Andrew Wommack - God Wants You Well - Part 17
Welcome to our Tuesday’s broadcast of The Gospel Truth. Today I am continuing my teaching on God wants you well, and I tell you, we have covered a lot, a lot of material. This is now into my fourth week, so let me go back and just quickly summarize some of the things we’ve talked about. The very first thing I tried to do is establish that it is God’s will for you to be well, and I used a lot of scriptures on this, and I tell you, I think that this is a beginning point.
If you waver on this, if you think God only heals some people or as religion is taught, that God actually puts sickness on you to teach you something, you know, yesterday on our program, we used this interview with Mike Mullins about his son Andrew that was healed of cancer, and he was actually asked to leave a Christian organization because they just thought that this was terrible for him to believe that it’s God’s will for his son to be healed, but I tell you what, Mike and his wife are just thrilled with the results because their son Andrew is alive today. He would have been dead if it hadn’t have been for the fact that God wanted him well and they’re seeing lots of people set free.
So anyway, to me, this is non-negotiable. This is a starting place. You can’t waver. You know, in James, chapter 1, verse 5 it says, if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not: and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all of his ways. So those verses show that you have to believe and not waver and if people waver on this thing, thinking, well, God can heal, but I’m not sure it is his will to heal, then you aren’t ever going to see healing reproduced in your life or in people that you minister to on a consistent basis.
So, that’s a beginning place. Then I dealt with some of the objections that people have to say that it’s not God’s will to heal every time. The main one we dealt with was Paul’s thorn in the flesh, we also talked about Trophimus being left at Miletum sick, and Timothy using a little wine for his stomach’s sake, and I explained those things. That does not undo the fact that it is God’s will to heal every single person, and what I began to start ministering on last week was reasons why people aren’t healed. If it is God’s will, if you accept that and say that this is a part of the atonement of Jesus, that he provided healing just as much as he provided forgiveness of sins, the Lord would no longer want, no more want you to be sick than he would want you to sin. Those are big statements.
If you’ve missed any of this, please get these materials because I’ve already verified these things, but if that be so, well then why isn’t every person healed, and there’s a lot of things involved in this. For one thing, I haven’t got time to really deal with this, but there is a doctrine in the body of Christ called, the sovereignty of God, which I’m not against God being sovereign if you will use «Sovereign» the way that the dictionary uses it, and it just means, first in rank, order or authority. God is sovereign in the sense that he is the top of the food chain. Nobody tells him what to do. He is absolute, Almighty God.
If you want to say God is sovereign like that, I’m all for it, but there is a religious definition of the word sovereignty that means that God controls everything and that nothing happens but what God either wills it or allows it, and I disagree with that one thousand percent. I can’t tell you how much I disagree with that. It is an unscriptural principle and because of this extreme sovereignty teaching where people believe that God controls everything, well then, the reasoning is that if it’s God’s will to heal, then why isn’t everybody healed? If it’s God’s will and if you believe that God just sovereignly makes his will come to pass, well then everybody should be healed.
If you took that same logic and applied it towards forgiveness of sins, then everybody should be saved because it says in 2 Peter, chapter 3, verse 9, that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. That says just as clearly as can be that this is God’s will for every person to not perish but come to repentance. That’s God’s will, but God’s will doesn’t automatically come to pass. He doesn’t sovereignly impose his will upon people, he gave us a choice. You have to believe and receive, or if you doubt, you do without, and so people understand that not everybody is saved. Matter of fact, Jesus said that there would be more people that would enter by the broad gate unto destruction than by the narrow gate unto everlasting life, so God’s will isn’t coming to pass and even the sovereignty of God people believe that you know, God’s will doesn’t force people to get saved.
You have to choose and make Jesus your Lord, and so it’s the same principle. If it’s God’s will for everybody to be saved, it doesn’t just automatically come to pass. You have to choose this, you have to believe, and Romans, chapter 10, verse 17 says, so then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, and people are not hearing the truth on healing. There are people that will mention heal, it’s one thing to stand up and proclaim on television or in a pulpit or whatever that God wants you well, that’s one thing, and that’s important and we do need to know that it is God’s will, but that’s not enough. You have to know: alright, if it’s God’s will, how does it happen, because it doesn’t happen automatically, and this is not being explained adequately.
You know again, I am not under the delusion that I’m the only one preaching the gospel. There are some awesome, awesome people. I’ve just held some meetings with some people that I think are just doing a great job, so please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not the only one preaching the gospel and I’m not the only one talking about healing, but I am one of the few that is explaining how healing works and how you can approach it. There’s a lot of people that’ll say they believe in it, but it just, you know like, you just pray and if it works, fine, and if it doesn’t, you don’t know what to do. Matter of fact, there’s one leading healing ministry that they have a gift of healing. I haven’t got time to explain this, but there is a difference between operating in the gifts and receiving a healing and receiving a healing just by believing for it.
There’s a difference, and this major healing ministry that’s on television, they have a phone line and people call in, and of course, they see many people, thousands of people healed at their meetings. They have, you know, tens of thousands of people come and they see good results, but I’ve been to their meetings and even though they may see a few hundred people healed in a meeting, there will be hundreds and hundreds of people that leave without receiving their healing, and so there’s this question about, alright, I believe these other people received their healing, why didn’t I receive mine? And they call in to this ministry and ask what can we do?
And they know how to flow in the gifts and see people healed through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but they don’t know how to tell people to just believe and receive their healing by faith, and so this major ministry often gives out our phone line and has people that call their offices for healing, they send them to us because they say, you need to learn how to receive your healing by faith, not just by a gift of the Holy Spirit, and they actually reroute people to us and we’ve seen lots of people healed. Man, that’s awesome, but I’m saying that there’s not very many people doing this and so it’s super important to be talking about how do you get this healing?
