Glorious Way Church
Glorious Way Church equips believers for the work of the ministry and stands for God’s truth in our culture. We serve as a regional center, where people from all backgrounds find refreshing worship and true communion of the saints.
Glorious Way Church
The Source Of Sickness
Could understanding the healing power of faith transform your life? Explore profound biblical truths and discover the divine interventions that promise to uplift your spirit, especially during this Christmas season. We journey through scripture, highlighting the story of the woman healed in Luke 13 and examining the challenges posed by rigid traditions in light of Acts 10:38. Our discussion delves into recognizing sickness as a curse and the empowerment that comes from steadfast faith, urging believers to seek strength beyond the confines of modern medicine.
Let's reach down and pick up our Bibles, wave them around and make Jesus glad. Devil mad, say this together. Say, heavenly Father, I'm so glad for this season of the year. It gives me a chance to focus and to speak about your glory, your victory, your blessing. Lord, let my light shine in this season. I refuse to be sad, I refuse to be glum. No, I've got the victory. I'm walking like it, I'm talking like it, and people want to know why I can point them toward you In Jesus' name. Amen, praise God.
Speaker 1:Let's turn in our Bibles this morning to Luke, chapter 13. While you're finding places, find Acts, chapter 10. The Gospel of Luke is where we'll start. 13, verse 11. Praise God.
Speaker 1:And behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and was bowed together and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said unto her woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her. And after another 18 years, no, immediately and immediately, she was made straight and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation Because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day and said unto the people there are six days. See, I'm adding my. That's what I do. I put on the Bible. The bible, I read it, I become part of the scene. I'm there six days. There are six days in which men ought to work and then therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day. I wonder how many six days had gone through, through 18 years that she had. How many six days of 18 years had there been? And this empty sack of pine cones didn't have anything to give her but religion. The Lord then answered him and said but religion? The Lord then answered him and said thou hypocrite, see, I mean, he's the ruler of the temple, he's the ruler of the synagogue, he's the chief high muckety muck, he's the you know, rabbi in charge. You, hypocrite, doth not each one of you, on the Sabbath, loose his ox or his donkey and lead him to water? Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound lo these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond? On the Sabbath day? And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed. And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him. And then Acts, chapter 10, verse 38, it says how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him.
Speaker 1:And so today I wanted to share a message entitled the Source of Sickness. The Source of Sickness. You know, last week we talked about three healing truths. In the previous three weeks we've been talking about believing the blessing and, of course, the blessing includes healing. Sickness is a curse and we ought not be walking in the curse. We ought to have a ground for our faith to operate on, which is what, you know, I wanted to do here in this Christmas season. You know I wanted us to here in this Christmas season. You know I wanted us to to. I wanted to stir your faith up. I want to give you solid ground upon which you can stand for your healing.
Speaker 1:I know some of you fighting some pretty big battles. I mean, you've got some, you know you go to the doctor, you've got symptoms and you've been acting against those symptoms. But sometimes symptoms get to the place where they get in your way and then, when they start getting in your way and they alter your schedule and you have to stay home and go to bed or you can't go to work or you can't move. Well then it's time to go check out, is what it is wrong, so that you can aim your faith at it more accurately, if nothing else and sometimes the doctor can help you until your faith can get a hold of it and turn it around we don't look to the doctor to heal us jesus is the only healer. But doctors can treat. Thank god for what doctors and medicine can do, but they can't do it all.
Speaker 1:And so, um, we're supplementing this teaching that we had on believing the blessing and, on, last week, the three healing truths. You know, last week we got over in John, chapter five, where Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda, means five porches. Five is the Bible number, five is the number of grace, five is the number of the fivefold ministry. I mean it's. You know, the symbolism in the Bible is all powerful. And he came across a great multitude, not just a few people, not a multitude, a great multitude, a great multitude. They're telling how many people were there. Thousands of people, because God and his love and mercy on humanity, and especially his covenant people, israel, would send an angel every season to trouble the water, and whoever was the first one in the water would get healed. And so it was. You never knew when it was going to happen. And if you're crippled, like this man had been lame, jesus encountered one man out of this great multitude. He asked him will you be made whole? Are you willing, sir? I have no man. He's looking for a man. So last week we talked about the three healing truths.
