Andrew Wommack - God Wants You Well - Part 10
Welcome to our Friday’s broadcast of The Gospel Truth. Today is the end of my second week of teaching on the subject of God wants you well, and I tell you, I’m of course, making these programs in advance, but I just know in my heart even though I haven’t heard the physical report yet, but I know in my heart that there are many, many, many people being set free by these truths that we’re sharing.
The Bible says, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free, and the sad fact is that most people don’t know the truth about God wanting them well because they see so much sickness, and then the church comes along and tells people that it’s God that made them sick and that God is getting glory out of this sickness or it’s God’s punishment and stuff, it has muddled the waters and people just haven’t heard the truth, and I tell you, it is liberating to find out that God is not behind your sickness. He wants you well more than you want to be well and if you’ll just cooperate with God, he’ll get you well.
I tell you, that’s good news. On our program yesterday I was talking about Paul’s thorn in the flesh and if you’ve missed any of this, please get these materials. I know that there’s people that watch, sometimes you’re just flipping through the dials, you find this and it’s disconnected from the previous program, but man, I spent all yesterday teaching on this and showing that the scripture says, 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 7, that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was a messenger, an angel, a demonic power of satan, not of God, and I also showed that his infirmity was not sickness, it was hardship, it was persecution.
So, here’s what actually happened. When Paul had this messenger of satan, not from God, but it was a demonic power come against him and just afflicted him with persecution, he even said over in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4 that it looks like God has set us, the apostles, forth to be last. We suffer more than anybody else. You’re blessed, you prosper because you’ve heard the gospel, but we are persecuted and we don’t have a place and we’re put in prison. Paul said it seemed like he had it worse than anybody else and the reason that happened, it wasn’t God that did it to him, it was a messenger of satan afflicting him so that he would not be magnified in the sight of people. They would look at this and say, man, if this is what serving Jesus is all about, I’m going to rethink this thing.
Satan was trying to hinder people from coming to the Lord. That’s what he said, it was given to him a messenger of satan, lest he should be exalted above measure, and then he says in verse 8, for this thing I besought the Lord thrice, three times, that it might depart from me. And the Lord said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. I heard other people interpret this and you know what, I’m not trying to come against them because I agree with their conclusion. Their conclusion is that this wasn’t from God, it was a messenger of the devil and some people will try and interpret this as the Lord saying, my grace is sufficient. I’ve already given you the power, you resist it, you overcome that.
So, the end result of what they’re trying to say is that Paul wasn’t sick, God didn’t refuse to heal him and I agree with all of those things, but personally, I don’t think this is the Lord just saying, my grace is sufficient. Paul, you take your authority, you resist this demonic messenger and overcome it, and that Paul could have overcome this. I personally believe that this goes back to all those who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, and I believe that that’s what this is referring to, that Paul was being persecuted and he literally besought the Lord to remove this demonic power or remove the persecution from him and the Lord basically said, Paul, you aren’t redeemed from persecution, all those who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Paul is the one that wrote that, 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 12, and so I believe that Paul was trying to get rid of this demonic power. He knew it wasn’t just natural. It was supernatural. It was demonic the way that he just had opposition come against him, and he prayed three times for the Lord to take it away and God said, Paul, my grace is sufficient, you aren’t redeemed from persecution.
Look at it this way, if the Lord had just stopped persecution and any time his people started to be persecuted, God intervened and just stopped it, there wouldn’t have ever been an apostle Paul because Paul was part of the group that persecuted Stephen and stoned him to death, and if God would have just smitten all of Stephen’s persecutors, the apostle Paul never would have been converted, he wouldn’t have written half of the Bible, we wouldn’t have these records. No, God has not redeemed us from persecution. He’s redeemed me from sickness, he’s redeemed me from sick, sin, he’s, you know, redeemed me from a lot of things, but persecution isn’t one of it, all of those who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Jesus said, if they persecuted me, your master, they’re certainly going to persecute you. He says, if you are without persecution, then are you bastards, and not sons, is what it says over in Hebrews, chapter 12, and so there is going to be problems. There’s going to be opposition that come against us. You aren’t redeemed from that, and so that’s important. So, this is talking about that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was persecution. God hadn’t redeemed him from that, and so this is not talking about him having some kind of a sickness or disease. You know, there are other people that will use scriptures like, let me just turn over and use a couple of these in Galatians, chapter 4. The apostle Paul is speaking and he’s talking to the Galatians who had basically rejected him and gone with the legalists and he said in Galatians, chapter 4, and in verse 13, he says, you know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.
