Disease: The Fear of Serious Illness

Message Description:

As humanity continues in many ways to recover from a worldwide pandemic, an insidious side effect has infected millions of people: the epidemic of fear. Are you showing symptoms? Dr. David Jeremiah examines the fear of falling ill and turns to Hezekiah for help in treating it.

• God can heal any way He wants
• Dr. Jeremiah’s message – “Disease: The Fear of Serious Illness”
• Next Time on Turning Point

And this would certainly be an answer to those who have said, and you’ve probably heard them, and I have to.
No. No. No. No. You don’t need anything, God, you don’t need doctors, you don’t need medicine. Just trust god.
In fact, they’ve actually, I’ve heard them say this, If you trust in a doctor or if you use medicine, it is because of your lack of faith that god does not heal that way that god always heals without any means.
The only problem with saying that is it’s just not true. God can heal any way he wants.
He can heal with a doctor or without 1, by a prescription or without 1.
But in this case, God used a prescription to heal hezekiah and I just want to stop and say, I thank God for my doctors.
From a human perspective, I would not be here apart from the 2 men I mentioned earlier in this message.
Was god in that? Absolutely, and I thank god every day.
For his leading me to them, for his using them, for his giving them the wisdom and the knowledge and the education, and the wherewithal to deal with the disease.
And so god used this prescription. He prescribed something for Hezekiah.
And when that was applied, Hezekiah got better. So I was preparing this message.
I had to take time out to get my semiannual CT scan at the script clinic in La Jolla.
I have made this round trip journey now for almost 20 years.
Started in 19 94 when I was diagnosed with non Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, And then I was sent back here for this local hospital in La Jolla to care for me.
On that first day, as I went to the clinic, I met oncologist Doctor. Alan Sabin.
And after these many years, he is still the 1 who examines me twice a year.
It was Doctor. Saven, along with, doctor Charles Mason who presided over the stem cell transplant, which ultimately brought me healing from this disease and gave me my life back.
I’ve written about this extensively in a book I authored back then called when your world falls apart, so I won’t go into detail here about that.
But since I’m preaching this series about fear, I thought I would answer the question that I’ve been asked hundreds of times over these last 2 decades.
Here it is, Doctor. Jeremiah, were you ever afraid during the time you were dealing with cancer?
Now the question itself is kind of amusing to me because it seems to indicate that if you’re a pastor, you sort of get a free pass on stuff, you know?
You know, I actually had people say, well, you’re a pastor. How’d you get cancer?
Well, the problem I have is a problem that we all have. I suffer from what they call humanity.
And, cancer along with other diseases. They’re all human diseases, aren’t they?
So just because we’re Christians, we don’t exit humanity. We get the same human problems and diseases everyone else gets.
Well, I want to answer the question, was I ever afraid?
And I’ll do it in a moment, but first, I want to tell you that you probably will have a difficult time understanding what I’m about to say.
It’s hard to explain to those who have not experienced cancer what it’s like to have that disease associated with your name.
In fact, every time I walk back into the script’s clinic, as I did this last week, the same emotions of fear that I had, when I found out I had this disease, revisit me.
It’s the strangest thing. I’ve had nothing but good reports in all these 20 years, but every time I walk through the door of Scripps clinic, I have the same feelings that I had when I was under the cloud of lymphoma.
I’ve been asked how it felt to learn that I had cancer. People say, were you afraid?
Absolutely, I was afraid. I was desperately afraid. I mean, I wasn’t afraid to die.
I’m pretty sure of that. By the way, I wasn’t anxious to do it either.
I wasn’t afraid to die, but, I wasn’t anxious to die. I thought I should throw that in.
But a good bit of my fear I think was focused on losing years with my my beautiful wife and my children and grandchildren that at that time were still on their way, can’t come yet.
I was afraid of the unknown. I was afraid of pain.
In fact, You can get inside my skin, just stop and think, what would you feel right now if somebody told you you had a disease that could take your life, What emotions would you be feeling?
I had all the same ones.
Mission Isabel Coon wrote a book entitled in the arena in which she explained how her various adversities and problems had become platforms for the lord to use as she tried to witness and administer.
The final chapter in her book involved the loss of her health and her battle with breast cancer, and here are her words She said her natural impulse was to panic at every moment, imagining complications.