Speaker 1:God wants everyone well, even if they're not serving him. You look across this globe six, 7 billion people a lot of them are are sick. You know what Not one of them does. The God won't say he wants. He wants Nancy Pelosi. Well, she broke her hip. I don't like Nancy Pelosi. I have to love her, but I don't like her at all and she's disgusting. But you know I don't, I don't take any pleasure that she fell and broke her hip on a trip. You know she was there to honor the battle of the bulge, so she was there. You know it's probably just a vacation paid for by you and me, but anyway she fell. You know God wants to heal her. He wants to heal everybody.
Speaker 1:The church has been set against sickness. Jesus said preach the good news, the gospel, to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be damned or condemned. These signs shall follow them that believe, or accompany them, that believe In my name, they shall cast out devils. Jesus cast a devil out right here. That devil of infirmity had held this woman captive 18 years. He said they shall lay hands on the sick. Believers shall lay hands on the sick, not the righteous sick, not the Christian sick, not the worthy sick, just the sick. And they shall recover Hands, they shall lay healed. They shall be in the Greek, I mean, it's pretty direct. So we found out last week. God wants to heal everybody, so that includes you. In fact, in his mind, you're already healed, and so God wants us well, and God's not limited by a man, a move or a meeting.
Speaker 1:That man was looking for a man, you know, and the man was right next to him, the son of God. And Jesus didn't heal him as a son of God, jesus healed him as a man anointed by the Holy Ghost. Jesus laid aside his deity. He came not as God, he was God. He is God, always was God. You know, he wasn't just born in the manger. He's existed forever. But the son of man was born in the manger. He's he's existed forever. But the son of man was born in the manger.
Speaker 1:The son of man was anointed by the Holy ghost and he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil. And we find out last week that this man that he healed, you know, he took, he said, you know, rise, take up your bed and walk. And he took up his bed and started walking. And they found him later in the temple and he said you know, go and sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to you. So he was a sinner man, he had sin in his life and got healed. But then, god, you know, we find out, you know you've got to, you've got to guard your heart. You can't just let sin reign and sin can let the devil in and steal your healing. So we've learned those three healing truths last week.
Speaker 1:But today, the source of sickness, and we find out Jesus said Satan had bound her. In fact, jesus gave us three truths right here, when he's addressing the adversaries, his enemies. They ought to not have been his enemy, he's their Messiah, but they arrayed themselves as enemies. This is going on right now. This is going on right now. There's a lot of people who claim they're believers but they really look at us as enemies. We're haters, don't you know? We've got white privilege.
Speaker 1:I look around this room. There's a lot of non-white privileged people in here. We're all privileged because we're privileged to be bought by the blood of Jesus. That business about white, black, brown, that don't even make any difference. Dummy, yeah, I'm privileged. I'm privileged to be bought and paid for by the blood. I'm not my own, anyway. So he said first of all, this woman ought to be loosed. Second of all, satan had bound her and, third of all, she had a covenant right to her healing. Had a covenant right. Well then, why didn't she get it for 18 years? Because there was no teaching priests in those days. They weren't teaching the people anything but dead religion.
Speaker 1:Now, you know, when you read your gospels, you find that there's 19 healing miracles. Some of the 19 are mentioned more than once. But if they are mentioned more than once like the one with the issue of blood is mentioned more than once, but it's just one event so you count them up and I've done that. I know Brother Hagin said it, but I wanted to verify it. I don't take anybody's word for anything. I do my own studying and I look at my own Bible and I check it out. Like the Bereans, you know, they search the Scriptures daily to see if the things were so that Paul was saying. I think that's a good thing to do. You still need a pastor, you still need to be taught, you need to listen to somebody that knows more than you, somebody that has an anointing to do that. That's me and I didn't buy it, but God gave it to me. But regardless, I mean you ought to check it up. I mean, if I say something and you don't understand it, well, look it up yourself. Do some studying. I studied and I found out yeah, there's 19 healing miracles.
Speaker 1:12 out of the 19 mentioned the faith of the recipient. That leaves seven like this one here that does not mention the faith of the recipient, doesn't mention a thing about her faith. You know the woman with the issue of blood. When she got healed, she came and touched the hem of his garment because she said if I can just touch the hem of his garment, I shall be whole. And when she did that, he said who touched me. What do you mean? Who touched you? You're in a crowd of people, everybody's touching you, jesus. What do you mean? No, somebody touched me. Somebody made a demand on my anointing. Who touched me? He felt virtue or power go out of him because her faith made a demand on her covenant. She had a covenant right, just like this lady. She'd been sick 12 years and spent all her money on doctors, never didn't grow. She was no, nothing better, rather grew worse. But she heard about Jesus. So it mentioned her faith and Jesus said you know, go, woman, go your way. Your faith has made you whole. Your faith made you whole. Your faith made you whole. But that's not said so. 12 like that, 12 miracles are like that, but seven are like this one, that where Jesus just heals someone. I call it apostolic deliverance and healing.
