Before we get to Jairus’s daughter, I want to look a little more at the doctor / physician from yesterdays passage. Mark 5:26 “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.” This is not describing incompetent doctors, but doctors who couldn’t do anything for her just like we see today. It is important to note the bible clearly tells us there were doctors / physicians all the way along. Genesis 50:2 “Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So the physicians embalmed him.” As we saw yesterday King Asa 2 Chronicles 16:12 “though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the physicians.” Jesus even made a reference about a physician when He said Luke 4:23 “surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!” Jesus also said Mark 2:17 “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” And we also have Luke the fellow worker of the Apostle Paul, the doctor. Colossians 4:14 “Our dear friend Luke, the doctor / physician, and Demas send greetings.” The intent here is not to talk about these verses but to show that all along there were doctors / physicians very much like we have today. In some cultures there are even Shamans who do the healing. “Ancient shamanic healing techniques have been passed down for thousands of years. Today, shamans continue to heal through shamanic methods and practices.” This taps into the spiritual world, which is not of God, so it is demonic. You will want to stay far away from this just as you would from new age healing.
Picture someone in today’s church that is desperate to be healed. All their resources are exhausted, financially and physically, so they go to church so that the church would pray for them just as James tells us to do. James 5:14 “Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up.” The church prays and says if it is God’s will, He would heal. The charismatics might say if you have enough faith you will be healed. When it doesn’t happen the answer is it must not have been God’s will or you didn’t have enough faith. The person remains sick and the church continues to believe this is just how it is. The part the church misses when it comes to healing is the refusal to repent and turn away from man’s ways so that God’s power would return. Because of this rebellion in the church, there is no power. At this point in time God has turned His face from shining on us so the power is missing from the church. We are told Isaiah 1:15 “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!” When talking about the shepherds of Israel Ezekiel 34:4 “You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost.” We are told to repent because we have gone our own way. Going our own way leads to a powerless church, which is where we are at as the church but it doesn’t have to stay that way. We are told 2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” Matthew 13:15 “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” The offer is there but due to stubborn hearts, we continue without the healing power while senseless shepherds continue to teach the powerless church is just how it is.
We are not seeing healing take place as described in scripture. Just to be clear there are some in charismatic circles that have tapped into the same power the shaman uses. 2 Corinthians 11:13 “For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.” This power is the same power that was present in the days of Pharaoh so be very careful. Exodus 7:10 “So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. 11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: 12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.” God’s power is always greater.
Jesus is the great physician and no doctor or even a shaman even comes close. Matthew 12:15 “A large crowd followed him, and he healed all who were ill.” We even saw this healing power with his disciples. Acts 5:16 “Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.” We should also be seeing this power in the church today but the church does not look like these verses. The foundational belief of the church is that Jesus rose from the dead. The king we serve is not dead but alive. So when Jesus says in Matthew 28:18 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” It means we are to go and do just as Jesus did and when we do, God will confirm His word. Mark 16:19 “After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.” Jesus healed and that is what He did and who He was so Jesus being alive means this is who He still is. Matthew 8:16 “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.” So when I read that it says “our,” it doesn’t say their, which means we must be included in that healing of infirmities and diseases but the church has decided God’s plan was to now use doctors and has become quite content without the healing power of Jesus. Meanwhile people are desperate to be healed. To say that this healing power was only for that time is not what scripture tells us. The only reason we are not seeing it is because the church refuses to believe and obey God’s word.
Notice that during Jesus ministry He didn’t point you to the local doctor’s office and tell you try this person they might be able to help you and if not there is another talented young doctor in another town that might help you. The lady Jesus healed had already been to them. Jesus is the physician, and still the healer of all our diseases. When it comes to diseases it is important to see the connection to disobedience. When you see this connection, you will understand why repentance is so important. God said Deuteronomy 7:15 “The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you.” Deuteronomy 28:1 “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: 15 However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you.” On the cursed side of Deuteronomy 28, we see something that is beyond our control and affecting us today. Deuteronomy 28:27 “The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.” This verse talks about confusion of mind. Canadian Mental Health Association says, “By age 40, about 50% of the population will have or have had a mental illness.” “Mental illness is a leading cause of disability in Canada.” Then on top of this you have the pandemic. One article said “Feb. 10, 2021 — During the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns about mental health and substance use have grown, including concerns about suicidal ideation.” Leviticus 26:14 “But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength.”
The church being void of this healing power is not new. Luke 4:24 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” 28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.”
At this point you can either say I need to repent or just ignore these verses as so many have. Just because you have not seen it does not mean it is not possible. The good news is God’s word gives us hope. God says Exodus 15:26 “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.” Notice it is doing right in God’s eyes, meaning we must follow His words. So you have to ask yourself why the church still after all this time refuses to seek God and live but continues to follow the world and die? The answer is stubbornness. Jeremiah 7:24 “But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.” Jeremiah 11:8 “But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubbornness of their evil hearts. So I brought on them all the curses of the covenant I had commanded them to follow but that they did not keep.”
We are told what to do but we must turn from our wicked ways. Ezekiel 18:31 “Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel?” Ezekiel 33:11 “Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?” Psalm 81:8 “Hear me, my people, and I will warn you— if you would only listen to me, Israel! 9 You shall have no foreign god among you; you shall not worship any god other than me. 10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. 11 “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. 12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. 13 “If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, 14 how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes! 15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. 16 But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
This is not a slight against doctors or the medical system; it is a rebuke of the church for not believing God at His word. The bible shows us how to live. We don’t change the bible when we don’t live as the bible directs so that we feel better about ourselves. When we realize we are not living as the bible directs us to, we change how we live. Habakkuk 3:2 “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.” Psalm 60:1 “You have rejected us, God, and burst upon us; you have been angry—now restore us!” Psalm 80:19 “Restore us, Lord God Almighty; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved.”
