When God Heals & Doesn't Heal

I am talking about healing this morning. Many of you know Justin. You might follow his ministry.

We've got some differences for sure. I talked to him, got permission on this, and he's been in a wheelchair for many years and exposes a lot of the the fakeness is out there and the phoniness is out there. And so we put together the short clip, wanted to play it if we got the volume high.

I think I can honestly say that I've never been bitter about my handicap, my cerebral palsy, because I was born this way. I've never known anything different. When I was a teenager, my handicap did begin to bother me more than it ever had before because my friends are, you're a teenager and you're starting to get a little bit of independence.

And the guys are playing football and the girls do whatever cheerleaders or whatever, and starting to date and starting to drive and getting their driver's license and all that and having more independence. And I couldn't do any of those things. And so for the first time, my handicap really began to bother me.

I wanted to be healed very much at that age. I've been to 18 Benny Hinn crusades. Nora Lamb said, I want everyone who needs to be healed to form a line.

And so a line formed and it stretched all the way around the room. Justin and I stand up on our crutches and we begin to make our way down front. Well, Nora Lamb saw us coming.

And so she stood there and she had her little vial of oil and she dipped her finger in the oil. She touched him on the head. She touched me on the head.

And guess what? I fell backwards. Honestly, I don't even remember if Justin fell backwards or not, but I remember I did. And now looking back on that, there was nothing spiritual about it at all.

It's just that we had seen everyone else do it. And so subconsciously, when you're predisposed to this, you're expecting something to happen. You want something to happen.

You just kind of involuntarily, you know, you fall backwards. It's peer pressure, group dynamics, mind over body. And then Nora Lamb, once again, began to make her exit.

But she said something right before she left the room. And she said this. She said, I'm leaving town very early in the morning, but if any of you want to meet with me before I leave, she said, be back here tomorrow morning at 430.

And then she left. Well, I could tell pretty quickly that I was not healed, at least not yet. But I heard her say that.

And so I thought, well, maybe if we come back here at 430 in the morning, that'll be my demonstration of my faith. God will see that and see that I'm serious about this and I believe it. And then God will heal me.

And so I asked my dad to bring us back and he did. So we got to the Holiday Inn at 430 that morning and we walked in and there was Mrs. Lamb. And she looked at Justin and me and she said something to us kind of briefly.

But then she turned to my father and she asked him this question. What is your financial situation? And my dad said, what does that have to do with anything? And she replied, the more money you give to the Lord's work, the more likely it is He will answer your prayers. And my dad said, boys, let's go.

And we left. It's a big challenge before me because it's an important topic. And I've mentioned this to Justin just on back and forth online to just some of the things I don't agree with how they handle kind of throwing out the baby with the bathwater on this topic.

But as I'm praying, Lord, help us understand this topic because it's so important in the church. I went on social media and I saw he's one of the probably what they call the healing ministry. Well, not even healing ministry, churches.

And he had a book that was just out and the title is Never Be Sick Again. And the subtitle I read, Jesus Made It Impossible For You To Be Sick. This book offers fresh revelation on health and healing.

Never get sick again and break free from the fear of illness. Guys, that's just false. That's blatantly false.

I mean, just think about this. Most of the time before you die, you're sick beforehand. So if you're never supposed to die, and these people, we've seen abuses in the church.

However, some will get very cynical and critical and then not believe God to do anything. And that's not healthy either. And so that's why I want to impact this topic because there's abuses and moral failings in all churches, charismatics and conservatives.

The reason is the enemy and your flesh don't care what denomination you're in. And a lot of people like to point out like, look at this person who fell, look at this person who fell. And then when you know it, somebody well known, Steve Lawson from the conservative camp fall.

It's like, it's the enemies after you and your flesh will lead you astray no matter what denomination you go to. But there seems to be sometimes in that, and I don't even know exactly. It's so hard to clean up the mess that we've created.

I don't know if you remember, but one of the bishops over many churches in Africa wanted me to come out there. And he said, the name and claimant has so infiltrated the churches. It's a pastor's conference, we want you to speak at it and just bring the truth because there's so much garbage being imported in from America and all this fake stuff and phony stuff that lives and people are not being changed.

Healing's not taking place. Lies are not, because it's a false gospel. It's a name it and claim it or grab it and blab it.

And the reason it's called, what do they call it, the faith movement or the faith, word of faith, right? We just have enough faith. And why it's challenging is because there's a little bit of truth in that. Jesus said, because of your unbelief, I couldn't do many miracles there.

If you have faith like a mustard seed. So there's some truth in that. But you have to balance it out with the rest of Scripture.

And if somebody's asking for money to heal you, that to me, that would be a definition of a false prophet without a shadow of a doubt. And so there's so much confusion. And a lot of us are labeled.

And you know, if you're in this, you're either in the crazy charismatic camp or the conservative camp. And if you want more on that, I talked more about that last week, I'm not going to go into great detail, but I never got through a lot of my points. And I don't want to just let this topic go because it's, it's a hard one, isn't it? I made myself a note.

And I was just, I was hoping I wouldn't remember this, but I got up 2.30 this morning, just got up and began praying because it's a hard topic. Years have gone, years. And you know how many times that I prayed? Remember Alex in the wheelchair? Shaylee, Dean.

I prayed, God, do you want it? Can you do it? I know He can just speak the Word. Lord, do you want me to go on a 40-day fast? Lord, I know you can do just pleading, asking. And so we live that.

We live that. How many of us have prayed for those with cancer and lost them? I remember a lady caught me. She just recognized my voice.

I'm at a doctor's appointment. She goes, my husband just saved for cancer. We listen to your radio and I go to the hospital and I'm praying, this is, hopefully he'll be healed and they're believing for it.

I'm like, talk about pressure. And it got real aggressive. And within three days he was gone.

And it's just, it's a very, and I see Susan who had stage four and it's gone now because there was prayer and the MRI came back. Nothing, everything's gone. And so we live in this.

It's almost like there's a constant tension between God's sovereignty and belief. And because I guarantee if you live in unbelief, you will not see the miraculous. I mean, that's clear in Scripture.

