Healing. BIG TIME!
-by Oral Roberts
But once again He said, “My preachers are preaching My people to death, but they are not healing them to life!”
As I tried to understand what God was saying, He reminded me of something I’d read recently in TIME magazine. There are approximately 500,000 preachers now in the United States, which means there are 500,000 sermons preached every Sunday. And if the typical preacher preaches twice a week, that’s one million sermons per week. You multiply that by 52 weeks, and that’s 52 million sermons per year!
Then God said, “How many HEALINGS are you seeing following those preachers’ teaching and preaching?”
I was a little shocked by God’s directness, but I understood clearly what He meant. Immediately upon hearing this, God reminded me of the Scripture in Matthew 4:23 that says Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching, preaching, and healing.
But when God says something so direct like this to me, and recognizing how easily it may be misunderstood or offensive to some, He always gives me a scriptural example to back up what He has said. And, in this instance, He reminded me of something that happened in the ministry of the apostle Paul, which is recorded in the book of Acts:
And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. [Now that’s what I call preaching!]
And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. (Acts 20:7-9)
First, Paul Preached Eutychus to sleep, then he Preached him to death-in this case, literally! Thank God, the apostle Paul was not one of those preachers who only preached and taught-he healed also, for the Scripture continues:
And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted (vv. 10-12).
This example from the Bible helped me full understand what God meant when He said, “My preachers are preaching My people to death, but they are not healing them to life!” I thank God for all those ministers who emphasize good teaching and good preaching. In fact, we need more of both in the church today!
But standing alone, without healing being included, they do not fully represent all parts of the ministry of Jesus, who taught, preached, and healed!
And the third part of God’s message to me was to recognize the importance of this fact and call attention to it for the sake of both our preachers and the people to whom they minister.
Now let me say once again that I pray you are open to this with your spirit. For I, too, am a preacher who must be held accountable to the biblical standard for ministry. Many times I have fallen short I my own life and work, but I know God wants His best for His people.
I believe God gave us a full Gospel to be our example. Jesus taught, preached, and healed. That covers three complete areas-1/3, 1/3, 1/3. Any portion left out could leave us missing 1/3 in some area of our lives.
Throughout the New Testament, we see words like whole, full, and complete. I believe God wants us whole and complete. That’s why I believe He wants all ministers-myself included-to strive toward a balance of teaching, preaching, and healing as Jesus did! Then I believe God’s people can begin to receive the blessing of wholeness He wants them to experience.
The last thing God said to me about healing coming back BIG TIME! Is, in many ways, perhaps the most important. These are the exact words I heard in my spirit:
“I want My ministers and My people to look upon the faces of people they see and look for faith…for faith can be seen! And when you see faith on the face of someone to be healed, you call forth the healing!”
This was a reminder to me of something I learned early on in my own healing ministry. Faith is something you can see! It’s that inner knowing that shines through against overwhelming odds, that lifts someone up and refuses to give way to the burdens of the world being carried on their shoulders.
The apostle Paul certainly understood that faith can be seen, for we read in Acts 14:7-10:
And there they preached the gospel. And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked: The same heard Paul speak: who steadfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on your feet. And he leaped and walked.
Now, here was Paul preaching to this crowd at Lystra, and there was a man “being cripple from his mother’s womb” sitting among the many people gathered. When Paul saw this man’s face, he also saw the faith on his countenance. And right in the midst of his sermon, Paul stopped his preaching and went right into the healing service, calling out this man’s healing with a loud voice saying, “Stand upright on your feet!”
And the crippled man, who had never walked before, leaped up and walked! And I am certain that he, along with the rest of the crown, began praising the Lord in a mighty way!
You will recall that Paul once wrote to the believers in the church at Corinth, “Follow me, as I follow Christ” (see Corinthians 11:1). I can’t think of a more wonderful example than what we have right here. As Jesus taught, preached and healed-all three working together-so did Paul.
