What If You Weren't Miraculously Healed?

What if the promise of miraculous healing isn't quite what it seems? I'm thrilled to welcome back David Libby, an insightful logger and budding theologian from central Maine, to help unravel the mysteries surrounding healing ministries and the often misunderstood Word of Faith movement. David draws from his family's harrowing experience with Lyme disease to shed light on how faith intersects with skepticism. He challenges us to reconcile the belief in God's power with the hard truth that healing isn't promised in Scripture.

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Listen to David Libby's Episode from Season Three: https://www.honestchristianconversations.com/faith-and-resilience-in-the-face-of-chronic-illness/

Buy David's Book A Different World: God's Sovereignty In The Face Of Suffering

Link for Season Four Resources: https://www.honestchristianconversations.com/p/season-four/

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Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Healing Ministry and Suffering
• 14:30 Questioning Miracles and Healing Ministries
• 22:31 Understanding Healing Ministry in Christian Context
• 31:19 Embracing Contentment in Faith

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

On today's episode, I have invited my brother in Christ, david Libby, back to the show. You might remember him as my Season 3 opener guest. He discussed his family's heartbreaking journey through the chronic illness that is Lyme disease. On this episode we are discussing some issues within the idea of a healing ministry. He has been doing his homework on this topic and he is ready to share his findings with you all. So I hope you are ready Before the episode starts. Make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode. Well, hello again, david. I'm so excited to have you back on the podcast. We're going to talk about an amazing topic today, but first, before we start talking about the topic of healing, I would like you to share with our audience, who isn't familiar with who you are. Just give them a brief overview of who is David.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Okay, well, thank you, anna. I'm awfully glad to be back. It's such a privilege to be back on your show. And before I talk about myself, let me talk about you for just a second. I love what you're doing. This is amazing. You're actually broaching some very important subjects. I think the church needs to hear what you have to say and I think the church needs repentance in many quarters, and I hope that people will hear what you have to say and will take it very seriously. You know God's Word is our standard, but we're not making up our opinions out of whole cloth. We're getting them from God's Word, so, anyway. So who is David Libby?

Speaker 2: 1:34

I live in central Maine, a very rural part of the country. I'm a logger by trade. I cut wood for a living. I'm an outdoorsman. I live very close to the earth, but I also love to study. I love theology. I've been an elder in the church for many years. I grew up in the OPC, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which shouldn't be mistaken for the PCUSA, the very liberal we split off from them, a doctrinally sound church, and I love theology and I love philosophy.

Speaker 2: 2:04

Published a book recently that tells the story of my family's struggle with chronic illness and then answers some of the hard questions around a life of suffering. You know, how could a sovereign God be, how could there be a sovereign God in a world where there's so much suffering and that sort of thing? And then I've got another book that is going to be out, I think Bible, the first, the year. It gives a philosophical defense of the Christian faith. I believe that, or biblical worldview. I believe that we can know with certainty that the God of the Bible exists because of the philosophical impossibility of the contrary. And that demands five hours of explanation, which I'm not going to do right now, but that book will also be available. The name of the first book is A Different World God's Sovereignty in the Face of Suffering, and I think the name of the second one, unless I come up with a better name in the next couple of months, is going to be Apologize Without Apologizing. Give a defense without being embarrassed about it, I guess I love that.

Speaker 1: 2:53

Nice, I like that.

Speaker 2: 2:55

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Well, I'm excited to read that book. I liked your first book, so I'm definitely excited to read that one, and I love the title it's brilliant, Well, thank you Anna. Thank you so much for the kind words. Thank you for the kind words too. I really appreciate it. Well, you're welcome, I'm so glad you were able to come on and talk Well yeah, thanks for the opportunity and you're very welcome for the kind words.

Speaker 2: 3:20

They are very sincerely meant and you know you are, you know you're putting a target on your own back. You know a lot of people aren't going to necessarily like some of the things that you have to say, but they're very important. So, you know, we we fight the good fight and we keep our eyes on the Lord Jesus, we count the cost and we don't concern ourselves with anything beyond that Right.