And so we live in this very interesting time. So I see these people, I pray for these people, but I'm not going to go up and claim something that may not happen. Because I can tell you other stories of other people I've known over the years, you'll be healed and you'll come out of that wheelchair and it doesn't happen.

Don't you think that hurts people? This in the church, and I've been to healing crusades and I've got my thoughts on them. I'm, you know, and I want to be careful. From what I get from Scripture is, it's a preaching of God's Word.

You're ministering in the power of the Holy Spirit. And God could lay that upon a person's heart. So you wouldn't need to, well, let's come back tonight for a healing crusade.

He's not going to do it right now. I don't, that's kind of like... However, at a healing crusade, people are hungry for the truth. They're hungry to get healed.

They're seeking it and they're coming just for that reason. So I can see how God honors that. Absolutely.

But I don't think we need to limit it to just, as I said last week, most healings in the Bible took place outside the church. You ever thought about that? They were healed out, even Jesus in His ministry, normally outside the church. And that's the way it should function.

Spirit-filled believers should be out ministering in the power of the Spirit and see what God wants to do. So last week I left off at Acts 3.1, just to get you up to speed. And I know it's a topic.

I can already tell people aren't going to not like me playing Justin's video and then the conservatives aren't going to like my position. It's like, well, you know what? We're just going to look at the Bible. But what does the Bible say? It says a lot more than you think.

So what happened last week? Peter was walking. He fixed his eyes on this person who was paralyzed with John and Peter. And they said, look at us.

And so this person gave them his attention and he wanted to receive money. But Peter said, I don't have money. But what I do have, I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up. And immediately his feet and ankle and bones received strength. So he, leaping up and stood up, he walked and entered the temple with them, walking, leaping, and praising God.

And so there's an excitement about it, that God can still do that. And living in expectation, but also not wanting to lead people astray and hurt people. Because it really hurts people.

People have been hurt by fake prophetic words. Well, this is going to happen. It doesn't.

And that's why we've got to be very careful in that area as well. So let's unpack this for a minute. Who wants to unpack this? So the topic is, or the title is, I guess I should have gave you that, a study on healing when God heals and doesn't heal.

And I'll tell you right now, I didn't finish. So it's going to go into, well, next week's Michael, next week's Christmas. So it might be a little while before you get part two, unless I can go through all this quickly.

So here's why this is challenging. And just to bring you up to speed, there's a lot of people in the church who say that the miraculous gift of healing no longer exists. Okay? You'll be that side.

And you'll be the side that says the gift, actually it says the gifts of healing still exist. Where do they get that from? Well, it's from 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 12.

Paul is saying to the church, now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. Well, let me just, let me stop here for a minute because there's some bullet points that are important. God wants us to be informed and educated about the gifts, but healing has so much context around it.

What is God doing? So I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but there are different reasons why a person might be sick or dealing with an illness. Did you know that possibly some illness and sickness is due to sin? Some is due to a demonic attack. Why should this daughter of Abraham that's been bent over for 16 years, why should she not be healed and loose from her infirmities that Satan has bound? What about if God is wanting that illness to break the person and humble them? And so I want to pray for healing.

God says, oh, not yet. They need to come to the kingdom first. Or I'm using this to purify them and to humble them.

We don't know what God's doing. That's why there's so many dynamics around healing. And if it was a gift that you could just turn on at your whim, then you become God because it's based on what you want and what you think.

And that's why people can't just walk into hospitals and heal everybody because it's not them to turn on. God turns it on. Now, that's not a bad idea, though, if you want to go into hospitals and pray for people, because God might lead you to pray for people for healing.

But see, you're the conduit. You're the conduit. And that's my next point here that we can put up.

We are simply conduits. How many of you don't know what a conduit is? It's okay. You don't have to be embarrassed.

Okay. Okay. There's quite a few.

Any in the balcony? Okay. Well, normally, I mean, it could be different things, but it's a pipe a lot of times. Southern California, Edison, when I used to work heavy equipment, we would dig underground and we would run conduit, three inch, four inch, five inch, big, schedule 40, schedule 80, whatever the thickness, conduit.

And the conduit wasn't too special. It was just a plastic piece of pipe. What was special? What's inside of it.

It got power from the house to the to the electrical vault or up in the hill. Back then it was on poles. Then we begin to put it underground.

The conduit was just a means, a mechanism by which the power would run. So that's all we are. We're not special.

It's not like I've got this gift of healing. You don't have any gift of healing that you can just do on your... God will use you and have you pray with others if He gives that gift to you. He'll allow you to move in the power of the Holy Spirit based on this verse.

For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom. So one person is given the utterance of wisdom. They call that a prophetic word.

So it means God puts something on your heart that you can't shake. God wants you to speak this into the life of another. So He gives you this word of wisdom to speak into their life.

And it's like, wow, God's using this person to minister to you. To someone else, He gives a word of knowledge. That's a little bit different than wisdom.

I won't get into the differences right now, but according to the same Spirit. And to another, He gives the gift of faith. How many of you know those people with the gift of faith? Sometimes you get jealous, don't you? Like, no, the sky's falling.

But the person with the gift of faith says, no, it's not. And I share it at the first service. My wife didn't hear it, so I can tell her now.

But she exhibits this a lot. I remember when COVID first came out. How many remember that? You know, I'm going to jail.

I'm going to jail. Let's prepare. We had it all prepared.

I was going to... You're not going to jail. I'm going to jail. Look at it.

We're in LA County, under Newsom, under Gascon, the DA. I'm going to jail. That's all I'm saying.

Life feeds out there, 250,000 views a week on Facebook until we get shadow banned. I'm going to jail. And I'm ready.

Any day now, LA County is going to... Any day, they're like, no, no, they won't even touch us. We won't even... Nope, we'll be fine. Month after month after month.

And wouldn't you know, nothing, never, ever, ever, no letter, nothing, nothing ever the whole time. I worry for nothing. Thanks, Morgan.

Now, when we went to JetHawk Stadium, you know, 12 feet away, don't sing. Guys, that's ridiculous. So we might have broken some rules there as well.