She said if she coughed, she thought she had lung cancer.
She said if she had a toothache, she knew it was cancer of the mouth.
Every tickle and twinge was instantly interpreted as a grim, new enemy.
I know about that, and so do many of you.
So disease is ever present with us.
And the probability is that you have or will encounter it somewhere along the way.
The probable encounters with disease, Well, it started back in the garden.
God created Adam and Eve in a state of perfect health, and their bodies were free from disease.
But then they sinned. And the whole order of nature was convulsed, and sickness became a grim reality and death in unavoidable eventuality.
And at least a portion of our days on this earth, whether we like it or not are going to be spent ill, or sick, or diseased, or injured, or wounded, or the loss of health comes on us either suddenly or slowly, but on us all it descends.
And it is the fear of disease entering into our lives that sends a post beat of panic through our hearts, a call from the doctor’s office, the look on the face of a physician or a spasm in our chest can be just as chilling as anything we’ve ever experienced.
Whatever we think we’ve contracted a disease of any kind, we experience a plague of intensely personal and poignant fear.
Now, diseases defined as any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, or social problems, or death to the person afflicted.
Most diseases affect the personality of us in some way. They can drain us financially.
The most expensive disease is dementia. Among the most common are cancer and coronary diseases.
And the word disease, do you know what it means? Well, it means exactly what it says.
It is dis ease. It’s a condition that reverses the ease of life.
Disease brings with it a disruption of life’s normal patterns.
And this includes suffering and pain, the treatments sometimes of our diseases are as debilitating as the disease itself.
Have you noticed? By the way, have you ever heard the commercials for some of the drugs we’re selling these days?
By the time you listen to all of the things they have to admit could happen to you, say, okay.
Thank god. I’ll just keep my disease. Yeah. Yeah.
Diseaseses cause you all kinds of, comfort, needles, and tubes, and monitors, and call buttons, and bed pans, and add to that the apprehension of losing our independence or coming a burden to other people, not to mention the possibility of dying.
1 thing I discovered when I was sick years ago was that when you go to the hospital these days, you park your dignity outside.
When you walk in, you don’t take your dignity with you. You lose it. It goes away.
While I was going through 1 of those experiences, someone gave me a little bit of poetry, I just have to share with you today.
It’ll illustrate what I’m talking It goes like this.
I was sitting here minding my business, kind of letting my mind go slack when a nurse came in with a bright, sunny smile, and a gown with a split down the back.
Take a shower, she said, and get ready and jump into this sack.
What she’s really talking was the gown with the split down the back.
They’re coming to do some tests, she said.
They’re gonna stretch you out on a rack with nothing twix me in the cold cruel world.
But a gown that’s split down the back comes only to the knees in front in the sides.
There is no lack, but by far the greatest shortcoming is that blooming split down the back.
Whoever designed this garment for humor had no neck, but I failed to see anything funny about a gown that is split down the back.
I hear them coming to get me. The wheels go clickety clack.
I’ll ride through the halls on a table in a gown with a split down the back.
When I get to heaven, I’ll make me no odds if my robe is white, red, or black.
The only thing I ask please give me 1 with no split down the back.
You got it.
You know, sickness and disease destroys your sense of well-being and can take all your dignity away in a very short time.
You ought to be a pastor with the fear that the people you’re going to meet are from your own church.
Well, perhaps today as you’ve come to church, you’re alarmed with some twinges in your chest, or aches in your bones, or or persistent cough that won’t go away.
Maybe there’s a speck of blood where it shouldn’t be, or maybe you’re past those initial symptoms, and you’re already diagnosed and you’re battling a disease.
The probable encounters with disease. We all have them.
But let me give you some primary examples of disease.
1 of the things that we shouldn’t be surprised at, but because we don’t necessarily always read our bibles the way we should, we are are often surprised to discover how many of these current kinds of problems that we face are actually also faced in the people of the I told you early on that in the Bible, there are over 200 people about whom it is said they were afraid.
Well, you wouldn’t believe how many people in the Bible were actually sick.
I I went through the scriptures and I kind of made a little list of them, and I’m gonna read this real fast, and you won’t be able to write them all down just maybe the names.
But here’s just a sampling of the people in the Bible who were sick.