Speaker 1: 3:35

Yeah, exactly, yeah, all right. Well, let's jump into it. We're going to talk about the subject of healing, and no one better can I think of to have on than you, because you and your family have dealt with a chronic illness of Lyme disease. So why don't you share with us a little bit about how your wife and daughters their journey, of how they've been coming over it and any information that you have for us pertaining to healing? Like did you go to a healing ministry for anything? Did you know anything and think that going to a healing ministry might actually help you?

Speaker 2: 4:17

Well, no, we didn't go to any healing ministries. My family was very, very ill for many years and you know they're doing a little better now, but we had very, very dark times. I guess by the time I found myself in this situation I was able to see through these healing ministries. I believe I was wooed by the Word of Faith culture back when I was a teenager and I found that it didn't work very well for one thing, but I also since learned and I had questions even then that they really couldn't answer about what God's Word teaches about things like trials and afflictions and illness and so forth.

Speaker 2: 4:54

We see healings in Scripture. God is certainly capable of healing. He's just as capable today as he was then. I'm not a cessationist. I don't believe that miracles only happen at a certain time in history and can't happen again. But he doesn't owe us any kind of supernatural healing. And that's the difference between what we find in, I believe, a correct view of healing and a view of healing that we would find in those word of faith circles where they see that healing is something that God has promised us, when I don't believe that it is. He's actually promised us that we will have trials and afflictions in this life. Well, I guess he has promised healing. If you want to look at it from an eternal perspective, the day is coming when there will be no more sickness, no more illness, no, more pain, no more sorrow.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 5:40

Yeah, but it's not in this life. We long to see that in this life, but we aren't guaranteed that we will receive that. So you know we didn't.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Yeah, I think that's where people go wrong.

Speaker 2: 5:52

Yeah, yeah. Well, in fact, the Bible has told us in many places that God gives us trials and afflictions for our benefit. James 1, verses 2-4 come to mind. You know, count it all joy when you experience various trials. These trials are given to God for your sanctification. You may be perfect and complete. I guess a view of healing that would say that healing is guaranteed and something that we should kind of make our main focus is really short-sighted and is missing the greater blessing that God's Word promises us. Wouldn't you rather have sanctification? Wouldn't we rather be molded into his image, experience the eternal benefits that come from sanctification, rather than the temporary benefit of being delivered from a toothache or backache or whatever?

Speaker 1: 6:36

Yeah, I think one of the issues is that people have no desire to feel anything negative anymore.

Speaker 2: 6:45

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:46

We should want to. The Bible tells us we're going to suffer, especially as Christians. But because of the fall of man, there is suffering, there is heartache, there is bad things that are going to happen. The Bible says Jesus said to Adam and Eve you will toil in labor. You know all these things. He's telling us from the very beginning that we will suffer, we will have issues because we chose to sin.

Speaker 1: 7:12

And nobody wants to handle that, nobody wants to deal with it, nobody wants to have even, you know, a slight boo-boo on their finger. And I think that's why these healing ministries are able to thrive. A lot more is because they're feeding off of all the fact that nobody wants to feel even the slightest bit of pain. If I have a sickness, let's pray that it goes away. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but maybe there's a reason you're sick. Maybe you should look at the deeper reason for it. Perhaps you should, you know, be healthier. Work on that, you know like, don't just try to dismiss it away, don't just try to ask God to get rid of it.

Speaker 2: 7:54

What are your thoughts? Oh, well said, anna. Very well said, I agree. We live in kind of a quick fix, cheap, thrill culture. We want the easy road. We want nothing but fun times and we find that in the church there's a real fun times. Christianity that permeates our culture and that's not what we find in God's Word. We find that the narrow path is the hard road. It's the hard path. God gives us good times and we cherish them when we have them, but he also has promised us trials and afflictions in this life. Count the cost before you decide to become my disciple, and the cost could be high. In fact, the cost could be death by torture. Take up your cross and follow me. We cheapen Matthew 10, verse 36, I think it is, when we talk about our cross to bear being an unpleasant mother-in-law or something like that. So our cross to bear is being willing to die by torture for the sake of our Lord Jesus. So that's a hard road, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 8:46

Yeah, yeah, and not too many are willing to go down that or even suffer even a little bit. America doesn't know what suffering is. Our pastor has been saying it a lot. We have not known what true suffering is and I listen to a lot of missionary stories. I read some of them from a magazine that I get from Voice of the Martyrs, so I've heard them and I share them with my kids and sometimes they ask me questions and I'll share it with them.