Speaker 1:Jesus was the apostle and high priest of our profession. He was an apostle. He met all five of the fivefold ministry. He's an apostle. He was a sent one. He was sent from heaven. He was a prophet. He was a good shepherd. He was a pastor. He was a teacher. He was an evangelist. He was all those things.
Speaker 1:An apostle is sent. He said I'm sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and an apostle is sent into a region to confront demon powers that are holding captive certain territories. This church is an apostolic vine with a prophetic river, and we're sent all over this country now. I mean God's opening doors. I mean we were sent to Austin in 2023, and we occupied Austin, we pushed the devil out of the Capitol, we hindered his work there, and we're going to go back, coming up in January. We're going back for capital worship. I mean it's amazing God opened that door. But then last year, I mean we went in 2024. This year, really, we went into Oklahoma and Louisiana and did the same thing there. And we're going back again, and now we're adding to it. I mean there's 12 or 13 states want us to come.
Speaker 1:What is that? That's the apostolic going into a region and telling the devil no, you can't come. You. That's the apostolic going into a region and telling the devil no, you can't come. You hypocrites, you hypocrites, and make them ashamed of what they've done. That's what the apostolic does. It makes religion ashamed. It exposes the bankruptcy and the rottenness of religion. Dead religion will kill you. What is religion? Well, it's just man's vain attempt to reach God through some other means besides Jesus, and it couches itself in righteousness.
Speaker 1:Do you notice how these Democrats are always virtue signaling? They're so superior and see, they got smacked upside the head and now they're licking their wounds and they're thinking maybe we're a little bit too much that way. Maybe we need to shut up. Yeah, they're ashamed is what they are. They're ashamed. They ought to be ashamed. I don't see a lot of repentance on that side, but maybe there are a few of them will.
Speaker 1:So religion said no, you can't heal on a Sabbath day, it's too holy. What kind of an idiot would think that way? I'll tell you the people that didn't have the goods they make up the rules to explain why that they don't have any results. They don't have healing. So they say healing passed away. That's what they do. We don't have any healing. We've never seen healing in this church. Why? Because healing passed away. Well, no, you fouled up, you got away from the Word. The Word says that Jesus healed. You want to be like Jesus? Oh, just to be like Jesus. Just to be like Jesus. Oh, just to be like Jesus. Just to be like. But oh, no, healing pastor. Well, no, jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Speaker 1:What Bible do you read? That's the problem. They don't read it. They listen to fables, they listen to theories. And that's religion, folks, it's mean. It says no, but Jesus said yes, didn't it? Jesus said yes. In fact, they didn't. She didn't even ask Jesus. Jesus approached her and called her to him. She didn't ask for a thing.
Speaker 1:18 years. I like this Been over at the waist. I mean, you know, your top of her head had to be sore from hitting all the walls that she ran into 18 years. You can't even see where you're headed. And they're sitting there around and they were perfectly comfortable.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, that's Mildred. Mildred is, you know? She's been that way a long time. Let's all you know. Bless her heart. That's as far as it goes. Bless her heart. That's what religion will say. Bless her heart. Yeah, it's too bad. Healing passed away. That's probably some kind of sin in her life, probably, yeah, now there's no compassion, there's no love, there's no empathy, even.
Speaker 1:Oh, I tell you, religion is evil. Really, religion and Satan are interchangeable. Do you understand that? That means every false religion that this country has imported through immigration, whether it was invited immigration or illegal immigration, all the false religions that are here. Is Satan coming into this country? I'll be glad when they get rid of some of these people. Sorry, they might be your relatives, I don't know. I don't know who I'm talking to. There might be people watching. It sounds like I'm.
Speaker 1:Well, you know they should have come legal, a lot of people. They came here legal and they worked real hard to be able to become citizens. And then for them to sit here and see all these people flood across the border and pick up all this money and all this help and all this education and healthcare and everything else and not pay anything, I mean that's not right, that's not fair, that's not God. God judges every nation that goes into another nation without his sanction. Are y'all with me now?
Speaker 1:I'm telling you some of these things ahead of time because we're fixing to hit some very controversial times and there's going to be a lot of howling and squalling and bawling and finger pointing and calling racist and all of that. I'm telling you it doesn't matter what country you farm. If you came across the border illegally, I want you gone. I don't care what color you are. You can be pink. Whatever color you are, it doesn't matter. It's not a matter of race. It's about illegality and you knew it was illegal. Well, he invited. No, you knew it was all just a bunch of baloney.