There’s Paul and his thorn in the flesh, and Job, who we already met sitting in the ash heap, and there’s lazarus in his terminal illness, and the woman with the issue of blood and naiman and the disease of leprosy, and King David with the evil disease that clung to him and King ASSA with his diseased feat and King Jaham and his disease intestines and the people of Galile Lee who came to Christ with all kinds of disease, and epaphroditus who was sick almost unto death and Dorcus who fell sick and died leaving behind a grieving community of disciples.
I’ve never heard of a pastor, preaching a series of sermons on the deceased people of the Bible, but if he should ever choose to do so, there would be no lack of material because the Bible has many, many stories and encounters of people who were sick.
But the 1 biblical count that is the poster child for this message is a man by the name of Hezekiah.
Now, Hezekiah has often been the brunt of some jokes because some people say there’s a book in the Bible, and the book is called Hezekiah.
When they wanna tell you something and give it biblical credit, they’ll say, it’s in Hezekiah 2 3.
Well, let me tell you something. There is no such book.
As Hezekiah, but there is such a person, and he was 1 of the kings of Judah.
In fact, He was 1 of the good kings, maybe 1 of the great kings of the Old Testament, who assumed the throne of Judah at the age of 25, and immediately began to set things back in order because the nation of Israel had regressed and had backslidden Second chronicles, 29, 3 through 5 tells us that hezekiah opened the doors of the house of the lord and repaired them.
And he brought in the priests and the levites and gathered them in the east square and said to them here, levites, sanctify yourselves sanctify the house of the lord god of your fathers.
Now watch this, and carry out the rubbish from the Holy Place.
The worship of god had so disintegrated that there was actually rubbish in the Holy Place of the Temple.
The next chapter says that the hand of god was on Judith to give them singleness of heart to obey the command of their king and the leaders at the word of the lord, and Hezekiah gave encouragement to all the levites, and he taught good knowledge of the lord.
And in the following chapter in Second Chronicles chapter 31, we read, then Hezekiah did what was good and right and true before the lord his god and in every work that he began in the service of the house of god, and in the law and the commandment to seek his god, he did it with all of his heart and he prospered.
And the next 10 or 15 years in Judah were among the happiest years in the history of Judah.
But when Hezekiah turned 39, everything changed.
It says in Isaiah 38 verse 1 that in those days hezekiah was sick and near death, and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos went to him and said, thus says the lord, set your house in order for you shall die and not live.
That’s like the oncologist coming out after the examination and saying to you, you got 6 months.
Your disease is inoperable. It’s terminal. There’s no hope.
That was the sentence that was given to hezekiah.
Now, Hezekiah is an illustration of what people do when something like that happens.
We’ve seen the probable encounters with disease, and we’ve looked at some primary examples.
But now I want you to notice the painful emotions of disease in Hezekiah’s response.
What would you do when you first heard that? Well, you would do exactly what he did.
If you’re a Christian, he prayed.
It says in Isaiah 38, 1 to 3, in those days hezekiah was sick and near death, and he turned his face toward the wall, and he prayed to the lord, and he said, remember now, o lord, I pray how I have walked before you in truth with a loyal heart and have done what is good in your sight, and he wept bitterly.
A hoar swept over hezekiah, like a dark and biting wind, and he turned his face toward the wall and he cried out to god for healing.
His sick bed was soaked with sweat and tears as grief overwhelmed him.
In fact, in Isaiah, we have the words of his prayer.
I don’t really think I ever saw this before or recognized it for what it was.
It is a poetic description of his disease and his interferes, and it’s written in a classic way in medical psychology.
I actually took these words and I found Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in the message, and I’m gonna put them up on the screen.
This is the exact these are the words of his prayer.
See if it doesn’t sound like something you would pray, perhaps updated to our language today. Here was his prayer.
In the very prime of life, I have to leave.
Whatever time I have left is spent in death’s waiting room.
No more glimpses of god in the land of the living, No more meetings with my neighbors, no more rubbing shoulders with my friends.
This body I inhabit is taken down and packed away like a campers tent.
Like a weaver, I’ve rolled up the carpet of my life as god cuts me free of the loom, and at day’s end sweeps up the scraps and the pieces.
I cry for help until morning.
Like a lion, god pumbles and pounds me relentlessly finishing me off.