But just that faith, and you know that prodigal son's coming home. You just walk in that faith. It's a gift of God.

But to others, He gives, notice how it's gifts of healing. I mean, we could do a whole hour on just the plural and how different ways God could heal people. But to another person, He gives the gift of healing.

So a person, we have people here that I've noticed, they'll pray for people, nobody's really healed. But then there's others like, hey, this person was healed this week. It's kind of like an ongoing thing.

And we double check and talk to your doctor, let us know. You know, we're not just gullible. We don't check our brains at the door.

But we also believe that God can heal. And it's not the person. It's the person being available.

And many times the healing doesn't take place. It's not according to God's sovereign will. And people actually get mad at me for saying that.

You should never say that. Name and claim it, brother. No, no, no, I'm not blabbing and grabbing it.

That's not biblical. That's not biblical. I'm trusting God's sovereignty.

How ridiculous is that? Don't ever say according to your will. You pray in faith and you believe it. Well, why do you when you get sick, you check into a hospital under a fake name? You see, a lot of it's showmanship.

A lot of these people are just exalted in the eyes of many people. And if they could just wave their coat on me and blow on me. Listen, they're just a conduit of what God wants to do.

There's nothing in and of ourselves. It's a gift of God. So the debate is these gifts left in the early church.

How many of you are aware of that? Just so I know. How many of you are aware that there's two views, mainly in the church? Okay. Well, I'm going to actually get into it in a minute.

But I wanted to make this an important distinction. The Holy Spirit appoints to each one as He wills, not how we will. How He wills.

And if the gift of healing is gone, then by default, all the gifts are gone. All the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit are gone. But many of us know we've experienced a genuine word of knowledge or a word of wisdom.

Not to be repetitive, but there's so many new people. I mentioned a while back David Ravenhill's son. Leonard Ravenhill's son.

His name is David. I actually verified this with him too. He knows of a, I think, maybe, I don't know if it was him, but it was a missionary, or it was a friend of his.

They're at this event. There's this missionary. She's about 21, 22.

And God gives this guy a prophetic word to say to her, tell her, I hate mommies and daddies too. All right. That's not God.

That's not God. So he wrestled for a while. Not going to say anything, but the pressure was so strong that he eventually said, hey, I got to just share this with you.

I don't know what's going on. And she broke down and began to cry and was set free and released because her uncle would abuse her. And he would say, let's play mommies and daddies.

So God used that prophetic word supernaturally to bring healing to that person. That's how the gifts work. You can't just turn to Matthew 7 and be free to that sometimes.

Sometimes you need God to specifically speak to you. So just because we have the Bible doesn't mean that we don't need something supplemental in order to come alongside and help us. That's the point of the gifts.

The Holy Spirit is called a helper. And so that's what we see here in the gifts. So that's why I can't say that these supernatural gifts are no longer for today because we see them played out according to Scripture.

And when you see something played out according to Scripture, you know, it's not that they say, well, just because you've experienced it doesn't make it true. Absolutely. We say that all the time.

But if my experience lines up with Scripture, what are we missing here? And so that's what the gift of healing is. And I'll cover two primary views. You've heard me talk about this a lot, but number one is you can even look at the word continuationist.

Continuationist means they believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit are and have and will continue until Jesus returns. A person who has this gift, gifts of healing, is often used by God to heal. But here's the danger.

They can become exalted and think that they command the healing. That God must listen to them. And they often make giving to their ministry the main thing.

And you'll hear that a lot. Like I understand you got to raise money and things, but I don't know if a healing ministry is a bad, you know, it's, hey, we're healed, but let's take our offering. I mean, it just rubs me the wrong, that's one reason why we don't even take an offering here.

Let God bring in what He's going to bring in. And it's been more than we would ever imagined. Even to this day, people say, you know what, you can bring in more money if you pass that plate.

Well, we're not here to make money. And I don't think that's correct. Because we're trusting God, those who want to give, give.

It's you don't have to force it. We'll teach on giving when it comes up in the Bible, but it's not to me, it takes away from, at least I felt very uncomfortable in churches. Here we go.

Who's watching me? And if you didn't, right, you felt like what I would, okay, I guess I can confess. Those were the times I went to the restroom. All right, we're going to do a song.

We're going to prepare offering. Morgan, I'll be right back. I've got to use the restroom.

Now, I'm not against churches to do that. A lot of my friends do that if their heart's right. It's no big deal.

I just don't think it fits with what we're doing. And so a lot of these people will make money an issue in their ministry. And because he mentioned the opening video, of course, Benny Hinn's name comes up a lot.

And now that Jack Hayford has passed away, I can say this, but he actually, Benny Hinn went to his church at Church on the Way. And from his lips, he said he started out pretty solid. And just God was using him, you know, what 70s or 80s.

But then the limelight, though, you know, and maybe, let's say maybe God uses you. And if you're not careful, you'll think you're God's man, God's woman. And then it turns into a show.

It turns into a complete. And you've heard of his nephew, Kosti Hinn, probably, who talked about he would travel on the road with them. And the amount of money that came in, the types of hotels and where they stay, it's just not good.

It's not beneficial. And I know people get upset and saying you shouldn't name names, but this is wrong. I'm not going to not say anything just because it might offend or it hurts people's feelings.

This is wrong. This is absolutely wrong. And I have a higher mandate to speak what the truth is.

Even now, he's in a whole bunch of mess. Mike Winger did all this three-hour YouTube thing you can watch. And I know people that are close, and it's just not in a good spot.

The reason is because with anybody, God can use you, and you begin to get exalted. But praise God, He will break those who are humble and keep them broken. They also often, oh yeah, the continuation is, they also dramatize the Holy Spirit, and there's a lack of discernment while allowing odd things to occur in the name of the Spirit.

That group often, right? Because here's why. And again, I know people on both sides. I try to find the middle.

Right? Charismatic with the seatbelt on. You come up and you start rolling down the aisle. Rolling, like a weeble's wobble, but they don't fall down.