Speaker 1:You came for the goods. Very few came to really do any work. Most of them came for the free stuff. And then look at the children. The children are the ones that are being I don't know. I didn't intend to get off on this, but children are suffering. They sent their kids without them. What do you think happened to most of them? They're trafficked. We've got a massive problem now that we didn't that Biden created and the Democrats created it. We got to fix it.
Speaker 1:It's going to be hard, it's going to take a lot of prayer, but anyway, religion said no wrong day. Jesus said yes, healing is good. So right here in this Luke 13, we've got the good, the bad and the ugly. Everybody say the good, the bad and the ugly. Clint Eastwood, 1963. You've got the good, which is what Healing. You've got the bad, which is sickness.
Speaker 1:See, a lot of people don't even I've heard Christians say well, you know that sickness was a blessing in disguise. No, it wasn't. You're lying. You don't know what the Word says. Sickness is never a blessing, never. You're against the Word as long as you're going to talk like that, you're going to have more of it. You've dishonored the blood. Why did he die? Why did he take it? If it's a blessing in disguise, what is that? A theory, again. It came from religion. It came from places that don't believe in healing. They never anybody ever gets healed there, you know. And then if they do pray for somebody that's sick, they'll say well, lord healer, if it be thy will, lord healer, well, that's not scriptural at all. We know what God's will is. He just did it right here. Healing is good, sickness is bad and religion is ugly Good, bad ugly.
Speaker 1:So now this miracle is in the Old Covenant. I know it's in the New Testament, but it's an Old Covenant miracle because Jesus had not yet died on the cross. She had a ground for healing because of the law of Moses. She's a Jew and Jewish people had Jehovah Rapha, the Lord. I am the Lord that healeth thee. God revealed himself as Jehovah Rapha in Exodus 15, after Israel escaped and were delivered out of Egypt, and they crossed the Red Sea, got on the other side and God revealed himself as Jehovah Rapha. I am the Lord that healeth thee. He has seven covenant names the Lord your shepherd, the Lord's present with you, the Lord is your victory, so forth and so on. And so he's got all these covenant names Healing is one of them. But we've got a better covenant found upon better promises than Israel.
Speaker 1:And so in Genesis, chapter 12, the first Hebrew was Abram. And God said I'm going to bless those who bless thee, I'm going to curse those who curse thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. The book of Hebrews calls that the gospel Hebrews. Chapter 4 says that's the gospel right there, that the gospel was preached to Abraham and Abraham believed it, and that was in 12. You know, when he went along, you know, and he expected to have a baby and he didn't. And he didn't have a baby, didn't have a baby, and years go by, 15 years go by, he's 60 at the time that Jesus, that God told him that now he's 75.
Speaker 1:And God came to him, says in Genesis 15, he said, abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And he said well, where's my offspring, where's my seed? I thought I was supposed to have babies. I ain't got no baby, and one born of my servant is my heir. No, that's not your heir, come on, let me show you. And he shows in the land. He walks up and down the land. All this is going to be yours.
Speaker 1:And he says how do I know what you're saying is going to come to pass, man? You know these patriarchs. They knew God in a way that a lot of us need to learn how to know God. They know their covenant. See, they're a covenant people. You can't trust somebody's word by itself. In Bible days in the East, in the Orient, you had to back up your word with blood or else you didn't really have anything but just somebody's words. They did words cheap, but when blood is shed, when blood is shed, see, covenant means to cut and it implies a shedding of blood. We're going to have communion in a little bit and we're celebrating our covenant, and part of our covenant is healing and we got to know the difference between good and bad and ugly.
Speaker 1:If you, as a Christian, have ever sat in a church that believed and you were a Christian, I see I heard a lot of stuff when I was lost. Well, when I got born again, all that stuff wasn't in me anymore because I got a new spirit. But if you've been born again and you sat in an old, religious, dried up church and they told you all kinds of stuff and you went along with it. Maybe you know better now, but you went along with it back then. Well, you know, it's going to take more than a few messages like this for that to get driven out of your spirit.
Speaker 1:Because when you come face to face with a real bad report, you're going to be tempted to go back and think well, maybe God's got a purpose behind. No, he doesn't. He didn't send it, he's not the author of it and he doesn't want you to have it. He made provision for you to defeat it. Come on, lift your hands right there. That's why I'm teaching this.