I squawked like a doomed hen, moan like a dove, my eyes ache from looking up for help.
Master, I am in trouble. Get me out of this. But what’s the use?
God himself gave me the word. He’s done it to me. I can’t sleep. I’m that upset.
That’s trouble. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever prayed anything like that, but if you’ve ever been seriously ill, you’ve prayed something like that.
Lord, I still have so much I wanna do. I still have so much life.
I still have so many goals and visions. I still wanna see my grandchildren grow up and get married.
And we’d cry out to god with all the reasons why he should hear our prayer and allow us to have more life, tears and prayers.
That’s always understandable in our response to disease.
Where we’re the 1 who’s sick or the 1 who’s caring for the ones who are sick.
And though we can’t predict how the lord will answer, we do know We do know that tears and prayers are seen and heard by god when we cry and when we pray.
The prayer was the first emotion, and then came the promise in Isaiah 38 4, we read, and the word of the lord came to Isaiah saying, go tell Hazekiah, thus says the lord, the god of David, your father, I have seen your tears, and surely I will add to your days 15 years.
Now this is kind of a conundrum in the Bible, if you will, because it seems to involve god in changing his mind.
I mean, he had just said to Hezekiah, you’re gonna die.
But Hezekiah prayed, and god heard his prayer and god listened and in mercy, he gave him another 15 years.
Someday in heaven, we’ll figure out how that works.
Maybe it’s just the way we have to understand it from our perspective, but it does give us an encouragement.
Does it not that prayer changes things, not just us, but prayer changes things.
Prayer changed things for hezekiah when he prayed.
And that ought to remind us that there’s a lot that we can do, but there’s nothing we can ever do that’s more powerful or more important than to pray.
Sometimes we say, well, I’ve tried everything else, and I guess all that’s left is prayer, and we demote prayer to the bottom of the list when it should be elevated to the top of the list.
By the way, let’s start with prayer. Let everything else descend from that. Hezekiah prayed.
Listen to me, and god heard him. And god answered his prayer and gave him 15 more years.
Interesting though that God didn’t just speak from heaven and say hezekiah be healed.
He gave hezekiah a prescription You gotta be kidding me. No, he did.
Why would God do that? Can he just heal by saying, be healed? Absolutely.
But also we know that god often works through means. Listen to what he did to Naiman.
How he used means in Namman’s healing, how he put mud on the eyes of the blind.
And here’s what he said to Isaiah.
He said Isaiah, you go and tell hezekiah, this is your prescription.
Let them take, Isaiah 38 21, let them take a lump of figs and apply it as a poultice on the boil and you shall recover.
Now that’s the first chemotherapy that I’ve ever read about in the Bible. These are called pharmaceutical figs.
And this would certainly be an answer to those who have said, and you’ve probably heard them, and I have to.
No. No. No. No. You don’t need anything, but god. You don’t need doctors. You don’t need medicine.
Just trust god. In fact, they’ve actually, I’ve heard them say this.
If you trust in a doctor or if you use medicine, it is because of your lack of faith.
That god does not heal that way that god always heals without any means.
The only problem with saying that is it’s just not true. God can heal any way he wants.
He can heal with a doctor or without 1. By a prescription or without 1.
But in this case, god used a prescription to heal hezekiah and I just want to stop and say.
I thank God for my doctors.
From the human perspective, I would not be here apart from the 2 men I mentioned earlier in this message.
Was god in that? Absolutely, and I thank god every day for his leading me to them, for his using them, for his giving them the wisdom and the knowledge and the education and the wherewithal to deal with the disease.
And so god used this prescription He prescribed something for Hezekiah, and when that was applied, Hezekiah got better.
And then what happened next is what you would expect. There was a there was a rejoicing.
There was a praise party. This all happened over a period of a few days, and so when Hezekiah realized that he was well and that he was gonna live, the Bible says that he began appraise god, and some of his words are in Isaiah 38 verses 17 and 20.
He said, indeed, it was for my own peace that I had great bitterness but you have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption.
The lord was ready to save me.
Therefore, we will sing my songs with stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the lord.
Hezekiah looked back and in experiencing god’s healing, he testified to the lord. For his goodness.
I’ll tell you what, when you hear the words, the cancer is gone.
The disease has been defeated. Amen.
