Andrew Wommack - God Wants You Well - Part 3
Welcome to our Wednesday’s broadcast of The Gospel Truth. Today I’m continuing a series that I started last Monday talking about God wants you well, and I tell you, I’m excited about this because I just meet so many people that are suffering in this area of sickness and especially Christians. They pray and they beg God to move in their life. They want to be well, but they don’t have the foundation, the faith, to get well, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, and there is a lack of proper understanding of the Word of God concerning the subject of healing.
So, I’ve already spent two days on this, I’ve played a testimony of Niki Ochenski, now her name is Weller, she’s been married and just had her second child and well, what a blessing, what a miraculous testimony. This girl would have been dead. The doctors said that they didn’t expect to see her in the next appointment the next week and she’s been miraculously healed, and I mean, you know, when this happened, one of the criticisms I get when I teach on healing is people say, you ought to just preach on salvation. Well, this is salvation. Healing is a part of the atonement of Jesus.
Now, I know some of you probably just choked on that statement, but if you can stick with me, I’m going to show you so many scriptures on this that if you believe the Word of God, if the word means anything to you, you’re going to have to come to accept the fact that Jesus provided healing just as much as he provided anything else, and when Niki got healed, I think it was back in 2001, I mean, there was just like a ripple effect. She was going to this clinic where all of these people dealing with similar things that she had were, and I mean, they started being healed.
We saw people brought in and they were in such bad shape, I mean, I could go into a lot of detail on this, but I just saw miraculous healing, one after another, and most of those people were not saved and they would pray and they would get born again and we saw people born again by the bunches. Only eternity will be able to tell how many people have been changed by every one of the healings that take place. I mean, this is just, I’ve used this expression before, but Jesus used healing like a bell to get people’s attention, to draw them unto him and then he would make the spiritual application. Healing is an entrance, a door into people’s lives. I know many of you don’t agree with that, but let me show you right here in scripture where this is exactly what the scripture says about Jesus.
In Mark, chapter 2, this is at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry, Mark, chapter 2, verse 1. It says, «And again he entered into Capernaum after some days: and it was noised that he was in the house. And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. And there came unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay».
Now, why do you think that they did this? I mean, this is pretty severe to go up and literally destroy somebody’s roof and they couldn’t get to him any other way and they let this man who had the palsy, who was paralyzed down in front of them. Why do you think they did that? Because they believed in healing, because they had heard the testimonies about these things and that’s what drew these crowds. You know, the reason people aren’t cutting holes in the roof of our buildings today is because the church isn’t representing God the way Jesus did. If we represent God the way that Jesus did, people will come for the supernatural healing power of God.
If the average, if a person went to the average pastor today and says, I just was told, you know, that I’m going to die, I’ve got this problem, or whatever, and if they went to the average pastor, the average pastor would say, well, why don’t you go to the doctor? Why don’t you try this? Man, I’ve heard that this thing, and they would point them somewhere else. Jesus drew people to himself for healing. He told us the works that he did, he will do also, John 14:12, and even greater works than these. He commanded us to go preach the gospel, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, Matthew, chapter 10, verses 7 and 8. He said that these signs will follow them that believe: they will cast out devils, they will lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover, and on and on and on the scriptures go.
This is not just something for Jesus, it’s something for us and if we were flowing in the supernatural power of God the way that Jesus was, we would be drawing crowds the way that Jesus did. I know many people don’t like to hear that, but I’m not saying anything that these scriptures aren’t saying. They had to literally cut a hole in the roof because there were so many people trying to get around Jesus that they couldn’t accommodate him and they let this man down through the roof, and in verse 5, «When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, son, thy sins be forgiven thee».
You know, I could minister on this passage of scripture for days, there’s so much in here. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, but if a person could fully understand what forgiveness of sins totally means, it would produce healing in your body. We live in an apostate church today where the church has changed the gospel and they say that salvation is just for the forgiveness of sins and it determines whether you go to heaven or hell. That’s not what it meant in this day, and if you can stick with me, I’m going to go through other scriptures on programs after this showing you where the word «Sozo», the Greek word «Sozo» that was translated salvation, save, saved, hundreds of times in the New Testament, it was also translated, heal, made whole, and all of these things, that salvation was never meant to be broken into parts and say that this is just forgiveness of sins.
No, salvation originally, what Jesus was talking about when he said, you’re saved, your faith has made you whole, you are saved, he was talking about healing. Salvation includes healing and that is offensive to people today, but that’s exactly what Jesus was talking about. Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. It is obvious, obvious that he wanted to be healed, but he said, your sins are forgiven you, because if you could understand that the only reason sickness, disease, ever had dominion over the human race was because of our sin. When we unplugged from God, when we set this corruption into motion, that’s what has caused all the sickness and disease and all of these kind of things. It’s a result of sin and if you are forgiven of sin and if you could fully understand that and appropriate it, sickness does not have any right to reign in your body, but you’ve got to believe those things.