Speaker 1:Well, you know I've heard this before. Well then, it's water for what you already believe in. It's going to nurture what you've already got growing and it's going to produce for you even better. And if you haven't heard this, then it's seed that's going to produce too. So, hey, just keep listening. Don't shut it off, don't say well, I've heard this before. I'll tell you what. We've all heard things.
Speaker 1:But the devil is lawless and he will attack you anyway. You don't even have to open a door for him to attack you A lot of times, people, that if they got attacked they must have opened the door. Well, that's true that that can happen, but it's not, I'm telling you. The devil can attack you regardless just because so, uh, he said, how do I know? And and and the first thing, god said well, get me a heifer. In other words, on my behalf, get me a heifer, kill that heifer, split it down the middle, spread that thing, shed that blood, and and and. Abram had to watch over the halves of that thing while the drive the birds away till almost dark and about dark. God came down at the burning lamp and he, just he, went up and down and and, uh, the. The Jewish tradition is that he walked through the pieces in a figure eight. A figure eight is forever infinity. And that sacrifice was consumed. And that was on God's side.
Speaker 1:God swore by two immutable things God, what were the two things, his promise and his oath? What were the two things, his promise and his oath? The oath was I promise this and if I don't deliver I'll die. Well, how many of you know? God didn't die? And the Bible says that Abram believed and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.
Speaker 1:How many of you believe your covenant? How many of you believe that Jesus bought and paid for you? That's what the Bible says, 1 Corinthians 6. What Know you not? That your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which you have of God and you've been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, with your gods. How can you glorify God when it's eat up with cancer? How can you glorify God when you can't walk? See, I'm making my wife's case. How can she glorify God properly? She's rolling around a wheelchair. She's coming up out of that wheelchair. She's coming out of that business because we got a covenant. Are you with me now?
Speaker 1:So when you look in your Bible, I see you know, in the beginning Adam lived to be 930 years old and all those guys, I mean Methuselah. I see you know in the beginning Adam lived to be 930 years old and all those guys I mean Methuselah, 960, something you know. Look in your Bible 900, you know it was even all the way to Noah. And remember Noah. By the time Noah got around, he's way down the list there. By the time Noah got around, he still lived to be 900.
Speaker 1:And what I wrote it down 950 years, noah lived 950 years and then, after the flood, then remember, there was a tower of Babel and man got lifted up and said we're going to build, build it all the way to heaven. And and God looked and said man, they, they're all in one language, they're all in agreement. Nothing shall be withheld from them. I'm going to have to go down and fix this. So he tore down the tower and confused their languages and scattered them all over the world and separated them.
Speaker 1:See, that's the power of humanity Humanity gets together and speaks with one voice. I mean, they can do a lot of damage. Look at communism. They get together and speak with one. How do they speak with one voice? Well, they lie and then they shut them off from being able to hear anything else. That's what we've had the last four years. The news media has shut us off from anything, and it was when Trump got on the podcast and got alternative places of media. Now it just basically good. At ABC, cbs and NBC and CNN and MSNBC. They're shown as the liars that they are. Now ABC has paid $15 million to settle the slander. It's about time they get sued. Are y'all with me now? So when he scattered them out.
Speaker 1:Then they started going down in age, and so when you read about abram's father, tira, tira was 205 years old when he died. Abram was 175, and so he started going down, down, down, down down, see that, and it took the devil over 2000 years to devise enough sickness to shorten man's life. The devil can't just snap his fingers and come up with cancer. He can't just snap his fingers. He's not a creator. He can't snap his fingers and come up with diabetes. It took him 2,000 years to erode the length of days that man had built in to where now it's, you know, 70 or 80 during the Kings, during the Kings of Israel. I mean, none of them live that long they live, you know, I don't even see any of them live more than 70, 80 years.
Speaker 1:Why sin, sin, see? This whole earth is coming apart, not because of global warming. There's no such thing. It's all a lie. The problem it has is the amount of sin. It was never designed to hold sin. It's going to eventually have to be completely destroyed and remade again. It's going to be remade by fire. There's no more sea. Can you imagine a planet with no sea? No Gulf of Mexico, no Pacific, no Atlantic, just land. That's a lot of land. God's going to have a whole lot of spaces for people. I don't believe it's going to be a wasteland. I believe it's going to be a garden and we're going to be in charge of it. So no, you know, all this global warming stuff, all this fear of what we're going to do to it and all of that it's a lie.