You you don’t care whether you’re a Baptist or a charismatic.
You put your hands up in the air, and you dance and everything else you can think of to praise the lord, whether you know whether it’s your tradition or not.
Who cares? I have been healed. Praise the Lord.
Psalm 103 bless the Lord, o my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name.
Bless the lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all youriquities and heals all your diseases.
A god is a healer.
And he’s able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think, often when we pray for healing.
We are healed. And hezekiah was healed.
Now I wish I could tell you that This is the end of the story that Hezekiah lived out his life and honored the lord with those years that he was given and that god blessed him abundantly, and hezekiah was so grateful to be healed that he lived every day in obedience to the lord, but he did not and there’s a problem.
Let me tell you what happened.
Bible tells us that during his extended 15 years, Hezekiah made some very bad mistakes.
First thing he did was he allowed the Babylonians to come into into Israel and hezekiah had become very enamored with his wealth, with his collection of treasures.
So he invited the Babylonians to come, and he showed them the treasures of Israel.
Why would he do that? It was surely nothing more than his arrogant pride.
His desire to be viewed as someone important with all of these many treasures. Well, guess what?
The Babylonians came, and they invaded the nation.
And during this time, Gray evil took place in Judah because of the arrogant pride of hezekiah.
But that’s not the worst. Up until this time in his life, King Hezekiah had no son.
After he is healing by the lord, he had a son whose name was Manassa.
And Manassa, ladies and gentlemen, is 1 of the most evil people you will ever meet in the Bible.
He was a despotic man, a wicked cruel man.
He became king at the age 12 when his father died, and he ruled for the next half century for 50 years.
It was a reign of violence terror and bloodshed that was unequaled in Judah’s history.
He opened the floodgates of idolatry. He practiced witchcraft and sorcery He consulted mediums and spirits.
He even set a carved image of a false god in the very temple that his father had so famously cleansed when he had become king.
He reversed his father’s revival He led his nation into her military invasion.
He filled Jerusalem with the blood of children that were sacrificed to Molech.
And it leads you to understand if you just stop for a moment and think about it.
There are some things worse than disease. I will say this in all kinder.
Judah would have been better off if Hezekiah had died.
Because when god gave him his life, He used the life that was given to him by god to bring ruin and shame and sin upon his nation through his own actions and especially through the actions of manasse.
Sometimes we wonder why we should pray for healing and continue to use the words if it be thy will.
I’ve often thought when you pray that, it’s kind of weak.
You don’t believe god’s gonna do it, so you’re giving god a way out.
I’ve come to understand that we should never leave that out of our prayer.
We should borrow that from our savior in the Garden of Augusta, who said, but not my but thine be done.
Lord, god, I pray for my healing. I pray for her healing.
If it be your will.
Because we do know, do we not that all of us who are Christians, we all get healed.
Some of us down here and all of us up there.
And maybe god has something that he knows that we don’t know.
He allowed this to happen in Hezekiah’s life, perhaps as an example for us, that there are some things that are worse than disease, and 1 of those things happened to hezekiah.
Now, we’ve talked about the probable encounters with disease and the primary examples of disease and the painful emotions of disease, So I wanna finish now with some practical encouragement for disease.
If Hesakaya were here day. Here are some of the things he might say to us.
What we should do if we’re battling an illness, if disease runs in our family, if we’re apprehensive about imagined sickness or future disability if we are afraid because of disease or fearful that it might come into our lives.
Or perhaps it has, and we’re now really afraid.
Here’s what Hezekiah might tell us if he could speak into our situation. Number 1, control your mind.
Control your mind. Second Timothy 1 7.
For god has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
When we are ill, we have to work hard at staying spiritually and emotionally strong.
We often need physical therapy, but god is the great spiritual therapist who can keep us strong of heart, even when we’re weak of body.
And what we have learned, those of us who have been through any kind of sickness at all is this.
That it is our attitude, which is so important.
You look at people who battle diseases and become victorious in in getting past the deadlines, and you will discover that for many of them, it wasn’t even just the medicine or the good doctors or the therapy or whatever.
It was their own personal attitude, their own personal fortitude.
And I found a verses scripture this week that I’d never seen before, at least in this light, I wrote it down, and I wanna give it to you.
It’s proverbs 18 14, and it says this, the spirit of a man will stain him in his sickness.