Like, hey, hey, what's going on? No, no, Brother Shane, don't disrupt. You're quenching and grieving the Spirit. No, I actually quench and grieve the Spirit when I don't hold the church in order and service.

But they allow just this weird stuff. Examples are angel feathers are falling. Okay? Well, number one, we don't know if angels have feathers.

Number two, to date, nobody's ever been able to show us a feather from an angel. Or gold dust is falling, or see that big globe, that angel globe, that's an angel hanging out up there. You know, I'm not trying to mock, but this is, my discernment alarms go up.

Or I can see I've got a 15-foot angel on this side. I've got a 15-foot angel on this side. I can just see it right now.

Now, maybe, you know, trust but verify. Because that's possible, but not likely. And so, this group, it just gets carried away.

Carried away by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men. And that's the danger of it. That's the danger of it.

But then the other side, what's the other side? It's called cessationist. They believe that the supernatural gifts have ceased. That word cessation, it has ceased.

And gotquestions.org, I use them a lot, and I actually don't agree with them on a few different things, but they said this, they are cessationists. The spiritual gift of healing is the supernatural manifestation of the Spirit of God that miraculously brings healing and deliverance from disease and or infirmity. God still performs miracles.

God still heals people. Sounds like this side so far, doesn't it? There is nothing preventing God from healing one person through the ministry of another. Hey, however, the miraculous gift of healing as a spiritual gift does not seem to be functioning today.

Does not seem to be functioning today. And I'm glad they said it is not functioning today. Do you know why they said it seems or it appears? Because nobody can say it's not functioning today.

The Bible doesn't say that. So we have to come up with certain things to fit our theology. The danger of this group is they can become very jaded and cynical and closed off to God, moving in supernatural ways, even though they will say otherwise.

Now here's a question that I've not got answered yet. So if anybody hears this on the radio later, email us, call us. You want to talk to me afterwards later? This group also avoids often the deeper works of the Holy Spirit.

You won't see this group in extended prayer meetings. They're not talking about fasting much at all, ever. The emotions in the church, passion-filled worship, none of those things.

So I don't think it's just about healing. I think it's a suppression of the deeper work of the Holy Spirit. Because they don't what we call deeper.

I think that's biblical historical Christianity. The early church would seek the deeper work of the Spirit. They're actually called mystics.

When we hear that, we're like, oh, we don't want to use that word. But they were wanting to empty themselves and seek God and pray. Here's a very interesting point to consider.

This group often avoids what I call deeper works of the Spirit. They don't have really extended prayer meetings. They're not into fasting.

They're not into emotions in the church. They're kind of against passion-filled worship. So it's almost like the deeper things of the Spirit, they're not open to.

So that kind of shows me a little bit where their heart might be. Kind of cynical and jaded in many areas. And that's their danger.

It doesn't mean that everyone that believes that way is like that. And I think a lot of us are saying the same thing. It's just how you phrase it.

Because I don't think, let's say you have the gift of healing. Okay, Elaine, make sure you go pray for this person. Go pray with Elaine.

Go, she's got the gift, man. She'll heal you. I don't see that.

Because again, how do we know that God isn't using it for His glory? We don't know He's using it for maybe the person's not ready yet. Again, maybe unrepentant sin. Maybe it's a demonic attack.

There's just so many things there, and we have to be very careful not to jump to conclusions. And again, quoting gotquestions.org, the Bible does not say outright that the miraculous gifts have ceased. Amen? At least they acknowledge that.

I'm glad they acknowledge that, because it doesn't. So what we have to do is try to connect the dots. Basically, we connect the dots by saying it doesn't happen that much anymore.

And it's true, we don't see that as much anymore, at least what we read in the Bible. But the Bible says that signs and wonders accompanied the apostles to confirm their message was true. Without a shadow of a doubt, the apostles, I think, were given a much more greater latitude on the miracles.

You know, I don't know anybody whose shadow has fell on somebody and they're healed, or a handkerchief from Paul was healed. These apostles walked in supernatural power, because the Bible says to authenticate the gospel. These signs and wonders followed these apostles to authenticate the gospel.

But also in America, we already know about Jesus. We know a lot about God. So could it be that we don't see the miraculous as much because of that? Again, I don't know.

I'm just throwing this out there. I do know if you read books from those on the mission field, or you talk to missionaries in Africa dealing with witch doctors, or dealing with, I mean, their blind eyes are being opened, illness and sickness. Even there's people raised from the dead.

I don't doubt that at all, because I don't think these things have ended. And so could it be that maybe in America, maybe we're not as open? I mean, if you're sick, is Jesus the first person you call? Or health care? Your physician? Let me go to the drug store and get this prescription. I don't know.

I'm just thinking we might be in a different position here in America. Also, the deeper the relationship, the deeper the relationship with the Spirit, the more in tune you'll be with what He wants to do. So I'm just going to have to drop another truth bomb.

Most people in America are not walking closely with God. Many in the church. Have you ever heard the term carnal, lukewarm? And we're not going to see the supernatural if we're not striving for holiness, and striving for purity.

Because now that conduit that you are, you have to be a clean conduit in order for that power to flow through. Many times, let's say we ran some conduit, and we came back a year later without them putting anything in it, and mice got in it, mud from the storm, debris. Guess what we had to do? Get a big cat generator, pull it on the back of a truck, put up that psi to 200, get a big connection, and put on the end of that pipe, and turn on the air pressure.

You could hear it. And then all that stuff would spray out at the end. You'd see mice flying out.

Cockroaches. Dirt 30 feet in the air. Because now that conduit is clean.

Now you can put the power source in there. And so that could play a role. How many of us are walking that closely with God to be able to sense when He wants to heal? Again, I mentioned demonic attacks and different things.

But as they noted, the things that mark an apostle are signs and wonders and miracles. If every believer in Christ was equipped with the ability to perform signs, wonders, and miracles, then signs, wonders, and miracles could not in no way be the identifying marks of an apostle. That I don't agree with because believers still need to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Even though it was a differentiating mark, it can still be used today. It seems from the text that ordinary Christians were sometimes given miraculous gifts. It would seem that miraculous gifts being given to ordinary Christians was the exception, not the rule.