Yes, Paul was following the example of Christ by teaching, preaching, and healing. But even more than this, he was following the example of Jesus by responding to faith that can be seen, for in Luke 5:17-25 we read:
And it came to pass on a certain day, as He [Jesus] was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them.
And behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay before him. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.
And when he saw their faith, He said unto him, Man, I forgiver your sins. And when the scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?
But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answering said to them, What reason ye in your heart? What is easier to say, your sins are forgiven or to say, rise up and walk? But so that you know that the Son of man has power upon the earth to forgive sins, I say unto you, get up and take your couch and go home! And immediately the man with the case of palsy got up and took his couch and went to his own house, glorifying God.
Now I wanted to give you the entirety of that Scripture because it demonstrates everything I have been saying to you regarding God’s promise to bring a new wave of His healing power back BIG TIME! Jesus was before the scribes and Pharisees, teaching When confronted with a man who was burdened down with sin, he began preaching the gospel of forgiveness of sins into that man’s spirit. And the man’s physical affliction, He continued by falling forth his physical healing.
The preaching came off the teaching, and the healing followed the preaching-all three interwoven together, just as God intended them to!
Jesus saw their faith!
But there is something else of equal importance that you cannot afford to miss. Jesus saw the faith of the four friends who were willing to tear off the roof in order to get their loved one to Jesus. It did not say that jesus saw their friendship or dedication or their determination, although all of those are fine qualities and seemed pretty obvious. Yet none of those things seemed to be what moves Jesus into action.
What apparently moved Jesus into action was what He saw coming from their spirit man, because the Bible says He saw their faith! And four times throughout the Bible we read, The just shall live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4, Romans 1:17, Galations 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38).
Faith is something that was never meant to be hidden. Faith was meant to be released! Just like the oil reserved that God has placed deep in the earth, faith has been placed by God in the soul of every person He created. But oil in the ground is of no use to us until it is released.
Likewise, faith on the inside will accomplish little by remaining there.
Once faith is released, however, it goes up to where it can be seen by God and even those around you. It can burst forth like a gusher of divine energy that can launch you into the healing and miracle realm-the realm of healing BIG TIME!
Faith released is the kind of faith that can be seen-as Paul saw it and Jesus saw it. It may be faith for a solution to a problem you have, or perhaps it is faith for the salvation or healing of a friend or loved one, like the faith of those friends of the paralytic man. When you release the faith God has placed in your heart, it becomes faith that can be seen-the kind of faith that lays claim to the power God wants to release in your life!
GOD GAVE FIRST TO SHOW US FAITH THAT CAN BE SEEN. HE SENT JESUS AS A LIVING EXAMPLE OF HOW WE ARE TO LIVE OUR LIVES.
How many times I’ve heard people say how hard it is for them to believe in God! And although I can understand their feeling, I think of it a little differently. It has always seemed more incredible to me that God believed in you and me! I know that to be true because through His giving, God released His faith to redeem mankind. At the darkest hour in the history of humanity, God let His faith be seen through giving in faith for a desired result:
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotton Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
God demonstrated His faith in mankind by an act of His giving.
For God so loved, that He gave. He didn’t wait until mankind loved Him; He loved and believed in us enough to give first. For giving is what true faith and love are all about. You can’t say you believe and love if you are not giving. Neither can I. Love and faith become real only when they are released or given away.
I’m often reminded of the story of Mary Martin, the great actress and singer. She was performing a Broadway production when, by all accounts, things were not going as well as they should have been. Then one night she received a note from Oscar Hammerstein, the great songwriter, who at that time was dying with cancer. She read this note just before going onstage. It said:
A bell is not a bell till you ring it; A song is not a song till you sing it; Love in your heart is not put there to stay; Love is not love until you give it away.
Mary Martin went ahead with her performance, and afterward the people rushed backstage and hugger her, saying, “Oh, Mary, you did something to us tonight! What did you do that was so different?”
