ACTS SERIES SEVEN ALL OF THEM WERE HEALED DR. ROGER BARRIER Acts 5:12-16 S-1638 Many of you are brand new to Casas. Glenn and I will often preach through entire Bible books to give us the consistent teaching of the Word of God. Periodically we will take several weeks for a specialized series of sermons designed to attract people to beauty of Jesus Christ. During those weeks we invite them to enter into an eternal relationship with Christ. I am so glad that many of you found Christ during the last several weeks. May God bless you in your new life! PRAY GRATITUDE FOR Jonah and for those brand new Christians in our midst. SLIDE #: READ ACTS 5:11-16. I want to talk through this passage with you and then we will apply the passage in very practical interaction with God in His healing work. Healing prayer at the conclusion of the service. Be ready. SLIDE #: TESTIMONY from Matt Hitchcock Stunned look Family? How long at Casas? Ronald Mcdonald House? Back Trouble? Fears? Loss of walking, job, relationships What happened that Day? Testimony Stretch CABS family fun day: played football God heard the prayers of my wife over the years. Tapes and CDs of the last healing sermon: March 14, Acts 3:1-10; Peter healing lame man. SLIDE #: ACTS 5:11: Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events. Fear because of the events. What events? The death of Ananias and Sapphira for lying to the Holy Spirit. God was illustrating how He feels about people who pretend to be more spiritual than they really are. 1
SLIDE #: ACTS 5:12: The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colonnade. SLIDE #: Solomon s Colonnade bordered on the east side of the outer court of the temple. Here Christ walked and talked (John 10:23) and the disciples regularly gathered. OVERHEAD: The healing of this man was more than a miracle it was a sign. Jesus was not dead, but working through His disciples. Explain Pentecost: returned to all Believers. This is a repeat performance of Galilee. Here the apostles displayed the total power of Jesus over sickness and demon. Read Matthew 4:23-24. The healings were by the hands of the Apostles. Not every Christian was doing healing work. These were signs that identified and confirmed the ministry of the apostles who laid the foundations of the church in the writing of the Scriptures. Verification for the Bible: New Testament written by the ones who witnessed it. This is one criterion for the canon of Scripture. SLIDE #: Problem with DaVinci Code, not telling the whole truth. All documents exist, then twists what the documents said. All the documents he uses for veracity were forgeries, written in 2 nd to 4 th century not one author was an Apostle. SLIDE #: ACTS 5:13: No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. No one else dared join them does not mean that no one else became a Christian. It means that Solomon Colonnade was dangerous. People met at other locations. With the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira no phony believers were added to the church fellowship. People were afraid to pretend in spiritual matters once the word got out that two people died for hypocrisy. So, for a time, the church was protected. SLIDE #: ACTS 5:14: Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. SLIDE #: ACTS 5:15-16: As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed. Christianity is basically a healing religion. SLIDE #: Jesus presented Himself as a healer. READ LUKE 4:16-20. SLIDE #: He healed entire cities. READ MARK 1:32-34. 2
The gift of healing is a gift to the church. SLIDE #: Jesus healed out of compassion. God often weeps over those suffering and struggling with sickness. SLIDE #: TESTIMONY of Rick Connor s healing of back and morphine. 54 years old, rear ended by an 18 wheeler eight years ago. Had reconstructive surgery and was in rehab for close to a year. Returned to work for 6 months but was forced to take early retirement because of severe pain. Went to Mayo clinic and several pain clinics and nobody could do anything for him. The doctors said that scar tissue from the operation was enveloping the nerves in his legs. Whenever he stood or walked the irritation resulted in pain and spasms to his back. He has taken morphine for 24 hours per day for the past 5 years. I ve been prayed for many times pretty much given up all hope of ever being well. At our last healing service on March 14 he responded to the altar call. I walked up to one of the prayer teams after the first service that I felt comfortable with. I asked them to pray for me to be free of painkillers. They prayed for him. Three days later, God healed his back and the pain was all gone. He was on 400 mg/day morphine and this is now reduced to 15 mg/day not for the pain but for withdrawal from the morphine. I was addicted. He is out walking with Georgeann again and has told many people about God s healing in his life. SLIDE #: I believe in the power of prayer and the power of God. Prayer is so powerful. SLIDE #:Jesus compassion. God is often weeping over you when you are sick and suffering. SLIDE #: Lest his shadow might fall on some of them. In the ancient world a person s shadow was believed to represent that person. The text never says that Peter s shadow healed them. There is nothing to suggest that the apostles encouraged this sort of thing. But the obvious suggestion is that some of them were healed. If so, the same two in gradients that bring about healing were at work: The Lord s work and the faith of the sick. OVERHEAD: God s will plus our faith opens many doors. God s compassion plus our faith may be even more powerful. (God sometimes changes His intentions in response to our faith and prayers. Now, I want to talk with you about an important Biblical principle concerning the focus of praying for the sick. READ JOHN 14:8-11: (I do these works because the Father is in me and you will do the same works because I will be in you.) SLIDE #: JOHN 14:12-14: I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. What is greater than physical healing? Why, spiritual healing. God wants most of all to heal the hurt in man s spirit. That is where the problem really lies. Every person healed by Jesus or the apostles eventually died. But when God heals the spirit, it is an eternal event. 3