So that's kind of how they get away from that. It's also important to realize that the early church did not have the completed Bible. This one scares me a little, I'll be honest with you.

The church did not have the completed Bible as we do today. Therefore, the gifts of prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, etc. were necessary in order for the early Christians to know what God would have them do.

The gift of prophecy enabled believers to communicate new truth and revelation from God. Well, who's monitoring them? I see what they're saying though. They don't have the Bible.

It's a new church. Paul's writing the Bible. Galatians, Ephesians.

Okay, let's get Peter. I mean, it took years and years and years. So how, of course, they had the Old Testament.

So they had the principles of holiness. The book of Acts talks about them knowing to keep fellowship going, to keep communion going. But to say believers are given the gift of prophecy to communicate new revelation, that's a little dangerous as well.

Even though I see what he's saying. If the gifts have ceased, here's a big one for me, if the gifts have ceased, then John 14 is not for us today. Jesus said this, truly I tell you, whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing and they will do even greater things than these because I'm going to the Father.

So, do we throw 1 Corinthians 12 in the trash? And do we say this does not apply to us today? That would be kind of challenging. I don't know. I couldn't do that.

Now, we don't do greater works than Jesus. He raised one from the dead, I'll raise three. What He's talking about is people praying for healing or deliverance in Africa, Australia, North America, South America, Mexico, United States.

There's this broad working of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the last sentence, I'm going to the Father. What does that matter? Because again, what we talked about weeks ago, Jesus said, it's good for me to leave and to go to my Father because then the Comforter, the Holy Spirit will come to you.

So, Jesus said, once I leave, the Holy Spirit comes. Now, think about all the miracles that were happening through the apostles. The book of Acts, 3,000 getting saved, these being healed, these being set free, and now that work of the Spirit just permeated all areas in the country, Middle East, and kept going.

So, you either say that doesn't apply to us today. Now, the challenge is, and I'll just be forthright, I'll be completely honest, we sure don't see that other than what I just mentioned to you before. I don't know what the disconnect is.

So, see, that's the challenge. I don't think these things have ceased. I think the Scripture's still first today, but we sure don't walk very closely with God and experience them, and that's where we get in trouble, and we have to fabricate the Holy Spirit and make things up.

I know for a fact that people make things up about what the Holy Spirit is doing, and when they're challenged, they say, well, I know, but I'm just trying to encourage people. I'm trying to encourage people to have more faith and trying to encourage. No, you don't lie and say God's doing something when He's not.

And a lot of things are, I just have a heart for this area because if we're people of integrity, I'd rather say, you know what? I don't know. We don't see it that much. I'm just being honest versus, oh, yeah, yeah, you're just not here on the right Sunday, or, you know, these fake things.

I know it was eight months ago, nine months ago, a guy prayed and said God is healing somebody right now in their left eye, and then just come up and talk to me if that was you, and nobody, it didn't happen. So why are we not called out on those things? Why do we not handle the Word of God with more reverence? I'd rather just tell the truth and say, you know what, Lord, help us here. Sometimes God doesn't heal if He's using the illness to break you, to humble you.

How many people came back to the Lord because of that illness? Oh, let's line up the line for testimonies. So what about if they're healed too soon? Did you know some illness is directly related to sin? Not all of it. I would never tell somebody, oh, you got sin in your life.

How stupid is that? However, if you research this topic a lot, those people, once they release unforgiveness and bitterness in their heart, and they just experience the healing touch of God, it's amazing how those things... I dealt with depression, anxiety, and this ailment in my body for years, and finally when I let that go, I could just feel the pain was lifted, and I get a great night's sleep because it's tied to that unrepentant sin. Remember that game show, Let's Make a Deal? I think, and I've said this before, I think Christians think God operates like that. If I just hold out for five more years, eventually He's like, okay, okay, okay, okay.

You're tough. I'll heal you. God doesn't say, let's make a deal.

He says, this is the deal. There's no making a deal, and it breaks my heart because I see so many people wound up in bitterness, deep into unforgiveness, and could it be that that healing is just a decision away? We also know that healing sometimes is the result of the choices we make. Hello? I pray for lots of people in there for liver disease, whatever, and I say, I'll pray for you, but you might want to stop drinking the vodka every night.

I mean, I'm just saying, but you see, right? Let's be real. Now, sometimes will God heal in spite of that? Of course. But a lot of our disease, things we're fighting, why doesn't God heal? Well, is there anything you can change? What's the biggest health crisis now in our nation? One of the top is type 2 diabetes.

Now they're seeing it in teenagers, and now it's in little kids. Drinking tons of soda. Parents, you need to wake up and change your pantry if your kids are still at home.

And I pray, I got type 2 and this in my hands. I might have to have amputation on my feet. We can pray.

Let's pray, God, but stop abusing the temple. Stop eating that junk that we know to be wrong. That's just wisdom.

Once you know something, you have a responsibility to act upon it. And then other times God will heal in His sovereignty, regardless if I just went to Krispy Kreme, regardless if they're not going to stop drinking. We don't know.

But that's why God sometimes doesn't heal. Because, and I'll get into the scriptures next time, is it shows. What about James? You know, go to the elders, confess, and the confession of your sin, then they'll pray for healing, and the prayer of faith will heal.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. I mean, we could get in deeper too about the deeper the relationship you have with the Holy Spirit, the more you're going to be used by the Holy Spirit. So, so many believers want the power, but they don't want the holiness.

And the early church had that, that, that, that, no, Peter, I don't have any gold or money to give you, but what I do give you, in the name of Jesus Christ, and they walked in that holiness, they walked in that purity. They were, can you, can you imagine how your week would be if you just cut out the computer and TV and internet and all this negative stuff and just sought God? You might be a little bit more in tune to how to pray for people. Your prayers might carry a lot more weight.