When we’re sick, it’s our attitude that matters.
I could give you so many illustrations of that.
What we need if we are going to survive and be victorious is we need to control our minds.
Ask god for a disciplined mind. Find a set of scriptures to stabilize your thoughts.
I’ve been giving you some every week. Consider Bible versus as personal friends, take them for what they are.
Their words of god whispered by the Holy Spirit into your ear.
Period’s illness can be times of victory, starts with our own attitude.
Sometimes you begin to feel sorry for yourself.
We say why me, why now, and we become We become absorbed in self pity.
We all go through that to some degree, but we have to get through it to the other side and say, This is what god has allowed in my life.
I’m not going to fight it. I will embrace it.
And together, God, you and I will go forward and make what you want out of this in my life.
Control your mind. Secondly, count your blessing You say Jeremiah, you gotta be kidding.
I got cancer. You want me to count my blessings?
What do you know the Bible does say in everything, give thanks?
Doesn’t say for every thing, but it says in everything.
And when you when you are sick, 1 of the things that you can do that will help you, more than anything else perhaps except what I’ve already told you is to have a spirit of gratitude.
You say, why should I be grateful? Well, you should be grateful for what you have left.
You may feel like you have had something taken from you, but not everything has been taken from you, or you wouldn’t still be here.
In her book Gold By Moonlight, Amy Carmichael compares living with pain and disease like you were going on a hike through a mountainous terrain.
And she says, even in the bleak landscape, which is nothing but, but bear rocks.
If you keep watching, Every once in a while, you will see little clusters of blossoms blooming in the midst of the rocks in the cracks and in the rills.
The bright flowers of idle weiss, she called them waiting to be gathered among the rough rocks of disease.
So what should you be thankful for?
Though we’re sick, we can rejoice in the prayers of our friends.
In the note of a loved 1, in the medical care of a conscientious nurse, in the smile of a doctor, in the verse of a hymn that comes to mind.
In a neighbor who mows our yard in a Bible verse that shows up on the calendar in a pill that lessens our pain in a column of sunlight that cuts through the window of our room in the intricate design of a flower in a nearby vase in the Green of a Grandchild, training ourselves to spot these blessings like wildflowers in a forest is the secret to learning to count it all joy.
This may not be easy, but it is essential to maintaining our spiritual and our attitudinal health regardless of what’s going on in our bodies.
There’s always something to be thankful for.
And we need to ask god to help us see those things.
Thirdly, not only control your mind and count your blessings, but continue your work.
Ephesians tells us that we are god’s work ship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, except when we are sick.
No. That’s not what it says, is it?
It says we are his workmanship, created unto Christ Jesus, unto good works.
When we are ill, we need to continue the work that god has given us to do.
You say, well, how am I supposed to do that?
I was absent from the pulpit for a number of weeks.
I couldn’t preach, but I could still do some things that I Normally did?
I could read. I could research. I could write.
The illness may change the type or intensity of our work, but as long as god keeps us on this earth, he has an assignment for us.
Our lives have value. We have purpose.
Isabelle Cohen discovered it best to stay as busy as she could and though she was largely confined to bed, listen to this, every morning, she drew up a daily schedule that fit within the limits of her strength.
She worked on her book. She engaged in a ministry of prayer.
She read and studied and rejoiced in letters and cards that came from all over the world.
This woman could hardly get out of bed and every day she made a plan of action for her life.
Going through a rough patch often equipses for further service and it allows us to empathize and minister to people who otherwise would never have crossed our paths or been touched by our lives.
Continue your work. Figure out how much of it you can do.
Do as much of it as you can because work is a therapy.
Number 4, claim your promises. And there are so many of them.
I wanna give you 1 that’s very special to me that I’ve never shared from a pulpit before, because I never understood it until this week, and it’s so it’s so unique.
It’s John 11 4 and the context of the promise is the lord Jesus and Lazarus.
And remember, Lazarus was sick and they sent for Jesus and before he could come, lazarus died.
And in John 11 4, we have these words.
When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of god that the son of god may be glorified through it.
He spoke those words after hearing that his friend, Lazarus was ill, and Lazarus was indeed ill, and he died.
And by the time Jesus arrived, he had been in the tomb for 4 days. But listen carefully.