Juanita Bennett struggling when Nicholson baby rode tricycle into pool and drowned. Why? Where s guardian angel? Why didn t God have some adult walk out? Why? Asked Al Johnson. He replied. What is God s ultimate plan for believers? To be with Him. Where is that little boy? Now he s with Jesus. Ultimate plan already accomplished. That s transition from temporal to eternal. Transitioning from the earthly to the eternal is accomplished by learning to pray from the inside out. SLIDE #: 1 THESSALONIANS 5:23 Notice the order of priority spirit, soul, body. Spirit inner man; pneuma ; God-consciousness. Area where I am able to see and experience God. Holy Spirit deals with me and contacts me at the point of my spirit eternal. Soul psyche or nous Mind, emotions, will, conscience, thinking interface between my spirit and soul at the point of my conscience. Body some or sarx Give senses; natural biological desires. Temporal. God is much more concerned that we re praying for our spirit which is eternal than for our body which is decaying and which will soon perish. Read Prayers for Inner Man: SLIDE #: Ephesians 1:15-19; 3:14-19, SLIDE #: Philippians 1:9-11; SLIDE #: Colossians 1:9-12. When we pray in the area of our spirit, God answers a thousand out of a thousand times. God make me like Christ. Make me a man of God, Give me your wisdom and discernment. The body is the place where God has the most difficulty in answering my prayer. Too much of what I want is focused here. My humanity says, God, heal my body. God, fix these circumstances. God, turn around this tragedy. But God says, SLIDE #: 2 CORINTHIANS 4:16-18 Praying from the inside out allows us to see things from God s perspective. We re totally obsessed with removing pain and tragedies and problems. And God is totally obsessed with making us God-sensitized in our spirit because this is eternal! After the great confession, Peter is commended by Jesus. Then Christ says, I must suffer and die, and Peter is horrified. No, you won t die! was to Peter s best interest, he thought, for Christ not to die. Get behind me, Satan! Peter was trying to put Christ s eyes on man s interests, not on God s. 4
Satan wants to get our minds on our bodies and circumstances in order to desensitize our Godconsciousness. God allows and creates circumstances so that we may know Him better. He wants to sensitize our God-consciousness. SLIDE #: The Robe: Movie is from 1953. Won 4 or 5 Academy Awards including best picture, best costumes, best supporting actor. Time moved more slowly in 1953 moved even more slowly in Jesus Day. You will not see 47 scene changes in the next five minutes. The song you may think is out dated and boring but I assure you, it was the number one song in Galilee in the early 30s Marcellus (Richard Burton) is the Roman Centurion in charge of crucifying Christ. Touched robe and thinks it cast a spell on him. Conscience is destroying him. Imperial commission from Tiberias Caesar to search for the Robe in order to settle his mind. Comes to Cana in Galilee and meets a young girl named, Mariam who was healed by Jesus. I read the Robe when I was a child. Never forgot this girl and her attitude. Notice she is crippled. The scene opens with her singing the story of the gospel, she finishes with His promise to be with us to the end. Marcellus watches from a distance. He is puzzled. VIDEO: THE ROBE: Marcellus sees Miriam singing and marvels at her crippeledness. Notice that it was not her body Christ healed. It was her spirit. VIDEO: THE ROBE: Miriam and Marcellus discuss what Christ did for her. The physical miracles were always a shadow of God s deeper work. Change attitudes in our spirit and soul when we are sick. OVERHEAD: Every one of us is spiritually sick. Need a Savior. Spirit is in a coma to spiritual things of God. When we receive Christ, the spirit is reborn. Need to come to Christ for spiritual healing today. This morning we are going to appeal to the compassion of the Lord for healing. Healing prayer teams at front. Ready to anoint with oil and pray for you. SLIDE #: Bathe healing prayer in an atmosphere of praise and worship. Added dimension of praise. READ PSALM 8:1-2: O, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies to silence the foe and the avenger. READ PSALM 25:1-2 TESTIMONY FROM DAWN MARX Several weeks ago, her 14-year-old nephew, Kyle, suffered major brain damage in West Virginia when a tree he was cutting down fell on him and knocked off a major portion of his skull. His 5
brain swelled and they gave him no chance to live. One week later they were discussing removing him from all life support systems and ending it all. Dawn felt led by God to fly to the east coast and pray for Kyle. I was thinking of how many times I have stood by the bed of a child knowing that God had a bigger picture in store. God is able to heal Isaiah 61:3. Arrived in West Virginia and at the hospital felt God telling me to sing to Kyle. Deep coma. I sang, Amazing Grace, The Old Rugged Cross, Silent Night, The First Noel. I thought that the Christmas songs were strange, but felt that God told me to sing them. As I was singing his heart rate raced from 81 to 147. Scared me. Went to get nurse: What are you doing? Singing to him. Praise God, said the nurse, that is the first response of any kind he has made since he came in here. Sister Connie, Did you sing? I forgot to tell you that his favorite song is The First Noel. Initially things began to happen: feelings and movement returned; began talking and walking. One week later he is out of the hospital and the doctors are expecting a full recovery. When I arrived at the hospital, everyone was depressed. The young man who cut down the tree was depressed. Discussing turning off life support. I did not know the family very well. How will we respond to Aunt Dawn? Don t worry about Aunt Dawn, she will know what to do. I invited her to join our healing teams this morning. Kyle s dad pastors a small, country church. God gave him Isaiah 63:1. Called his chairman of deacons, word went out into the community. Families all over town opened their bibles to Isaiah 63:1 everyone touched the verse whenever they went by the kitchen table. SLIDE #: When I stood by the bed, I knew that there was a bigger picture. This was all about Jesus. He is going to live, only because of Jesus. Explain worshipping singers today. Explain prayer procedures. Prayer teams in place. SONG: Healed What to do. Congregation sing breathe quietly if you like. Speakers make it hard to hear the prayers. Invite you to come for prayer. 6