Speaker 1: 9:16

But we don't know that kind of suffering. We don't know what it's like to go to church and wonder if someone's going to come in with a gun and just start shooting or set a place on fire just because they know we're Christian. We don't know what that's like. Our version of suffering is oh, I have a cold and I can't have that today. I've got this to do. I mean I know we all have issues. I mean, for example, your family went through a chronic illness, a very painful one. Lyme disease is awful, it's painful, and I read in your book what you guys struggled through and my heart breaks for them and I could see why someone who is in that condition would want to go and find somebody who says that they can get rid of it or that they can alleviate most of it.

Speaker 2: 10:04

Right.

Speaker 1: 10:05

But you have to look at that and say what is God trying to teach me through this moment? Rather than just trying to get rid of it? Because he doesn't do anything to us on purpose, because he's mean, he does it because he's got a purpose through that situation, through that season that you're going through, he's looking to grow you and you should be willing to see what that is before you just want to dismiss it and get rid of it.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Yeah, very true. Yeah, very true. He is a sovereign God and he has a purpose for everything that he gives us. So, yeah, well said.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's a hard subject for me to talk about because even in my own family, with my husband and I, we combated about this for a while because he believes in healings and so do I because I do believe that God can do it. But my position is I don't believe that people have the right to say they are the healer or that I have the gift of healing. That's where I have a problem, and my husband gets it. Now he understands, but at first, like we were kind of, you know, rubbing against each other because neither of us really knew our positions well enough to defend them. But we're kind of more or less on the same page now. And that's where I believe is God can do anything.

Speaker 1: 11:24

I call myself a soft cessationist because I've heard that before, where they don't fully believe that, no, God never does miracles, ever again. They do believe that he does the miracles, not people. He doesn't appoint people to do them anymore. So I mean I don't call myself that all the time, but that's what I would probably align myself with if I had to was a soft cessationist, that I believe that God can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants. But I don't think people have the right to say God gave me the gift to do this.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Yeah, that's a good way to look at it, anna. And if God did, then where are these people? Because I've never seen one. There are those who claim to have those gifts, but yet if you really look into the fruits they produce, there's a lot of fraud, a lot of charlatanry. I remember Johnny Erickson Tada was talking about how in her youth, when she was first paralyzed, she went to some of these healing ministries and they would put her and all the other people in wheelchairs into a bathroom somewhere where nobody could see them, because they couldn't heal them and they didn't want them to be seen.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Yeah, who doesn't love free? I know I do. That's why I created a free seven-day devotional for those who want to go deeper with God. It's a short devotional full of encouragement, guidance and impactful Bible verses related to everyday struggles we all go through. I know you will love this devotional as much as I enjoyed writing it, and since it's digital, you can do it anywhere, anytime, perfect for the person always on the go. Get the free devotional when you sign up for my mailing list. The link is in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 13:12

But yeah, God is probably healing anybody miraculously.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Yeah, yeah, exactly, there's actually a new person. Her name's Catherine Crick. I just watched a video on her ministry and when you mentioned the people in the wheelchair Johnny Erickson, tata it reminded me of that, because I don't know if you know who Justin Peters is. He's very much wise on this subject. He's been to many healing ministries as well and he's got cerebral palsy. He's never been healed from it from one of these people, just a side note. But he dedicates his channel to you know, sharing the truth, and he shared a video of this woman named Catherine Crick who does a healing ministry.

Speaker 1: 13:58

With quotation marks, the child had cerebral palsy and she was trying to get the child to walk. She had that child convinced that there was a demon or whatever that was afflicting the child and this girl was crying. She didn't want to be afflicted by her demon anymore. She just wanted to be healed and she had her trying to walk with her mom holding her. They didn't let her go because it wasn't going to happen.