Jesus didn’t say that Lazarus sickness wouldn’t include death. He said that it wouldn’t end in death.
It would provide instead an occasion for the glory of god.
He said, this sickness is not unto death. It won’t end in death.
It may include death, but it won’t end there.
Our illness will not end in death and everything that happens to us will become a platform for the glory of god who works all things according to the council of his will.
For the Christian, our sickness never ends in death. It may include death.
We all know that’s not the end, that there is life after death, a glorious life, unlike anything we’ve ever experienced on this earth.
So the next time somebody comes up to you and says, 10 4, you say 11 4.
It’s right here. John 11 4. Just say that. Alright. I know you remember that.
You won’t remember anything else maybe, but you’ll remember that. 11 4.
This sickness is not unto death.
And then last, but not least, consider your future.
Jesus says that in his father’s house are many mansions, and he’s going there to prepare them for us.
As Christians who are practical people, we know that we’re going to make it to heaven.
We’ve been promised that, and we believe it.
And we know that for many of us, it will be through the valley of the shadow of death if the lord Terries and is coming.
We may not like to think about that, but it’s true.
But we’re not overly worried because, you know, why we remember that Jesus interrupted every funeral he ever attended.
And he delighted in healing the sick of the villages he approached.
And listen to me, every story of Jesus healing in the Bible is a token of his ultimate eternal healing of all of our body afflictions, which is part of our redemptive reward gained for us by Christ.
By whose stripes we are healed.
We always battle that verse as they’re healing in the atonement, and the answer to that is absolutely there is healing in the atonement.
It is not necessarily healing for here and now, but in the atonement on the cross is our hope of our ultimate healing when we stand before the law and he resurrects us into his body, and we will be totally healed.
So it is true to say that god heals everybody. He heals some of us down here.
He heals all of us up there.
And our healing is in the atonement because what Jesus did on the cross makes it possible for us to go to heaven and ultimately find our healing in his person.
So if heaven is the worst thing that can happen to us, we shouldn’t despair, even amid medical emergencies or the loss of health.
And here’s why. We have a great physician whose own tomb is empty.
We have a heavenly home whose doors are open.
We have a sympathetic savior whose arms are outstretched.
Reminding us that we don’t need to have a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a strong mind.
You do not need to be afraid of sickness.
If ever there was a time when god draws near to you, it is when you are sick.
And it’s almost worth being sick just to experience the nearness of the lord.
He will never leave you nor forsake you There is nothing he will ever allow in your life that he won’t help you with and encourage you with and teach you by.
Now I’ll be honest, I’ve told the Lord, I wanted to learn everything I could during those days, because I did not want to refresh your course, All of us are honest about that.
What we learned through our brokenness what we can never learn through our wholeness.
A long time ago, somebody said to me, you know, Doctor.
Jeremiah, god can never greatly use them until he crushes him.
And I used to pray that I could be the exception.
Because nobody wants to be crushed, but it’s true.
God uses our sickness and our pain for his own glory and for our own good.
And I know that to be true, and I can say to you with authority, do not be afraid.
For god has not given you a spirit of fear.
And stand to our feet again, and we’ll recite our memory verse upon the screen.
Let’s do it twice, and let’s do it out loud, and let’s say it like we believe it. Alright?
This is Second Timothy 1 7. Here we go.
For god has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind, once more, for god has not given us a spirit fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
I hope you’ve been encouraged by today’s message of hope and healing.
While sickness is a reality here in our fallen world, we know that it will have no place in the eternal home God is preparing for those who believe in him through his son Jesus Christ.
Do you know with certainty that you’ll be spending your eternity in heaven?
Living in a glorified body free from every affliction and imperfection?
I pray that you do, and that your daily in your relationship with Jesus Christ.
And I’d like to send you 2 free resources to help you move forward in your Christian walk.
1 is a book called your greatest turning point, and the other is our monthly devotional magazine turning points.
I’ll gladly send both of these to you today free of charge.
If you’ll just contact us here at turning point.
Next time on turning point.
In your delighting in the lord, you define the things that you need and that you want.
It becomes the context in which you ask so that if you’re truly delighting in the lord, you ask him for what you want, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Thank you for being with us today. Join Jeremiah next time for his message.
Debt, the fear of financial collapse.
Here on turning point.