A Biblical Cure for the Fear of Serious Disease

Dr. David Jeremiah explores our fear of falling ill and looks to the biblical example of Hezekiah for a cure.
“We worship the Lord. We simply love, adore, and praise God’s name—no matter what’s going on around us. We know He will march with us to the farthest corners of the earth and to the end of the age.”
― Dr. David Jeremiah

There’s a power within you to help you overcome your most daunting challenges.
Where could life take you if fear was not a factor?
Are you ready to move from worry to confidence from anxiety to hope, why be safe when you can boldly step into what’s next?
It’s time to move from fear to fear not.
Hello, I’m David Jeremiah.
And it’s time to move from fear to fear. Not.
Today’s message in our series about living fearlessly is timely for the days in which we are living.
It’s entitled disease. The fear of serious illness.
Our typical fears of illness have only been increased by the global pandemic that has affected all of us.
This past year, the health crisis we experienced is certainly cause for concern and caution.
But there’s another epidemic that can be extremely damaging for us as God’s Children. It’s the epidemic of fear.
The good news is that the great physician has prescribed a treatment for fear, which we’ll discover as we learn to move from fear to fear.
Not. So please join me for today’s encouraging message in my series.
What are you afraid of as we discover that when it comes to encountering your fear.
God gives us the best medicine of all that’s coming up today on this edition of Turning Point.
Are you in a place in your life where you need hope?
Dr Jeremiah wants to teach you how to move from fear to fear.
Not in his book, Hope, living fearlessly in a scary world in its pages.
Doctor Jeremiah explores the top seven fears holding so many of us back as he shares practical lessons for facing down these fears, learn to walk the path of hope and experience the providential power of God who as Dr Jeremiah explains, still controls even the smallest details of your life.
Discover strength and encouragement in hope by Dr Jeremiah. Yours for a gift of any amount.
And if you give $65 or more or in support of this program, Dr Jeremiah will send you in appreciation.
The Living Fearlessly Set, which contains his book, his current teaching series.
What are you afraid of on your choice of CD or DVD and a correlating study guide, plus the Fear to Fear, not Bookmark, which will serve as a reminder to claim hope each day hope and the living fearlessly set yours.
When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of turning point today, in appreciation of your viewership today, Doctor Jeremiah would like to give you the fear to fear, not bookmark.
A powerful reminder containing scripture to help you travel each day down the path from fear to fear, not receive the fear to fear, not bookmark completely free when you contact turning point today.
Now here is Dr Jeremiah with his message, disease, the fear of serious illness.
So I was preparing this message.
I had to take time out to get my semi annual C T scan at the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla.
I have made this round trip journey now for almost 20 years, started in 1994 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 Dr Alan Savi.
And after these many years, he is still the one who examines me twice a year.
It was Dr Savi along with Dr 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 two 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 did you get cancer?
Well, the problem I have is a problem that we all have.
I suffer from what they call humanity and, uh, 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, 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. 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 and 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 dying.
The loss of health comes on us either suddenly or slowly but on us all it descends.
One 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 often surprised to discover how many of these current kinds of problems that we face are actually also faced in the people of the Bible.
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 Naman and the disease of leprosy and King David with the evil disease that clung to him and King Asa with his diseased feet and King Joram and his diseased intestines and the people of Galilee who came to Christ with all kinds of disease and a aphroditus 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 are sick.
But the one 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 want to tell you something and give it biblical credit. They’ll say it’s in Hezekiah 23.
Well, let me tell you something.
There is no such book as Hezekiah, but there is such a person and he was one of the kings of Judah.
In fact, he was one of the good kings, maybe one of the great kings of the Old Testament who assumed the throne of Judah at the age of 25 immediately began to set things back in order because the nation of Israel had regressed and had back slid.
And second chronicles, 29 3 through five 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 Judah 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 six 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, oh 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 whore 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, this, 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 camper’s tent like a weaver.
I’ve rolled up the carpet of my life as God cuts me free of the loom.
And that day’s end sweeps up the scraps and the pieces.
I cry for help until morning like a lion. God humbles and pounds me relentlessly finishing me off.
I squawk 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 want to 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, whether we’re the one who’s sick or the one 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 Hezekiah 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.
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 hurt 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’t he just heal by saying be healed? Absolutely.
But also we know that God often works through means Isaiah 38, 21, let them take a lump of figs and apply it as a p 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.
God can heal any way he wants.
He can heal with a doctor or without one, buy a prescription or without one.
But in this case, God used a prescription to heal Hezekiah.
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 two 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 to praise 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.
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, great 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 his healing by the Lord, he had a son whose name was Manasa and Manasa.
Ladies and gentlemen, is one of the most evil people you will ever meet in the Bible.
He was a despotic man, a wicked cruel man. I will say this in all Candor.
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 Mana.
There are some things that are worse than disease and one 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 want to finish now with some practical encouragements for disease.
If Hezekiah were here today, 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 one, control your mind, control your mind.
Second Timothy 17, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
You look at people who battle diseases and become victorious in, in getting past the deadlines, 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 verse of scripture this week that I had never seen before.
At least in this light I wrote it down and I wanna give it to you.
It’s proverbs 1814 and it says this, the spirit of a man will sustain him in his sickness.
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 blessings. 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 everything, but it says in everything.
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 one 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 grin of a grandchild, training ourselves to spot these blessings like wild flowers in a forest is the secret to learning to count it all joy, not only control your mind and count your blessings, but continue your work.
Ephesians tells us that we are God’s workmanship 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, figure out how much of it you can do, do as much of it as you can because work is a therapy.
Number four, claim your promises. And there are so many of them.
I wanna give you one 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 114, 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.
For the Christian, our sickness never ends in death. It may include death.
But we all know that’s not the end that there is life after death.
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.
Doctor Jeremiah will return to close today’s program right after this.
Thank you for watching, Turning Point.
Doctor Jeremiah would like to offer you his book, Hope Living Fearlessly in a scary world to help you learn to move from fear to fear.
Not Doctor Jeremiah’s book will be sent to you as a thank you for a gift of any amount in support of this program and for a generous gift of $65 or more.
Doctor Jeremiah will send you in appreciation. The Living Fearlessly set, which contains his book, his current teaching series.
What are you afraid of on your choice of CD or DVD and a correlating study guide?
Plus The Fear To Fear Not Bookmark, which will serve as a reminder to claim hope each day receive these resources when you support the ministry of turning point today.
And now with one last word for today’s program here is Dr Jeremiah.
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 you’re growing daily in your relationship with Jesus Christ.
And I’d like to send you two free resources to help you move forward in your Christian walk.
One is a booklet 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 can ask him for what you want and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Thank you for being with us today. Join Doctor Jeremiah.
Next time for his message debt the fear of financial collapse here on turning point.