Speaker 1: 14:24

But Justin Peters was very angry when he saw that and I could barely watch it because it wasn't going to happen. But Justin Peters was very angry when he saw that and I could barely watch it because it made me sad. They're leading people astray when you don't do actual miracles and a miracle, by definition, is something that can't be explained away. It can't be explained by human reasoning or whatever. It's just you look at it and you're like I don't have an explanation for how this happened. That is a miracle, and I think we use that term too liberally now. It's a problem because then everyone thinks this is a miracle, that's a miracle, and it's just. The word gets watered down.

Speaker 2: 15:02

Yeah, I caught a five pound bass. It's a miracle, right, you know.

Speaker 1: 15:08

I know what you're saying. You know it's not. Yeah, yeah, exactly it's. I caught a five pound bass. It's a miracle, right? You know, I know what you're saying. You know it's not yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: 15:11

I'm guilty of it too, not necessarily with miracle, but just you know, there are certain words where we just use them too much, to where they actually lose their meaning, and I'm pretty sure I've used the miracle thing before too, but I'm more intentional now about not doing that because I've been learning so much about this subject. But it just it. It breaks my heart to see people led astray by people who are either just trying to make a buck or make a name for themselves, or maybe they genuinely think they have these abilities. But where's the fruit? You were mentioning fruit. There needs to be fruit. Where is the fruit? Why do we have so many hospitals popping up everywhere if people are able to heal left and right whenever they want? We still have a lot of hospitals. We still have a lot of doctors. Nobody's going out of business in that department, yet they're still putting more up. So either they aren't where the people are who need the help or they're just lying, and it's really upsetting.

Speaker 2: 16:19

It is upsetting.

Speaker 2: 16:20

Yeah, I agree with you, it's so upsetting it is upsetting, and people who don't get their miracle are usually blamed for it. And the reason for that is upsetting, and people who don't get their miracle are usually blamed for it, and the reason for that is that we could go a little deeper with this. There's a deeper, darker, insidious side to it, and that is that there's a whole incorrect metaphysic underlying all this. And it's interesting. If you start studying the Dark, occult and all kinds of other ancient mystery religions and so forth, you find the same thread throughout all that. So I think it's certainly a, you know, satanic, demonic deception. But the metaphysic I'm talking about is that that your thoughts, your, your belief, your faith is is a force. It's a force, you know, by which you can manipulate metaphysics. You can, you know, create your own reality uh, laws of attraction, that sort of thing and if you push that a little deeper, underlying all that you have Satan's old lie. You too can be a god. You can be the master of your own destiny. You can be a god if you just learn to manipulate this force of faith.

Speaker 2: 17:17

It's interesting to me that people I've known who have been steeped in that.

Speaker 2: 17:21

I don't want to sound mean, but their lives have been abysmal failures.

Speaker 2: 17:24

I'm thinking of a time many years ago when wife and kids and I went over friends' houses back when my kids were very little, before they became ill, and these friends husband and wife and two or three kids were all really taken in by that word of faith deception, I guess I'll call it. And we sat around the dinner table and the kids all had horrible, horrible nose, green stuff pouring out of their noses, all had horrible colds and the parents forbade them to even wipe their noses, because to wipe the nose would be a negative confession. It would be acknowledging that there's an illness there. When we can control our own world, we can control metaphysics by our faith a positive confession. So if we deny that there's an illness, we're going to make there not be one, and that sort of thing. And I felt so bad for these kids. I mean, mean, just let them blow their noses, for goodness sakes, they have colds, but that's the sort of thing, that's the sort of really bad yeah I would say, demonic metaphysic.

Speaker 2: 18:14

It's same thing we find in, you know, christian science and other places. It's, it's a, really, it's a deception, and a damaging one, a very damaging one yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1: 18:25

I mean, I used to be sucked into the don't say anything negative. You know what. What's going to happen if you do kind of thing, and it's exhausting to live like that because negative things are going to happen Again. The Bible says so. So what are you? What are you supposed to do? Just clam up during a season where you're going through trouble? What were you supposed to do when your family was suffering so severely with your chronic illness? Were you supposed to just shut up and just take it? I mean? No, I mean.

