Hello everyone, I'm Pastor Donnie Jester, Grace Redemption Church. I'm so glad that you can tune in today with us. This month we're going to be teaching a series on divine healing. I believe that is such a needed subject and we want you to join in, tell your friends about it and let them see what the Word says about healing.
If you want to become a partner with this ministry, you'll see the address on the screen. If you would like to text an offering to sow seed in this offering, I do believe it's good ground, you can see that as well. So we're going to get right into the Word of God as we look at it. And if you have your Bible there at home, you're watching at home, you can turn with us to the book of Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 8.
That's Matthew's Gospel. Chapter 8 verse, we're going to start reading verse 16. And when the evening was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils. And he cast out the spirits with his Word and healed all that were sick.
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah or Isaiah. The prophet saying himself took on firmities and he bear our sicknesses. It's important to know that the finished work of healing has already been taken care of. You see, Jesus Christ came and paid the price, allowing stripes to be placed upon his back with a cat of nine tails, beating him unmercifully.
And the Bible said in the book of Psalms that great furas were plowed out of his back. It was just hideous to think about how the price that Jesus paid for our healing. But it's more important to have an understanding to know that God wants you well. He wants you to be healed.
You see, salvation is God's gift to the world. But healing, in the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a gift to the church. However, sinner people can be healed if you're just simply to believe God. So I want to talk to you a little bit about the faith that you have to have to receive the healing and the knowledge that you have to have.
You know, Hosea, Chapter 4, Verse 6, God said, my people are destroyed or cut off because of lack of knowledge that they walk around in spiritual blindness. However, we're going to turn to this scripture here and let you know, in 1 John, if you want to turn with me, in 1 John, Chapter 5, I want to read this to you just to kind of set the course. And we will talk about both of the scriptures that I had read. In 1 John, Chapter 5, look at Verse 14.
And this is a confidence, John said, that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. In Verse 15, and if we know that he hears us, wow, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petition that we desire of him. So number one in this series, I'm excited about it because I believe in this series, people are going to receive healing. You that are watching, are going to receive your healing.
So number one, we must know that it's a will of God to heal us. So you've got to know that. So many times people will pray for the sick and say, Lord, if it be your will. When you understand that God's Word is God's will, and you have to read the will, the reading of the will to know what is in the will.
Well, there's salvation which carries, you know, a broad term of not only, you know, being born again, but deliverance, healing, the Greek word, sozo, which means soundness, wholeness in every area of our life. So when you look at the Word and you see that it's God's will to heal. Mark 1, Verse 40, the leper came to Jesus and said, Lord, I know you can make me clean if you will. What did Jesus say?
I will. The only time that Jesus said, Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me in the garden of Gethsemane, it was a prayer of consecration to God. Never in the history that I love in the Word that God ever said, those famous faith-destroying words, if it be thy will. He simply said, in the Word, that I will, I will heal.
I'm the God that heal you. In Exodus, Chapter 15, Verse 26, he said, if we walk in his statues, and that's all covenant there, if we walk in his statues and keep his commandments, the Word of God said that he would not permit or allow the diseases to come upon the world or come upon the Egyptians to come upon you. He said, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. Now we don't use, as I said, in times past, we don't use King James' speech when we're talking theothal or whatever.
We just simply say, he's the Lord that's healing me. He's the Lord that's healing me now. And there are points of contact. You know, we know the Scripture talks about it in James, Chapter 5, Verse 14.
James said, if he was any sick among you, let him call for the elders of the Church, anointing him with all, and praying over him, the prayer of faith. And the Lord shall raise him up. If he has any sins, they shall be forgiven. That's twofold.
So we see that, that also by laying on hands, people are healed. It's a point of contact. And the anointing all. The whole thing about, you know, in Mark, Chapter 16, Verse 18, Jesus said these words, they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.
See, that's a point of contact, the anointing all, the clause, anointing prayer clause. I've got people in my church, I guarantee that said a miraculous miracle take place in their life because of just simply taking a piece of cloth, going a little oil on it, an anointing it, you see, and praying over it, and watch God do the miraculous. Where is the healing in the, oh no, is the healing in the cloth, no, because we'd be healed all the time because we got cloth on, I'm wearing cloth right now. The healing is in the Spirit of God.
Give you an example. Years ago, in Brother R.W. Shambok said this, and it was wonderful. He said, had a lady come, it's one of his, it can't meet, he's one of his tent revivals, and she came and she had a pack of candy.
It was a peanut M&M's, and she said, here, Brother Shambok, I want you to wear this candy. He said, oh honey, I don't wear candy, I eat candy. And she said, but you don't understand, they have got my sister in a, in a, in a, in a, in a silent, I mean a mental institution, and she, she's just lost her mind. And, and, and, oh, Robert says, sent cloths, and they won't get to her because they throw them in the waste paper basket.
People have sent prayer cloths, so we're going to slip one over on the devil and make a long store short. He said, well, I'll wear that candy. When he got through, he had wore that candy all during the time, he was preaching. He gave it to the lady, and he said, here, send it in the name of the Lord.
She came back a few months later and brought her sister with her. And when she sent that, that pack of M&M's to her in the mail, when her sister bit in to one of those candies, go over to God, every demon in hell was loosed from her. And the man, the administrator called her and said, come get your sister, we don't know what happened, but she's totally sane. Isn't that amazing what the power of God can do?
It's not by might or not by power, but it's by Thy Spirit, say the Lord. So what I want to say with you today, in the short time that we have, if you don't know Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God is here, the Spirit of God is present to heal. The Bible tells us, Luke chapter 5 verse 12, but the Spirit of God is present here to draw you into the kingdom of God. So right now, you need to do this.
If there's any sins they shall be forgiven. Say, Jesus, I make you Lord of my life today. Come into my heart, come into my life. And now Lord, forgive me and Lord heal my body.
If you do that today, receive that. I believe it made, I believe it made a great impact in your life. And I believe you're a new creature. And not only that, you're a new creature, that's a healed creature.
God bless you. Tune in next week.