Opening the piece of paper, she read it to them. And brushing the tears from her eyes, she said, “tonight I gave my love away.”
Friend, faith and love are a lot alike. Neither were meant to stay in you heart, hidden away, unseen and unused. They were meant to be given away and released to put you back into a relationship with God as the Source of your life.
Many times people have not received the miracles they desire, and they have said to me, “But I have all the faith in the world.” Even if that were true, there would still be a problem-because they still have it! In other words, their faith hasn’t been released through their giving!
This is the faith God sees. This is the kind of faith Jesus saw in the four friends of that lame man. The did something with their faith. And this is the kind of faith that will put you right in the position to receive your miracle and the healing BIG TIME that God can send your way!
Now, I want to remind you of the four points of healing BIG TIME the Lord gave me and encourage you to make a point of confession each and every day to stir up your faith in your heart and remind yourself that God wants healing for you BIG TIME!
POINT #1:“In the past few years there has been a slight decrease in My healing power among My people. But I will bring it back BIG TIME, including creative miracles!”
POINT #2: “There are many unclaimed healings and miracles on reserve for My people which they have not yet laid claim to!”
POINT #3: “My preachers are praching My people to death, but they are not healing them to life!”
POINT #4: “I want My ministers and My people to look upon the faces of people they see and look for faith…for faith can be seen! And when you see faith on the face of someone to be healed, you call forth the healing!”
Now, as a point of confession of faith, begin to say this as often as possible and as often as it takes to stir up your faith:
In the name of Jesus and by my faith, I confess with my mouth that God is moving in my behalf concerning healing BIG TIME for my life. I set my faith in agreement according to Matthew 18:18-19 that the miracle healing power of God will begin to come forth in my life according to what God has already established in His Word, and I am believing God for healing BIG TIME! I set my faith in agreement according to Matthew 18:18-19 that the unclaimed miracles God has on reserve for me are coming my way, and I will not let them pass by me. I lay claim to what is rightfully mine according to God’s word and His will for my life. I set my faith in agreement according to Matthew 18:18-19 that I will not be preached to death, but I receive being healed to life according to God’s Word. I agree that Jesus did all three: teaching, preaching, and healing. I receive the teaching of the Word, the preaching of the Word, and the healing of the Word in my life. I set my faith in agreement according to Matthew 18:18-19 that my faith will be seen and stirred and released to God according to His Word and His Will for my life.
For personal prayer for your healing or salvation, feel free to call the abundant life prayer group 24 hours a day at (918) 495-7777.
Now if you’ve come to this website for personal healing in your life, there is a few things that I would like to remind you, from the Word of God. I Peter 2:24 says that by His [Jesus] stripes, we were healed. That means that in the plan of salvation, comes healing, too! Begin to step out and confess your healing, knowing that God has healed you in the spirit realm. If you continue to be steadfast in your faith, your healing WILL manifest itself in your body! Daily remind yourself that Jesus has already healed you, for the Word also declares that whatever you ask in My [Jesus] name, you shall receive by My Father in heaven. (Mark 11:24) That means that anything you ask for in prayer, in accordance to His will, you will get. And, yes, it is God’s will for you to be healed! Remember, it says by His stripes you WERE healed; Matthew 6:10 also declared that “Your [God] will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” There is no sickness in heaven, thus it is His will that you are whole on earth as well! One final thing I’d like to direct your attention to Deuteronomy 28:15-68. It says that the curse of the law includes sickness and disease. And then, turn to Galations 3:13 which reads: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law……” Do you see what I’m saying? Christ has bore the curse of the law, so that means He has taken up your infirmities and sicknesses! Just start reminding God of this promise in His word, start believing that your healing has happened in the spirit realm, and start confessing by faith that you have received your healing, and it will come! Do not give up, and do not doubt! Your healing is on it’s way! God bless you!