Speaker 1: 18:57

Look at Joe. He cried out to God in the midst of his pain. He was not hating on him, he didn't blame it on him, but he cried out and he talked to him and he had a conversation with them. We are allowed to do that. Look at David. When he lost his child with Bathsheba, he prayed, he got up, he dusted himself off in the middle of his sadness of losing his child. He prayed, he took care of what needed to be done. He realized this is a part of life. I have to grow and I just have to have a better attitude about it, and that's just what we have to learn when it comes to healing. We can't heal ourselves. God is the ultimate healer. Nobody else is a healer. We can do things to stem whatever it is. You know, if you have a cold you can take some cold medicine. You know, if it's something serious you can go to a doctor. I'm not necessarily 100% with the medical universe right now. Anyway, oh good for you, Anna?

Speaker 2: 19:58

I hope not either.

Speaker 1: 20:00

I'm more willing. I'm more willing to go the holistic way. But I'm not going to go to the extreme and say like when I broke my elbow I went to the ER. I'm not going to say, no, it hurts a lot but I'm pretty sure I can fix it myself. I already knew I did something to my body that I'm not going to be able to fix. I did not freak out when they wanted to do the x-rays to make sure. I said you know what? I'm going to trust God, I'm going to pray over it and whatever happens happens.

Speaker 1: 20:31

But I know I need this there are certain times where you know you need medical attention. There's other times where you can say you know what, I'm just going to trust God through this. I don't think it's that bad, I can handle it. Use holistic medicines, use your sound judgment, but you don't need some outside source, outside of God, to heal you.

Speaker 2: 20:54

Right.

Speaker 1: 20:54

He's the ultimate healer. He died on the cross. He did it all. It was finished. He said it was finished. He didn't say it was partially finished or mostly finished. It was finished, which means it was everything. Everything, which means it was everything, everything. If he was able to save us from eternal damnation, from Christ, from God, then how is he not capable of healing any cold or whatever? Why do you need to go to some other source who says that they have the power to heal, like Jesus, when you can actually go to Jesus and ask him to heal you and if it's his will, if it's supposed to happen, you will be healed in the way that he wants, in his way. That's going to give him the glory.

Speaker 2: 21:35

Amen, yeah, and so if you go directly to Jesus, you go directly to an omnipotent God with your requests and he doesn't grant them, then that tells you that it's not his decretive will, right. So there must be another purpose behind these sufferings. But you know, it is all kind of an emperor has no clothes system. I guess I'm thinking of Kenneth Hagen, dad Hagen, one of the fathers of the Word of Faith movement. He was treated for cancer more than once and he was called on that he would say publicly I've never been sick a day in my life. And so people called him on that. You've been treated for cancer a couple different times, I think. And and his answer was well, I didn't have cancer, I just had symptoms of cancer. The symptoms are the disease, right. So it's like you saying I didn't have a broken elbow, I just had a symptom of a broken elbow. You, the symptom was broken bones. So the rhythm goes out of all this.

Speaker 2: 22:31

There was a fellow here in Maine a number of years ago I doubt he's still alive, but quite a few years ago, 20 years ago who had a sizable Word of Faith church and I was invited there by a friend and this fellow was hugely overweight and in very, very poor health.

Speaker 2: 22:48

It was hard for him to shuffle back and forth across the stage up front without being completely out of breath was hugely overweight and in very, very poor health. It was hard for him to, you know, shuffle back and forth across the stage up front without being completely out of breath. And he was up there doing the best he could in his horrible condition of very poor health, to rant and rave about how God has guaranteed us all perfect health. And I was sitting there thinking, well, the emperor has no clothes. I mean, this is nuts. This guy's obviously in very poor health while he's telling us that perfect health is guaranteed. Things like law of attraction they just don't work, because that's really the law of attraction, as I think you know, hannah, is this idea that the positive thoughts.

Speaker 1: 23:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:24

It's very new age.

