# 10: 'WHAT IF THEY'RE NOT HEALED?'

I haven't met a pastor or priest who doesn't believe in divine healing, and who is averse to praying for the sick. But most churches do not have 'healing services', or prayer with laying-on-of-hands in their normal church services. Why?

Let's look at the tough questions:

Does God want everyone healed? Pentecostalists usually say 'yes' (and if you aren't, the problem is with your, or your praying friends' or your church's lack of faith). Most others would say 'no' (Paul had his thorn in the flesh; Timothy apparently had recurring stomach problems - the suggested cure wasn't prayer but a little wine, 1 Tim. 5:23; Trophimus was so sick Paul left him behind, 2 Tim. 4:20; Jesus only healed one person at the pool of Bethesda, John 5, etc.).

Francis McNutt offers a more balanced view:

In general, it is God's desire that we be healthy, rather than sick. And since he has the power to do all things, he will respond to prayer for healing unless there is some obstacle, or unless the sickness is sent or permitted for some greater reason... Sickness is in itself an evil, although good may result from it... There comes a time for a person to die, and we should pray for light as to when to ask God to take away the sickness and when to pray for a happy death... Some sickness may have a higher purpose (there has been a long tradition of redemptive suffering among the saints)...and yet, by New Testament standards, it should be normative for the Christian to pray for the removal of sickness rather than its acceptance. (18)

How does healing occur? All healing comes from God. He may heal through doctors, through drugs, through the removal of stress factors, through prayer (either miraculously and instantaneously, or more slowly), through death (the ultimate healing) or through resurrection. In early Christianity healing was considered as God's ordinary will. Some Christians today consider sickness to be God's ordinary will. The great shift took place betveen the 3rd and 5th centuries.

The church today surely needs less pride and prejudice in this area. 'But what if we pray publicly and they're not healed?' is the kind of faithless question that stymies our maturing in this area. Our calling is to be faithful and obedient. It's God's business whether he heals or not!

# 11. 'DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL SPIRITS IS A MEDIEVAL OR ANIMISTIC
IDEA. WE'VE NOW OUTGROWN ALL THAT'.

Naturalism is a view of the world that takes account only of natural elements and forces, excluding the supernatural or spiritual. Descartes, 'the father of modern thought', for example, said only those ideas that can be proven true by reason should be accepted.

This worldview has influenced theology in this century principally through Rudolf Bultmann: 'The forces and laws of nature have been discovered, and therefore we can't believe in 'spirits'... whether good or evil.? (19) Against this, the biblical worldview holds that the universe consists of both visible and invisible creatures, angels, demons, and powers. As theologians like Gustav Aulen and Helmut Thielicke point out, the in breaking of God's Kingdom in the ministry of Jesus Christ can't be understood apart from its being a war against the principalities of evil. Emil Brunner says we cannot rightly understand the church of the New Testament unless we break out of the straitjacket of naturalism and take seriously the dynamic manifestations of the Holy Spirit. (20)

Someone has calculated that 3,874 (49) of the N.T.'s 7,957 verses are 'contaminated' with happenings and ideas alien to a naturalistic world-view. Morton Kelsey notes that the only large group of Christians who take seriously the idea of a direct encounter with the non-space-time or spiritual world are the Pentecostals and the charismatics, 'and they have come in for derision from every side.' (21)

However, as C.S.Lewis and others have warned us, there are two opposite errors we must avoid: either disbelieving in the devil's existence, or giving Satan more attention than he deserves. Cardinal Suenens similarly exhorts us to steer a safe course between 'Scylla and Charibdis, between underestimation and exaggeration...' (22) This will save us from foundering on the rocks of finding demons everywhere (and hurting a lot of good people) or finding them nowhere (and leaving others tormented when they could be delivered).

Within the church the gift of 'discernment of spirits' is very important. The Scriptures suggest various tests to discern the spirits: Is Christ glorified? (John 16:14); the church edified? Others helped? Does it accord with Scripture? Is there love? Is Jesus Lord of the person's life? Is there submission to church leaders - allowing others to weigh what is said or done? Is the person exercising self-control? If a predictive prophecy, was it fulfilled? (Deut. 18:22).