on here? Paul was at Galatia sick and the Galatians were so concerned about him some were willing to have an eye transplant to help him out.

“Was Paul out of the will of God because he was sick? In Exodus 15:26, God says, ‘If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.’

“Paul wasn't out of will of God because he was sick. God had changed the program. Today we're not under that, ‘If you will do my law then I'll bless you’ program. Paul recognized that he, as our apostle in this age of grace, had been made an example of what God now wants us to understand about suffering and sickness.

“Paul writes in II Corinthians 4:17, ‘For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’

“Because God reminds Paul, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness,’ Paul responds with, ‘Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’ ”