Speaker 2: 23:25

Very new age. Yeah, yeah, positive thoughts activate the universe to give us good things. Positive thoughts activate the universe to give us good things. Negative thoughts activate the universe to give us negative things. It's kind of a weird mix of an attempt at science, physical law, like in this law of attraction, like law of gravity or inertia. It's a strange mix of that and the darker cult and astrology and that sort of thing, and ascribing to the universe some kind of transcendent deity almost, which is absurd because the universe is a created thing. It's on the creature side of the creator-creature distinction, there's only one thing on the creator side, only one being. So the universe is really big, but it's no more transcendent than a chicken.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Never.

Speaker 2: 24:05

And incidentally, it's idolatry, because now we're engaged in ancient sun and stars and host of heaven worship.

Speaker 1: 24:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:14

Which the Bible denounces in very powerful terms.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Yeah, it's very dangerous to get involved in certain practices. We don't need anything other than Jesus, and that's something that took me a while to figure out. I didn't figure that out until 2020, when everything shut down and all we had was internet where I could search all this stuff up. And then I started learning things and my brain waves started sizzling and firing on all cylinders. The scales just fell off my eyes and I started seeing the areas where I had deceptions and I've been transformed in my thinking yet again, and it's an amazing process.

Speaker 1: 25:07

But at the same time, it's also it shows you where people aren't going to like it, because you know there is a target on the back of people who want to call out practices that people think are biblical, but they might not be. Keep fighting the good fight. We have to stay strong with what is true and right and just get it out there. Just talk to whoever you're talking to. They may not agree, they may not understand completely, but maybe they'll go and search and find the information for themselves. Maybe you have some stuff that you can share with them.

Speaker 1: 25:45

I mean, that's all I've been doing since I found this out is trying to share with anybody that I can which is why we're doing this new series is. This is my want to share it with all my brothers and sisters in Christ who are fallen prey to these things, who are heavy into the whole idea of there needs to be a healing ministry. The healing ministry was when Jesus was around. He is the one who had the healing ministry and, yes, maybe the apostles did too, but the apostles are gone as well.

Speaker 2: 26:30

Right.

Speaker 1: 26:31

So, therefore, the healing ministry is gone, because they were the ones who had it, and there was a reason for it. It was to make the firm foundation that the church was supposed to be built on.

Speaker 2: 26:41

That's right.

Speaker 1: 26:41

The church has already been built. So unless people are saying that they've torn the church down and we have to rebuild it, I don't see why we need a healing ministry. There can be people who want to heal, who want to see people healed. Find out from the Bible how you can do that. Be the person who goes to someone who's sick and goes and prays and asks that God would heal them. Don't think that you have the power to heal them because you decree it or whatever. That's not how it works. We are God's hands and feet. We aren't God.

Speaker 2: 27:18

We just needed his image. That's right. That's right. Yeah, my opinion, ana, you nailed it.

Speaker 2: 27:23

Why did the Lord Jesus heal? Why did the apostles heal? We can say that he did it out of compassion for people who are sick, because God's word tells us so. He had compassion upon the multitudes and healed their sick. But I think there's a more ultimate reason.

Speaker 2: 27:35

We find that in, I guess, matthew 11, is it when the disciples of John the Baptist came and asked are you really the Messiah or do we look for somebody else? And he said go back and tell John what you see. You know the lame walk, the blind see the deaf, hear, and so forth. And elsewhere we could point to other texts as well. Elsewhere we see the more ultimate purpose behind the healing ministry, and that was to validate him as the Messiah. You know, how do we know that he was? Talk is cheap. How do we know that he really was what he says he was?

Speaker 2: 28:05

He was raising the dead, he was healing the sick, he was performing miracles in fulfillment of Messianic prophecies, old Testament Messianic prophecies. And then, when the apostles were performing miracles, they didn't point to themselves, they didn't say, hey, look, look, how powerful I am. They pointed beyond themselves to Christ. They said the lame man of the temple where Peter said I don't have any silver or gold to give you, but I will give you what I have Get up and walk. People marveled. He said no, no, don't look at me. It wasn't me that did this healing. This is again in fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. This is proof that Jesus we're preaching, who you crucified, is your Messiah. So there's the ultimate purpose for the healing ministry. All the people who Jesus healed, they all eventually got sick and died, didn't they?