And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected: but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? For I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them unto me, and from this people have said Paul had some kind of an ancient eye disease and this is what he was referring to, and that was his thorn in the flesh. First of all, 2 Corinthians, chapter 12 does not say he had a sickness. His infirmity was not a sickness, it was a demonic messenger that persecuted him and I believe I have established that from scripture. When he says here that he had an infirmity in the flesh, in this instance I do believe it was talking about some kind of a physical problem, but if you take this in context, the cities of Galatia were Lystra, Derbe and Iconium, that’s where Paul was stoned and left for dead.
It’s not impossible to believe that a person who had been stoned and left for dead the day before might have had an eye problem or something like that, but it doesn’t mean that it was a thorn in the flesh, a continual thing from which God wouldn’t heal him. I believe he got over it, and plus, you could take this as he was just using this symbolically when he says, you would have plucked out your own eyes. I’ve told people before, I said, I would give my right arm to help you. Does that mean that their right arm was bad? No, it’s just a way of expressing that you love them so much, you’re willing to sacrifice a body part, and it could be that Paul was just using this in that way saying that, you loved me so much that you would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me. Now, why is it that you’re rejecting me now when at one time you loved me so much?
See, this isn’t some verification that Paul had some ancient eye disease that caused him to have puffy, runny eyes. Another verse over here in Galatians, chapter 6, he says in verse 11, he says, you see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand, and I’ve heard people before say that this is talking about, Paul’s eyesight was so bad, he had to write in these letters that were three and four inches tall and that’s the reason it was such large letters. If you look this up in the Greek, it’s not talking about large in size, it’s talking about quantity.
In my Bible, the book of Galatians is like five pages in this small print, four or five pages. That’s a large letter. He’s just simply saying, I wrote a long letter, and for people to get out of this that Paul had some ancient eye disease is beyond any method of Bible interpretation that is, you know, honest. You are prejudiced, you want to believe it. This does not say he had poor eye sight. It does not say that they needed to pluck their eyes out and give it to him because he had an ancient eye disease. It’s just talking about, he had been stoned and left for dead, he might have had a black eye, he might have been using this just symbolically to talk about how much they loved him at one time.
He wrote a large letter to them, a long letter to them, these are just simple things. 2 Corinthians, chapter 12 says that he was dealing with a messenger, a demonic power from satan, and that was his thorn in the flesh, not sickness. It is God’s will for you to be well. That is so simple you’ve got to have somebody to help you to misunderstand it, but sadly we’ve had a lot of help misunderstanding the Word of God.
So anyway, I’m sharing these things with you and if you have ears to hear, I pray that you’ll just hear and see that God wants you well. You know, again today I would like to play another one of our testimonies about healing. You know, this is powerful. You overcome the devil by the blood of the lamb and the word of your testimony, and it’s important to see that this works.
I want to share the testimony of Merci Santos, a woman who had multiple sclerosis, that came to me in a wheelchair and I prayed with her, and she didn’t immediately get out of the wheel chair, but within six months, she was running. Look at this.
So, praise God, isn’t that awesome about Merci and her husband running and God has set them free, and I tell you, Merci now has gone on television, she’s got her own ministry, she’s seeing lots of people healed. I tell you, this is awesome and the same thing that God did for Merci, he will do it for you. It is God’s will for you to be well. So, please listen to the announcer and please take advantage of these healing testimonies and of all of these materials. I promise you, it could make a difference in your life.