Speaker 1:So God curses? No, the curse came because of the fall. I mean, he created Adam just like himself and he gave Adam total dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, everything that grows, everything that creepeth on the earth, all the creeps. And when he see, eve was deceived, but not Adam. Adam followed Eve in her sin and his eyes were open. He knew what he was doing was wrong. So he committed high treason against God and he transferred that dominion to the devil. It was so legal what God did that God couldn't. God couldn't undo it except through the seed of the woman.
Speaker 1:God devised the way of redemption and that's Jesus. That's why we, we, the devil, can't Lord sickness over us. He, you know, sometimes he tries, but we have authority. It was restored to us by the blood of Jesus. Thank God for the blood. So God's not the author of the curses, god's not the author of sickness. The devil is Religion will try to get you to buy into it. Religion will tell you you're glorifying God by being sick. You know the Catholics.
Speaker 1:I came across a whole body of teaching talking about redemptive suffering that we, you know, we just offer up the pain to the Lord. That's a bunch of baloney. Jesus suffered so we didn't have to Give me a. You're not Jesus like that. That sacrifice has already been. See, they don't know what the Bible says. They have religion, a lot of them do. They don't know what the Bible says. They have religion A lot of them do.
Speaker 1:I know some people that love God, that are Catholic and they've been born again. But you know, really, if I were you, I'd get out of the Catholic church, don't you see? The pope is nuts and that's over you. I mean your money is going to perpetuate a lie. I mean he can't even decide what part of the homosexuals that he approves of. On one side he's trying to have a festival for them and have something for them over here, and then on the other side he's saying no and he just waffles back and forth. I mean he's nuts, he's anti-Semite, he hates Israel. So I mean, if you're Catholic and you love God, get out. Get out and get to some place that will teach you the word.
Speaker 1:In Deuteronomy 30, before he died, moses taught the children you know their parents had died in the wilderness because they rebelled against God, wouldn't go in the promised land, and so he had Deuteronomy mean second giving of the law. So he gave them the law the second time, so they would know what their covenant said. And he said I set before you this day Deuteronomy, chapter 30. I set before you this day life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that both you and your seed can live. Amen, it's a choice. We have to choose life. We have to choose blessing. You have to choose it. Why?
Speaker 1:Because the devil is going to try to get you to live with a curse. He'll start off small. He'll start off with a little thing. He'll start off hell. That's not so bad. And then we just kind of ignore and ignore, don't ignore it, conquer it. And then we just kind of ignore and ignore, don't ignore it, conquer it, refuse it, resist it. Something little turns into something big.
Speaker 1:So I have three truths about the curse of sickness. Or we could say three truths about the source of sickness. And the source is the curse, which is the devil. We know the devil is as Jesus said, it was Acts 10.38 says it was Heal, all who are oppressed of the devil. Now, the devil himself doesn't occupy himself with you. He has a hierarchy, he has demon powers and they fall under a line of authority. You have principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, wicked spirits in the heavenly places. Those are the ones floating around the atmosphere. And then there's demons on the earth, little demons, little old things. They're not angelic spirits, they're just little spirits.
Speaker 1:This was a spirit of infirmity. Did he even talk to the spirit of infirmity? He didn't even talk to it. He didn't pray some long prayer. You know Jesus said woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. He called her to him. So here she is, on her way over like this. She's on her way to see Jesus, woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. Put his hands on top of the back of her head and immediately she straightened up. He didn't pray, he didn't spit, he didn't holler, he didn't pray, he didn't spit, he didn't holler, he didn't twirl. You know he just said woman, thou art loosed, past tense. When he said thou art loosed, she was still bent over Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity, in other words, and she straightened right up. He laid his hands on her so that power went out of his hand into her.
Speaker 1:Jews did understand laying on of hands. Laying on of hands was a doctrine in Judaism. They had the scapegoat. Has anybody ever heard of a scapegoat? We still use the term scapegoat today. But they had the scapegoat Once a year. The priest would take a goat and lay his hands on the scapegoat and put the sin of Israel on the goat. They would take the goat way out into the wilderness and let it go, and that denotes that Jesus took our sins. And so they were doing all that without really knowing what the significance was. Jesus fulfilled every one of those things. Jesus fulfilled every one of those things. So he has a way of operating, so that his hierarchy, it's still Satan behind it, behind all sickness.