Now, of course, healing isn't based on our holiness, because then it's based on something I'm doing. But the more we're set apart for God, the more we're sensitive to His Spirit and leading, the leading of His Holy Spirit. But again, I don't know exactly other than I do believe that the signs, wonders, miracles, healings absolutely happened more abundantly in the early church, because the Bible says these signs followed the apostles to authenticate the gospel.

How did they know this was real? Oh yeah, Jesus is real, right? Watch this. Get up from the dead. Watch this.

Healing. Be set free. And it even authenticated who Jesus was.

Didn't it? John the Baptist questioning Jesus. John the Baptist sent his followers. Jesus said, go tell John the eyes, blind eyes are being opened.

The lame are walking again. The Messiah is here. And we do not work on that magnitude.

And we don't see that on that magnitude. And nobody's given me a clear, good answer as to why, other than I just trust in God's sovereignty and everything I just told you. I guarantee, have you ever watched or talked to people or visited Africa? And they have church meetings.

If God doesn't heal that mom, she has no insurance. She can't go take amoxicillin for her strep throat. She's desperate.

God, I think that plays a role into it a little bit. Absolutely. God, I need your help.

You just call Kaiser like you normally do. And maybe that could be a blessing. Maybe it could be a blessing.

A person who was at the first service texted me and she made a really good point. Because I asked, did I miss anything at the first? She said, I would put a bit more emphasis on how God can use the medical field to heal as well. I'm like, you know what? That's a really good point.

I completely didn't even cross my mind in the first service. And I truly believe that as well. I believe big pharma has big agenda and let's not, don't get me started on a lot of things.

But at the core, God often uses, Luke was a physician. Jesus is actually called the great physician. And God will use, how many of you have ever been really sick and thank God for antibiotics? You just don't want to get in the custom of doing that often because you know, it ruins your gut microbiome.

It's actually antibiotic means anti against life. And so it's bottom line is avoid as much as you can. But if you need things like that, that's why penicillin.

Thank you, Lord. What about the stuff when you go to the dentist that they numb your, thank God. Can you imagine? 100 years ago, they just give you a shot of Jack Daniels.

So thank God, there are things, medical breakthroughs for that very reason. I find myself, somebody's sick, let's go to the doctor. Let's go to the great physician first.

First. And I don't want to rehash stories, but we've got stories we can tell you over the years of just praying and going to God first and what he has done. It's amazing.

I mean, a lot of times with strep throat, of course, they're going to prescribe amoxicillin, antibiotic, anti against life, biotic against life. It kills a lot of the good gut bacteria. And I'll get into that some other time.

But like, okay, Lord, we've got it. And we want to be wise and we want to be good parents. And we picked up collodial silver and different things spray a lot in their throat.

It's a natural. And yeah, natural probiotic type of thing. But we pray and just go to sleep that night praying over them.

And the next morning, everything's gone in their throat. They don't need that. And then amoxicillin, we've had to throw that throw it out five or six, seven times.

Now, there've been times where we chose to use it. Absolutely. But we seek God first.

And as much as I love physicians, they don't know as much as God. I told you the story. I'll tell you again.

It was on Avenue N. I went to get a checkup. Shane, your blood pressure is out the charts. He's pulling out high blood pressure medication right there for me to take home.

Hold on. Did she use the big cuff? I don't know. Let me go ask.

Oh, no, she didn't. Oh, 120 over here. You're good.

What? And Kylie, you might not remember, we took her to an ears, nose, throat specialist. Guys, this is emergency. We got to get her down to Children's Hospital in the next couple of days.

Got to remove the adenoids and the tonsils. By the way, those are not useless things. They're important in immunity, by the way.

So, hold on, cowboy. Let me just, let's pray. Off of dairy, off of sugar, no juice, nothing.

Made her take a nap. Good, clean, God-given food. Five days, she's breathing again.

Normally, nothing had to do nothing. So, I can already see the memes. Pastor Shane is against physicians and doctors and healings.

I've never said that. If that would have continued, is she having a hard time breathing at night? Absolutely. Of course.

But I've talked to doctors, cardiologists in town, family physicians. They're educated on how to put a band-aid on the solution. The cardiologist I sometimes go to, because my dad died earlier than my age at a heart attack.

I haven't been there in a little while. But I talked about, you know, he's really overweight and just autophagy and fasting and the research it's showing on clearing up arteries and creating stem cells and the length on the telomeres on your DNA. He's like, well, no, we just give him the statin drugs.

Just give him, why not lose some weight? Why not? Because it's not about fixing the problem. It's about managing the problem. And that's why you hear all, that's why RJK, right? Is it RJK or RFK? RFK is catching all kinds of heat.

Because he's going to go in there and spank Big Pharma. He's going to tell them. Well, and again, in the pharmaceutical industry, have we needed antibiotics? Yes.

Have we needed certain things? Absolutely. Thank God for some of the things. But as with all things, money gets in there.

And I've talked to the reps who go to doctor to doctor. And there's board meetings where they have to sell a certain amount to hit their board numbers. It doesn't matter if it works.

It doesn't matter if the person's still sick. Actually, the sicker America is, the more they make. See, so that's the problem.

Let's just be honest. If that upsets you, I don't know what to tell you. That's just the truth.

Yes, there's good people, but in the midst of that, there's also a very, very bad system. And we saw that obviously with COVID and how Fauci handled a lot of those things. I better get off of that topic.

There's always going to be questions. There's always going to be questions. Make sure they keep you clothed in humility, not puffed in pride.

Well, I'll tell you, I kept moving on. But what's happening if you follow both sides with RFK is the media is so they're so full of lies. You have to do the research.

He hates his anti-vax. He's getting your all he's doing is checking. He wants to check the success rate.

He also wants to look at what they call the adjuvants, the agents that are added to the vaccine. Do we need mercury? Do we need this? Do we need fetal tissue? Do we need these things? And what they do is they break the blood brain barrier and they do get to the brain. And so when he says autism, he's a conspiracy.

No, they're linking a lot. That's just all legitimate stuff. This is not foil hat type of things.

This, especially if you know how the body works and you know, Alzheimer's is Alzheimer's and dementia is really things latching onto the brain where the brain can't function correctly. And so he's just wanting a higher standard. Nobody's diagnosed anti-vax for what works.