Speaker 1: 28:47

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 28:47

Yeah, this life is mortal. This life is Temporary. Yeah, it's temporary. If we really want to experience real healing, we need to have our eyes fixed on the next life, fixed on the life where there will be no more pain and suffering.

Speaker 1: 29:03

Thank you, David, so much for coming back on and talking with us about the topic of healing and how important it is to Make sure that God is the center of the idea. I think that's the takeaway we have here is that God is the only one who does the healing. We are maybe the conduits he uses, but we should never get puffed up. You said it well when you were talking about the apostles they always pointed to Jesus. Talking about the apostles, they always pointed to Jesus. That's what we need to remember is, if we are in the midst of helping someone heal, we need to remember that it's not us, it's God. He gave us the power he gave us whatever it was. To him be the glory, not us, and that's what we should be reflecting on when we look at these ministries. Who are they giving the glory to? Who are the people who are being healed with quotation marks or actually being healed? Who are they giving the glory to? That should tell you who is really a follower of Jesus and who is just a follower of man.

Speaker 2: 30:12

Yeah, very good, very good. And I guess another thing that maybe to point out is that if people do experience real healing, we need to be a little careful about the source of the power behind it, because we're told in Scripture to expect false signs and wonders as well, and we need to be very careful. God's Word is our final authority and we need to test everything by God's Word. I guess another point perhaps worth mentioning in closing is that we talked earlier about how God actually does ordain for us, does send us trials and afflictions for our sanctification, for our good, for his glory, and we have in texts like Philippians 4, where Paul talks about, wrote about being contented, whether he has much or has little, whatever state he's in, to be content. And we find that same truth expressed in I think it's 1 Timothy, I think it's 1 Timothy 6. Mind, if I turn there real quick, I'll just take a quick look.

Speaker 2: 31:00

Hope I got the right verse here. Yeah, I'll start at verse 6. Drown men in destruction and perdition. So you know, we didn't talk much about, we didn't talk any about health. We talked about the health and not the wealth part of the prosperity gospel. But you know, we see that there we're commanded to be content with what the Lord has given us, a sovereign God has given us. And one of the insidious things about this false doctrine is the promoting of discontentment. Don't be content with what you have, try to believe for more, get something more, and so forth. Discontentment is an insult to God's wisdom and it's an insult to God's providence. He's given us what is best for us. It doesn't mean we don't pray for healing. Of course we cast all of our cares upon him because he cares for us. But discontentment if he says no to our requests, discontentment with that, is an insult to God's wisdom and his providence. We don't want to do that. We want to love our God and be humble and contented with what he's given us.

Speaker 1: 31:55

Amen. I don't think we could say anything more. That makes perfect sense. That is absolute truth. The Bible tells us to be content, so be content, whether it's a good circumstance or not.

Speaker 2: 32:09

Right Content, right Right.

Speaker 1: 32:11

Thank you so much, david, for coming on. This has been awesome and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people encouraged, a little less encouraged probably, but I just I pray that everyone will understand what we're doing here and not think that we're out to get anybody or any ministry, but that we're just trying to shed the light, the honest truth with people in a loving way, and this is the best way to do that to reach more than one person at a time.

Speaker 2: 32:44

Yeah, yeah, and thank you for what you're doing, anna. I really appreciate what you're doing and I guess one of the words in closing I would encourage anyone who hears what you have to say, what I have to say, and doesn't like it, I would say do yourself the favor and do God the honor of getting on your face before God in all sincerity and asking him to show you what is true. There is such a thing as objective truth, despite what our postmodern age would have us believe. God said that if you draw near to me, I will draw near to you. If you seek me with a whole heart, you will be found by me. He's told us these things. So truly seek the Lord, truly seek what is objectively true and pray to God to have your own errors pointed out. I've done that, and then all of a sudden, he'll send somebody along who points out my errors. So seek after God, seek after God with a whole heart.

Speaker 1: 33:33

Very well said. Thank you, david.