It doesn’t just happen automatically. You’ve got to believe in order to receive. So Jesus, when he said, your sins are forgiven you, he was giving this man right here the ability to be healed, but when he said this, look in verse 6, it says, there were certain of the scribes and pharisees sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, why doth this man speak blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God only? Well you know, it’s true that only God can forgive sins, but what they were missing was that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh. They thought it was blasphemy because they didn’t believe Jesus was God, but he was God manifest in the flesh and therefore it wasn’t blasphemy.
He was forgiving this man his sins and he was also healing him by saying this, and in verse 8 it says, immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned among themselves, he said unto them, why reason ye these things in your heart? Whether is it easier to say unto the sick of the palsy, thy sins be forgiven thee: or to say, arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? Let me ask you this question? Which is easier to say? Is it easier to say, your sins are forgiven you, or is it easier to say, rise, take up your bed and walk?
Now, I’m not asking about which is easier to do: which is easier to say? It’s actually easier to say, your sins are forgiven you because you can’t see a sin, you can’t see if that sin is forgiven, and so you could say, your sins are forgiven you and there’s no way to really know whether it happened or didn’t happen, so it would be easier to say, your sins are forgiven you, but if you say, take up your bed and walk, well then, immediately there is either going to be physical proof that it worked or that it didn’t work. It’s actually harder to say, take up your bed and walk, because immediately you’re going to be able to see whether or not it worked. It would be easier to say, your sins be forgiven you because you can’t see. There’s no way of quantifying that and knowing whether it happened.
So, here’s the point. Jesus is about to heal this man and show that if I can do the greater, if I can do what’s harder, it’s harder to say, take up your bed and walk, and if I can do this, well then I can also do the thing that’s easier to say. There may not be any way of physically proving it right then, but if I can do that greater, then I can do the lesser. You know, if you can jump ten feet, well you can certainly jump two feet. If you can lift 100 pounds, you could certainly lift five pounds. Anybody who can do the greater, can do the lesser, so he’s saying, which is easier for me to say.
He says, is it harder for me to say, take up your bed and walk? Well, all of them would have said, well, yeah it’s harder, it could, because there’s going to be, instantly, there’s going to either be proof or disproof that that worked, and then he said this in verse 10, but that you may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, he saith to the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thy house. And immediately he arose, and took up the bed, and went forth before them all: insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, we never saw it on this fashion.
Notice, they glorified God for this healing. People are saying sickness glorifies God, and if you go to preaching that God wants you well, they say, that’s of the devil. You know, this is exactly what Isaiah, chapter 5, verse 20 prophesied, it said in the last days they would call evil good, and good evil, and sad to say, I don’t get any pleasure out of this, but the majority of the body of Christ today will sit there and say sickness is good. God gave this to you because he loves you, but healing is of the devil. This says that when this man was healed, they glorified God. Healing glorifies God, not sickness. We live in a culture today where they are calling evil good, sickness good, and good, healing evil, and the church as a whole has become the number one way of promoting these lies and making people accept sickness and disease as being God’s will.
But Jesus here said, the reason I am healing this man is so that you might know that I have power on earth to forgive sins also. So, Jesus used healing, some physical, tangible thing that people could see to prove that if I can do this, I can also do the unseen. If I can deal with your physical body, I can also deal with your spirit man, your soul. I can deal with these inner things. Jesus used healing to illustrate that, if I can do these things, physical that you can see, then I can also do the unseen.
Today we have Christians who have somehow or another just believed that they’re superior to Jesus. Jesus had to have miracles to confirm him, that’s what he said. He said in John, chapter 10 he says, I have a greater witness than that of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a preacher who proclaimed that Jesus was the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, and he says, I have a greater witness than that of John the Baptist, and that greater witness are the works that I do. They testify of me. Jesus used the miracles that he performed as a validation, as a testimony, a proof that he was who he said he was and he could do what he said he could do.
If Jesus had to have miracles to testify to him, how arrogant it is on our part to think that we can just stand and preach and people are just automatically going to receive just because we say so. Jesus didn’t do it that way. Jesus used miracles to validate his life and ministry. Let me use this passage over in Hebrews, chapter 2. It says in verse 1, «Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedient received a just recompense of reward: how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation: which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard them: God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will»?
God bore witness to Jesus and the early apostles by miracles and signs and wonders. God bore witness. If Jesus had to have God bear witness and validate and confirm that he was who he said he was, who do we think we are that we don’t need to have our message validated. It’s arrogance on the part of people to think that you can just stand up and proclaim something and people are just supposed to believe it. We need to have supernatural miracles manifest in our life. Here’s another verse that goes right along with this.
In Mark, chapter 16, and in verse 15 he said unto them, go ye into all of the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples just the moments before he was taken up into heaven, and after his resurrection, before his ascension. In verse 16, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name they shall cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues: they shall take up serpents: if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Again, this is his last instructions while he was here on this physical earth and he said, if you are a true believer, then here’s how you can tell because you will have these miraculous signs.
Today we have so many people preaching the gospel, quote unquote «Gospel», but it’s not the same gospel that the Bible preaches because it doesn’t have miraculous signs and wonders with it, and let me just say that because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, Romans, chapter 10, verse 17, and since faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word, the word that has been preached for hundreds of years has not included the miraculous and it hasn’t been sharing these things. Matter of fact, there’s some people that believe Mark, chapter 16, verses 15 and following, shouldn’t even be in the Bible.