Speaker 1:And so what did we learn in Galatians 3.13? We just taught on the blessing Christ has redeemed us from the curse, made a curse for us, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles. See, the might is on our side. We have to believe the blessings. We taught on that three weeks. Well, you've got to believe this, you have to. You have to mix faith with what you're hearing. You've got to know that you have power to get rid of infirmity of any kind, because Jesus already took it. You don't have to get your healing. He got it, gave it to you. Well, I'm going to have to get healed. No, you've got it, you're healed. You're, you're healed. And so the curse is the power and penalty of sin, which is what sickness and poverty.
Speaker 1:When you look in Deuteronomy 28, let's turn back there real quick. Deuteronomy 28 is the curses. Right before he told them, I set before you life and death, blessing, curse and choose life. He gave them what the blessings and the cursings were in chapter 28. And in fact, when they went into the promised land, they went through two mountains, mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. On one mount they had a priest up there hollering what the blessings were. You're blessed in the city, you're blessed in the country. You're blessed in your coming in, you're blessed in your going out. You know, you're blessed as your basket and store. And on the other mountain was the curses. You're cursed. And it took a lot longer to go through the curses than it did. The blessings, blessings are Deuteronomy 28. Have you found it yet? All the way from verse 1 to verse 14. 1 to 14 is all the blessings, but then, starting in verse 15 and going all the way to verse 68, there's the curses you know.
Speaker 1:Every now and then, when I'm going through a battle, I'll go back and I'll try to find what it is I'm battling in the list of curses. Just put it in front of my eyes and say, well, this Bible right here says that this is a curse and I'm not going to walk in the curse devil. So it lists, you know, things like. You know inflammation, verse 22,. The Lord will smite thee Now. See, god doesn't do the smiting. See, the Lord will smite thee Now. See, god doesn't do the smiting. See, the Bible is written in progressive revelation.
Speaker 1:You know who wrote Deuteronomy? Well, I'll tell you who wrote it. It was Moses, and Moses didn't know all about the devil. He didn't understand all about this. So it's in the permissive sense. God has to allow what we allow. Well, you know, god allowed that sick.
Speaker 1:No, get that out of your vocabulary, because that's a lie. That implies that God is partially or maybe fully responsible for what you're going through. No, it comes from the territory. The devil is a lawless one. He's a liar, he's an accuser of the blood. He'll do everything he can to make you accept the curse. And when you go through, here it just verse 22,. The Lord will smite you with consumption, fever, inflammation, extreme burning, blasting and mildew. See, that's infirmity. And it goes on. And then it talks about you know you'll.
Speaker 1:Verse 30,. You'll betroth a wife and another man will lie with her. Marriage trouble, children trouble. You'll have kids. You won't enjoy them. Trouble with children is a curse. Trouble with your marriage is a curse. Are you going to put up with trouble in your marriage? You're going to get it taken care of. Usually it's just a lack of love, and you ought to be the first one that says I haven't loved right. See, quit pointing the finger at your partner and start pointing the finger this way. There's the problem right here. Quit blaming and start owning what you've done. I don't know who that's for, but we're going to have communion here in a minute. It's a good time to be thinking about those things.
Speaker 1:So it's really all about the power and penalty of sin manifests itself in sickness and disease. On this side, even among Christians, you can have sickness and disease as a result of not guarding your heart, not doing the right thing. We have to do the right thing. It's illegal, it's legal, that the curses come and they shouldn't come. We have to do the right thing. It's illegal, it's legal, that he you know, the curses come and they shouldn't come. We have the blessing.
Speaker 1:It's all about substitution and identification. I want you to say those words out loud Substitution and identification. You have to understand. So, gee, on these two golden hooks substitution, identification hang our redemption. If redemption is a beautiful banner over our head, redeemed of the Lord, it hangs on two golden hooks.
Speaker 1:Substitution identification Jesus identified with our human condition. He laid aside his deity, took upon himself the nature of sinful flesh, was born of a virgin, born subject to temptation. He was tempted. He never sinned, but he was tempted. A temptation meant that he could have but didn't. He was tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin. So he was our. He identified and then that way he could become our substitute to take the punishment we all deserve. We're about to take communion and celebrate that fact. He identified with us and became our substitute. So then we, once we accept that and we're born again, we can identify with his righteousness, we can identify with his health, we can identify with his prosperity, we can identify with his joy and gladness.