And this won't get shut off of YouTube because it's not live streamed right now. That live stream is not working. So I can talk about these things.

They do that. Send me an email. You went against our standards.

Well, it hurts to tell the truth sometimes. So with all type of medication, you have to look at the good, the bad. You have to weigh it.

You have to do your own research basically. But on this issue of the gifts of Holy Spirit, we must be careful not to worship intellectualism. Just like the wealthy often look down on the impoverished, intellectuals in the church often look down on those who are not as educated.

And sadly, again, I'm just telling from my perspective, the conservative side, sensationists that, you know, the gifts have ceased. Not everyone, not everyone, for sure. But often that side, it's kind of an intellectual uppityness, right? They'll look down, oh, the 16-year-old that's filled with the Spirit and praying for people, how mature.

They'll realize that in 20 years. No, I'd rather have her pray for me, sir. I'd rather, but see, it's that intellectualism.

It's that uppityness. And I went through it. I love, because you feel men, you want to feel smart.

Let me quote Charles Hodge, systematic theology. Let me quote John Calvin. Let me quote the Puritans.

Let me quote this. Let me do this. Whoa, he's so smart.

But that's what happens in this camp often. Not everyone, but that intellectualism, if you're not careful, can push out the working of the Spirit, because you can't explain God. Augustine was initially very skeptical, but later documented over 70 healings.

Now I want to put a verse up there. 1 Corinthians 1.27. Now let me tell you, the context is with unbelievers, but there is a very important principle. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.

Bottom line is, and I've seen it, I've been now 24 years back with the Lord, pastoring almost 15. And God will use foolish things to confound the wise. Thousands and thousands of people have been through this church over the years.

And I would say, I want to be conservative, 90% of the time, those walking closely with the Spirit, praying for people, seeing results, walking humbly before the Lord, words of wisdom, often they're not those who you would think. They don't have their Ph.D. from the Master's Seminary. It's not like, oh man, he just went through 14 years of Bible college, or he just got his degree.

And I'm not against that. I think the more knowledge you have, the better. You want to be educated.

But often God will use the, well, that's interesting. I would have never thought that. Why? Because we look down on that person.

They might stutter a little bit. They might not be polished. But God, just to shut the proud up.

I've seen it so many times. I've rarely seen that conservative, intellectual, do incredible things in the power of the Spirit. Again, not saying it doesn't exist at all, but from what I've seen, God uses.

Sometimes we've seen incredible awakenings start because the teenagers led a service. Remember we had 25 baptisms on a Wednesday night when it was the teenagers giving testimony. And I drove home going, how in the world did that happen? It just shut the mouth of so many people.

And God, won't He do that? He'll just pull out the least likely. He's humble. He's broken.

He won't take any credit. And that's why I think a lot of people, they actually get jealous of those who operate more in the power of the Holy Spirit. Because they themselves don't have it.

And they feel, because they have more knowledge, this person can't be more spiritual than me. And I wouldn't say they're more spiritual. I would just say they're more broken and more humble.

And God chooses to use them in a powerful and profound way. The context is dealing with unbelievers, but it's also true that God will use humble people to break the proud. Here's the key.

The spirit of expectation, the spirit of expectation vanishes when we no longer exhibit childlike faith. Zeal for the miraculous is replaced with criticism. And longing for the spirit to move is quenched by doubt and judgmentalism.

I'm so glad now looking back on my life, I know why, but before we planted the church for about a decade, I traveled. I spoke at 150 year old Baptist churches with the hymnal and the brick in different states. Really charismatic churches.

Really other ones that were very conservative, to say the least. And I would speak at their men's events. I would speak at different things.

And this is so true. Without that spirit of expectation. Can you imagine not coming to church expecting God to move? There's got to be a breakthrough.

There's got to be something. Can you imagine just coming, okay, well, they did their three songs. Shane's going a little long.

Let's close with that final song and let's get to IHOP before the line gets crowded. And that's it every Sunday? But do you know that's the lives of many believers and many churches? And that's why I said that there should be, I don't mean weird, but I mean, I mean, like it ran the heavens. There's a guy walking in the parking lot.

He doesn't know how he got here. And then he gets saved and baptized. When does that happen? 25 kids getting baptized.

One after another, after another, after another. People coming in praying, crying. What happened? You prayed for me last week.

I'm no longer drinking anymore. I've been set free. I've come with the spirit of expectation and being open to what God's Spirit wants to do.

There's zeal for the miraculous. And I don't want to be critical. And I want the Spirit to move.

But if there's doubt and judgmentalism, God's Spirit will be quenched and grieved. But as I said before, sovereignty keeps you sane. That's the only way to get through this aspect of healing.

Sovereignty keeps you sane. Look at this last sentence. You should not have to check into a hospital under an alias.

How many of you know a lot of people, what they call the healing ministers? And I've read a lot of those guys. I've got questions on a lot of things that if it's too good to be true, it sometimes is, okay? But they would check themselves in under a different name when they go to the hospital. Now, on one hand, if you're famous and you don't want, you know, I understand, but it was because they're not supposed to be sick.

There goes their ministry. Trust in the sovereignty. You will get sick because you're a part of this fallen world.

If you're here and you're over two years old and you've never been sick, introduce yourself. I'll be in the prayer room. And I will ask you a lot of questions.

Now, you hear my heart, right? I'm not against God healing. And technically, there's a lot of Scriptures that you can walk in the promises of God. Here's where it gets tricky.

Technically, we're called to be holy and not sin. So the ability's there, but I think because we live more than an hour long, the flesh gets the better of us from time to time. Anybody ever been defeated by the flesh? Well, half the room.

I'm going to give you one more chance. And the reason I'm passionate, guys, about this is because I've seen it hurt and damage people. Let's say you pray and oh, you're going to be healed and you're going to be healed like what went through Justin.

That happens a lot more than you think. I'm not going to mention names. I went to a few healing things just to watch.

And I talked to people as they're leaving. They're still in crutches, still in wheelchairs. And you can see I'm just disappointed.