Some of your translations, if you would go look it up, it’s not even in your Bible, and they’ll say, well, this wasn’t in some of the oldest manuscripts. What they’re missing is, it was in the oldest manuscripts, it is part of the Word of God. I tell you, I just, I could get really upset and say some things about people who just pick and choose which parts of the Bible they want to believe. This is Jesus speaking and he said, if you are a true believer, these are the things that should happen.
Since that hasn’t been preached, then I can understand that there are people who are sincere and called by God who are preaching the revelation that they know, you can’t preach what you don’t know, and so they haven’t received faith for this and they haven’t preached it and yet they’re people that I respect and love and I would not say that they’re of the devil or anything like that, but I would say that they aren’t preaching the whole counsel of God. If we were preaching the whole counsel of God, this is the norm. It should be an exception to find a person who doesn’t walk in the miraculous, in the supernatural power of God. If you truly preach the Word of God, it should be confirmed with miracles following, and I know somebody just, I can’t believe that.
Well, just keep reading. Right here in verse 19 it says, «So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following». When the true gospel is preached, it will be confirmed with signs following, miracles. Now, it is true to say that a changed life, a person being born again and set free from the devil’s grip and the depression and the hurt and pain that that is a sign. I would agree with that, but it is not the only sign. In context, he had just spoken about that you would lay hands on the sick and they would recover, you would speak with other tongues, you would be able to do these miraculous things.
There is, I believe it includes a person being saved and their life changed, but it is not limited to that. If you’re going to take the scripture and not just pick and choose which part you want to believe, if you’re just going to take the Word of God and let the Word of God speak to you, then this is saying that when a person preaches the true gospel, there should be miracles, there should be healings, there should be deliverances. People should be set free physically, not just spiritually, not just heaven and hell issues, but they ought to get their physical bodies healed, and the preaching of the true gospel will always accompany that. If you want to know, is a person really preaching the gospel? Well, you could look and see, is there any miraculous results in their life?
Now, that’s a real narrow way of looking at things and I know that there’s many people offended by that, but I’m saying that that’s the way it should be. Because faith hasn’t been taught, the word hasn’t been presented properly, I can understand that there are exceptions today because you can’t believe for that which you’ve never heard, but it is an exception. The normal Christian life, the normal Christian ministry ought to have just a string of miracles that accompany the preaching of the gospel. Man, that’s powerful. You know, if we were to go by these passages, if we were to just say, you know, is this person seeing the supernatural power of God manifest in their life? And if they aren’t, well then I’m not going to sit here and hate them, I’m not going to condemn them, but you know what?
I’m going to go someplace to where I can see the power of God in manifestation and see the supernatural power of God because this is the norm, this is the way that God intended it to be. If you were to have that attitude, I can guarantee you, there are millions of people watching this program right now that you would have to flee the church that you attend because they do not see the supernatural power of God. There are even some of you that attend churches who proclaim it and say, God can heal, but they don’t ever see it.
I go into quote unquote «Pentecostal churches», I know that, you know, some people might be offended at what I’m saying. I could be more specific, but just a short title to identify the groups that I’m talking about, people who believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, who believe that God can heal and stuff like this, I go into those kind of churches and I’ll see miracles happen and I’ll have people come up, young people that are 20 years old something, and say, it’s the first time I’ve ever heard this, seen this. I’ve heard that God heals, but we never see it in our church. The point that I’m making is that there’s a huge segment of the body of Christ that doesn’t even believe miracles happen today, but among those who do believe that it happens, they don’t really see it, they don’t see it manifest very often.
It would be rare, it would be the exception, and again, I’ve been into many Pentecostal, spirit filled, whatever you want to call them, churches, who proclaim that they believe this, and yet they never see it. I’m saying that that’s not the way it’s supposed to be, and the reason that’s happening is because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word, and people are afraid to stand up and say these things, because the moment you do, I can guarantee you, I’m going to get mail. People will come and say, well, what about this person that believed God and they died, and now are you saying that somehow or another I’m a second class Christian because I’m not healed. And there’s people that are going to take offense and rather than deal with the fall out and rather than deal with the criticism and stuff, it’s just a hot issue that most ministers will avoid.
Plus, you know, I was with oral Roberts right before he died and I asked him to lay hands on me that I might see a greater manifestation of healing and he told me, he says, you can’t do it, and I said, why not? And he said because you’re a pastor. I said, I’m not a pastor. I have a television ministry and I travel, then he said, oh, then I’ll pray for you and you can see it, and I’ve seen a greater manifestation of miracles, but what he was talking about is, pastors, if you go to preaching this, I can guarantee you, somebody is not going to receive their healing and rather than deal with the hard deal of, why did this happen, and try and answer people’s questions and stuff, most pastors will just back off and not be bold proclaiming that God wants you well because there’s going to be things that don’t look like that, and rather than deal with it and deal with the mess that it makes, they just avoid it. I’m telling you, if you truly preach the gospel the way that the scripture says here, it will be confirmed with signs and wonders following.