Speaker 1:Don't have to have grief. Oh, in holidays I have grief. You don't have to have grief in the holidays If you find yourself weeping over a loved one that departed since last Christmas. And we have people that are like that. You lose a loved one. This might be the first holiday that they haven't been here and you're a little sad. Well, okay, you can be sad and shed a tear, but don't stay there. Get out of there and say, ha ha, I know where they are. They're walking the streets of gold. Glory to God, hallelujah, I'm happy, I'm joyful. In the holiday, I mean, you can have what you say, just don't go that way. Don't go, don't get down all the way down in this gut wrenching. I mean, grief is horrible.
Speaker 1:That's why Jesus took it. He took it just like he took sickness, like he did sin, amen. So, uh, the truth about about the curse of sickness is that Jesus was our substitute and he took it for us. We don't have to have it.
Speaker 1:And the second one in Ephesians 1, verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. Isn't that great In Christ? In Christ, he's already blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. In Christ Past tense we are blessed. We've preached about that for three weeks. We're blessed.
Speaker 1:Blessing means you're not sick. Sickness is not a blessing, what? It's a curse. God didn't send it. God's not trying to teach you something with it. God had nothing to do with it. He wouldn't have. He doesn't have any sickness to give you. He has only health to give you.
Speaker 1:So, uh, I like the Norley translation who have blessed us with all the blessings that heaven itself enjoys. Glory to God. Is there sickness? Has anybody got cancer up in heaven? Has anybody got diabetes up in heaven? Has anybody got angina? Has anybody you know, arthritis? We got some arthritis up in. No, no, there's nothing up there like that. Nobody's grief stricken, nobody's crying, there's no sad singing, oh, hallelujah. Well, we can have that on earth. We don't have to have that. We don't have to wait to get there. We can have it right now if we'll just contend for it. So the blood, this is legal. See, you got to know what's legal before you can have what I'm talking about, because you have to believe it.
Speaker 1:So what happened with the blood changed your status from cursed to blessed. See, you were cursed. Everyone that was born of Adam was cursed. That's when the curse came in. When Adam sinned, the curse came and everyone that's born of a woman in this earth is born cursed. They're born cursed. That's why sometimes babies have got abnormalities. We go, whoa, what happened? Well, it's because of the fall of Adam. It's a curse. It's in the earth.
Speaker 1:You can contend for their healing. You can contend for things to be better. It's nothing you did or didn't do. Don't take ownership of just because a child has got something wrong with it. I mean some of our babies. You know they are born with certain things and you know I mean our grandchildren. All had little things wrong with them. We had to stand against certain things and we got the victory. But if I mean if sometimes children are born with very severe issues and sometimes I hate to say it, but some they look like they're lifelong, well, don't give up. Don't give up, amen.
Speaker 1:So the blood changed our status from cursed to blessed, from sick to well. God sees you as a well person. You're a well person overcoming symptoms of sickness. Your status is you're a well person. You're not a sick person trying to get healed. You're not a sinner saved by grace. See, it's the same thing when people say, oh, I'm just a sinner saved by grace. Well, see, they heard that saying and it's a lie. That's religion. There aren't no sinners saved by grace. The sinner was you were a sinner, but no longer. No, you're a saint, because while you're in Christ, you're not a sinner. If you were a sinner, but no longer, no, you're a saint Because while you're in Christ, you're not a sinner. If you're a sinner, you need to get saved, but once you're saved, you're no longer a sinner and you're not a sinner. You were a sinner, See, when you say I am, then you say the wrong thing.
Speaker 1:You're claiming something that's a lie. That's religion. It's false humility. It's false humility. Some people just don't want to confess that they're the righteousness of God in Christ. But that's our confession.
Speaker 1:Why we're righteous? We were unrighteous, but now the blood of Jesus makes us righteous. We were sick, but now we are well. Why? Because the blood of Jesus. We were loosed from our infirmities. Are y'all getting this now, praise God.
Speaker 1:You were poor, but now you're prosperous. Quit talking poverty. Quit talking poor. Quit talking insufficiency. Quit talking like. You're broke. Quit talking well, I am broke Well. Quit saying that You're prosperous. The Bible says you're blessed. The Bible says you're broke. Quit talking. Well, I am broke Well. Quit saying that You're prosperous. The Bible says you're blessed. The Bible says you're blessed In the curses. It says that you'll have a crop and they'll come and just eat it all up, that you know you'll lose all kinds of goods and everything, that the enemy will come and steal right and take everything away from you. That's a curse, not a blessing. Well, it was a blessing in disguise. No, it's not a blessing in disguise, it's a curse. Are you getting anything out of this today? All right, so the blood changes our status from sick to well. We're not sick people trying to get it well, we're well people successfully resisting sickness and disease. Amen.