I just feel for them. I mean, I wish I had a tract that could pass out like why God heals and doesn't heal. Look these things over.

But you have to also encourage them. And I've seen so much pain in this area, probably more than anything else. I have heard somebody lost their child at a different church and people say you just didn't have enough faith.

Talk about wanting to slap somebody. But see, they abuse the doctrine of faith. Think about it.

People got healed with no faith. Who, Shane? Who? When somebody would intercede, the man said, Jesus, you don't even have to come to my house. Just speak the word and my servant will be healed.

I'm pretty sure the servant didn't even know his master was there. The guy who was dead and Jesus said, get up, young man. Sometimes Jesus just did it in His mercy and His grace.

Other times, I could not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. It's an interesting topic. But let's think about this.

On the next slide, God gave Paul the grace to heal the crippled man in Lystra. We'll get to that. And look at many people in Ephesus.

Paul was able to do this. And the demonized girl in Philippi. And Eutychus.

Remember Eutychus when he fell out of the three story building? But Paul could not heal himself from the thorn in the flesh. Or, Paul could not heal the ailment that he had when he preached in Galatia. And evidently, he could not heal.

I think it's on the next screen. Evidently, he could not heal Timothy from his stomach ailments. Remember that one? Timothy, take a little wine for your stomach.

Or Aphrodite from his life threatening sickness. Or Trophimus, whom he left ill at Miletus. So you see, now, the hyper-charismatic group will say, well, actually, I think it's the conservative side that says the gifts of the Holy Spirit started to slowly leave.

That's why Paul couldn't do that anymore. But I don't see that. I see it's according to God's sovereignty.

And a point I didn't get to last week, but I'm going to close with this, is we talked about bitterness last week. How many of you remember that? And not holding on to that bitterness. And I got permission, this is from a guy named Nick Seaver on X. He said, I was sexually and physically abused as a child from ages four to six.

From the men that my mother brought home. I was again abused as a teenager from a baseball coach. Again, by a family friend who groomed me.

I lost my aunt and uncle to a murder-suicide when I was 17. At age 33, I was the victim of adultery when my wife at the time had a year-long affair while I was in seminary. This resulted in me leaving school, my job, and my church to move near her family and pursue reconciliation.

We were disqualified from the adoption process after two years of fundraising. And during this process of reconciliation, we were advised to not see each other for a blackout period. At that point, she reconnected with her lover.

I pursued reconciliation for about a year and she committed adultery again and again, divorced me, married him, and I lost my in-laws, the only Christian family I had, my job, my church, my school, and all the money we raised. The only thing that has ever brought me lasting comfort and change has been God Himself. Through His Word and His people.

Guys, we have to remember that. I don't know what you've been through, but this is pretty intense. Share this with people who you know who are in a tough spot.

How many of you know who Catherine Booth was? Wife of the founder of the Salvation Army. She said, you will suffer, you may bleed, you may break, but you shall go on. You shall go on.

So while we're talking about miracles and healing, I want to end with an important verse that we can put up from Matthew 7. Many of you have heard it, but it's so important right now. Not everyone who says to me, now I'll tell you, for 24 years now, I've pondered this. I don't quite understand it, but let me explain.

Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Did you know that? Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, because the words don't save you, the condition of your heart does. He does not do the will of my Father.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? So that's my confusion. Does God allow them to still do things in His name? If so, that would make a lot of those people on TV, it should make them pretty worried. Because the next verse, I highlighted it for you.

Let's put that up there. And I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.

Is that incredible? Many on that final day will say, but Lord, we did these things in Your name. And so that tells you right there, it doesn't matter what you do, it's a matter of who you are and who you know. The key right there is the end.

So many of you can breathe easily, because you don't practice lawlessness. That is a lifestyle of sin. So let's say these people are doing things, wow, look what they're doing.

If it's all about the money and the revenue, and they're not really, there's no fruit other than this facade they have, and they're continuing to practice lawlessness, the Bible is clear, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. And you know what keeps people out? Pride. Pride, pride, pride.

I've got one more clip for you from a person with a near-death experience who saw a very dark pit. And so it's real short, let's play it. And I have to stop and say, I'm an atheist.

I'm a lifelong atheist. I'm a rationalist. I'm not spiritual.

I'm not a mystic. I'm not woo-woo. I'm nothing, right? And my dad was an atheist and a physicist.

I have to say all this because of what's coming. And I'm still an atheist, by the way. So all of a sudden, I sensed below me and to my left, this black pit opened up, this black abyss, like this infinite black void.

And I was getting pulled into it. And it's not like darkness had taken over the world. The world was here.

I could see the doctors. I was talking to them, right? Here I am. But the darkness was contained in this hole that was underneath me.

And I was getting pulled into it, right? I didn't know I was dying, but I had this instinct of like a wounded animal. Like if I go into the pit, the infinitely dark pit, I'm not coming out, right? Like I just sensed like don't go in there because you're not coming back. And he's still an atheist.

Unbelievable. Guys, I don't know if somebody's maybe listening later. I know most of you.

I know this might not be an issue, but if there's pride holding you back from the Kingdom of Heaven, let that go this morning. Let that go. Let that pride, it's that arrogance, it's that self-sufficiency.

I don't want to trust in God. Who's God? Make that decision today because you don't want to hear depart from Me. I don't know you.

Isn't that one of the most alarming Scriptures you've ever seen? Because it sounds like these people are genuine, but Lord, we did all these things in Your name. And that's what you need to show people who are trusting in their good works. I run into them all the time.

So do you. Are you going to Heaven? Yeah. I'm a pretty good person.

What do you mean? Well, you know, when I get to Heaven, I hope God sees my good works. They're definitely going to outweigh my bad works. And then that's when you share that He doesn't look at any of your works.

He only looks at one work, that finished work on the cross. That's all He sees. And maybe it's a good call to some who might be listening, the charlatan preacher, the jokester healer, that are leading people astray and making money out of it.

Jesus might say to you, depart from Me. I don't know you. Repent and make that decision today.