A False Gift- Healing Prov. 25:14 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

Today we are going study the false gift of healing.

First of all, you don’t ever want to forget that Judas Iscariot had the gift of healing (Matt. 10:4-8). He could do all of the miracles that any of the disciples could do. But Judas Iscariot was also a “devil,” (Jn. 6:70). There are many folks who will show up at the judgment before God and run down the list of all the great miraculous things that they did for Jesus. Everyone will be shocked to find out that a bunch of these guys were really workers of “iniquity,” and that God never knew them (Matt. 7:22-23).

In these last days, much of the “miracle” stuff that is being done in the name of Jesus is really just preparing the masses for the antichrist! When he comes, he will work with “all power and signs and lying wonders,” (2 Thes. 2:9). Did you get that? The “power” and those “signs and lying wonders” are the “working of Satan.”

These fake healers profess to have apostolic succession because they want you to believe that they have the “signs of an apostle,” just like Paul did (2 Cor. 12:12). But the truth of the matter is that they are “false apostles, deceitful workers” who have transformed “themselves into the apostles of Christ,” (2 Cor. 11:13-15). The church had trouble with these guys in Ephesus. They “tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars,” (Rev. 2:2).

Second of all, you don’t ever want to forget that the gifts of healing were sign gifts specifically for the Jews to believe that Jesus Christ was their Messiah. Exodus 4 records the first time that a man was healed in the Bible. Moses was healed of leprosy. This healing was so that the Jews in Egypt would BELIEVE that “the LORD God of their fathers … [had] appeared unto [Moses],” (Ex. 4:3-8).

In Deut. 18:15-18, God promised to send another Prophet like Moses to the Jews. This Prophet was Jesus, who came with the same signs of healing (Matt. 4:23-24, 11:5, 12:15, etc.). Jesus passed this gift on to his disciples (Matt 10:4-8). The whole reason for these healing miracles was that “THE JEWS REQUIRE A SIGN,” (1 Cor. 1:22). That’s the only way they were going to BELIEVE.

Third of all, you don’t ever want to forget that every attempted healing was a success. There were no misfires. No one who ever came to be healed went away disappointed that they didn’t get their healing. In Matt. 8:16, Jesus healed “ALL that were sick.” In Matt. 12:15, “he healed them ALL.” In Luke 4:40 and 6:19, he healed “every one” and “all.” Even in Mark 6:4-6, Jesus healed folks in spite of “their unbelief.” Acts 5:16; 10:38

Matt. 17:14-21 records the only time anyone was every rebuked for not having enough faith for the healing. Do you know who got rebuked? Not the fellow who needed to be healed!! The disciples were rebuked!!! They were the ones lacking the faith!! There’s nothing sadder than to see a person who really wants to be healed beating himself up because some faker has convinced him that he doesn’t have enough faith to be healed. That ought to be a crime!!

Finally, you don’t ever want to forget that there came a time in Paul’s ministry where his great powerful gift of healing dried up. Paul had such a gift that he could send a handkerchief or an apron to a sick or demon possessed person and they’d be healed (Acts 19:11-12). And yet, at the end of his ministry, he left “Trophimus at Miletum sick,” (2 Tim. 4:20). He couldn’t heal him. He prescribed a medicinal remedy for Timothy’s infirmities instead of healing him (1 Tim. 5:23). And his last companion before his own death was a doctor (2 Tim. 4:11, Col. 4:14).

The reason that Paul couldn’t heal folks at the end of his ministry is simple. God had finally put the Jews in a temporary blindness until their national salvation (Rom. 11:25-26). Paul’s ministry went on to the Gentiles (Acts 28:28). And Gentiles don’t require a sign to believe (1 Cor. 1:22).

Don’t get us wrong. God still heals. He can heal. He has healed. He will continue to heal. But there’s no man or woman right now with the gift of healing. If they really had the gift, they would quit stealing from the saints in these big meetings and go right into the cancer wards and put the doctors out of business. They would heal those patients if they could. But they can’t!! And it’s not due to a lack of faith on the part of the patients!!