And we’ve already shared, like I said, I’m now into my fourth week, and again, these materials just, it is a wealth of materials available to you, and one of the things that I’m excited about is this little, I don’t know exactly what it is, it’s an mp3 or some kind of a data deal that you just plug it into your computer and it has over 40 hours' worth of teaching on the subject of healing. This CD set that I’m offering has, I think, four CDs in it and they’re a little over an hour each, and so it’s maybe four and a half hours' worth of teaching.
The book, of course, would go into more detail and stuff, but this little data thing that you put in your computer has over 40 hours' worth of teaching and we’ve just got a lot of material, and I’m telling you, God wants you well and you can literally renew your mind and believe, and you can overcome any sickness, any disease. There is no limitation to this, but you’ve got to renew your mind and you’ve got to learn some things. You know, let me just regress for a moment. During this segment right here on our television I’m talking about reasons why people aren’t healed, but let me first of all just kind of put sickness into three different categories, and again, this is just Andy-ology.
I can’t show you a scripture, but just for the purpose of discussing and based on what I’ve done and I’ve see thousands of people healed, I’ve ministered to thousands and thousands of people personally on this, and this is just my experience that there are three major reasons why sickness is even in this world and why it comes. Now again, you could go into much more detail on this. I’m just trying to simplify and make things as simple as I possibly can, so one of those reasons is just the fact that we live in a fallen world and sin has come into this world and sin is an inroad of satan into our life.
Let me turn over here to John, chapter 5, and this is where Jesus went and healed a man at the pool of Bethesda. He was miraculously healed and he got in trouble with the scribes and the pharisees because he was carrying his cot or thing that he used to lay on on the sabbath day and anyway, he was kicked out of the sabbath, I mean, out of the synagogue, but Jesus found him later and in John, chapter 5, and in verse 14, afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee, and so Jesus right here tied sickness, and this man had been lame, he says, don’t go out and sin lest a worse thing come upon you.
One reason, not the only reason, but one reason that sickness comes into this world and attacks people is because of sin. Now, that’s really simple and again, in our politically correct world today where you have to be so sensitive not to offend anybody, this is an offensive thing, but sin is an inroad of satan into your life. Romans, chapter 6, verse 16 says, «Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey: whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness»? If you are living in sin, you are giving satan a direct inroad into your life, and John, chapter 10, verse 10 says that the thief, that’s talking about satan and all of his demons and all of his kingdom, come for no other purpose except to steal, to kill, and to destroy.
Satan is out to destroy your life and if you give him an inch, he’s going to take a mile and if you are living in sin, it is a direct inroad of satan into your life. You know some examples of this, you could do drugs, you could share needles and you could get diseases through these needles. You could ruin your health through all of the drugs that you’re taking. The same thing could happen with alcohol. You can have cirrhosis of the liver and all kinds of other complications.
The same thing is true if you’re a glutton, which the Bible lists as a sin and if you’re overweight. I mean, all of us deal with this, but a person who’s just obese and overweight, you are causing, it’s one of the contributing factors to sugar diabetes, it causes hypertension, high blood pressure, heart problems, it’ll have an effect on your knees, on your ankles carrying around all of this weight, you have back problems, and all of these things come through sin, through you just living in sin, and so that’s one of the main reasons that sickness is even present in the world is because of sin.
A second one, and these things overlap. I’m not, you know, these aren’t divine inspirations that I’m just trying to get this across to you, but an overlapping thing is not necessarily your individual sin, like over here in John, chapter 9. Jesus was going to minister healing to a man who was born blind and when the disciples saw him they said, «Master», this is John, chapter 9, verse 2, «'master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind'? Jesus answered, 'neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him'».
Now, Jesus certainly wasn’t saying that this man and his parents had never sinned because the Bible says in Romans 3:23 that all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. So, he’s not saying that they hadn’t sinned, but he was saying, it’s not a specific sin that caused this situation. There are some things that happen, not because of sin, but I guess you could say, in a sense, it’s all because of sin because God created a perfect world and when Adam and Eve sinned, then the whole world was thrown out of balance. Animals used not to eat each other. They were all herbivores instead of carnivores, but after sin entered, animals began to attack each other.
I don’t know what the original purpose of fungus and bacteria and virus and things like this were, but they were all a part of God’s original creation and just like the lions and the tigers that, you know, used to eat plants and now they eat meat, well somehow or another these virus and bacteria used to have a positive function, but it was perverted by sin entering the world. So, this second area that I’m talking about is not an individual sin where you directly open a door to the devil into your life, but we just live in a fallen world where now things happen, and you know what? You could have a virus, you could have things attack you that’s not necessarily related to a specific sin that you did, it’s just that we live in a fallen world and things are out of whack.
You know, you could have things like you could fall down a staircase, and there’s just natural things that happen. That’s the third area. There’s sin in general that has just perverted everything and satan, of course, is the God of this world and there are demonic forces that are out attacking people. So, you can have sin, or sickness come at you because of an individual sin where you just threw the door open and let satan come at you. You can have sickness and disease and things come at you not because of anything specific, but you just are under attack. Satan is fighting against you.
Matter of fact, the apostle Paul said, that there was a great and an effectual door opened unto him, but there are many adversaries, and the scripture actually teaches that instead of when you’re doing God’s will everything just works perfectly, it’s really just the opposite. When you’re doing God’s will there is going to be demonic opposition. If you never bump into the devil, it’s because you’re both headed the same direction. When you turn around and start going God’s direction, there is going to be attacks from the devil. One of the ways that you know that you’ve arrived in the Promised Land is because there’s giants there, there’s problems, and so I believe that we could have sickness come at us and attack us not because of an individual sin, but just an attack of the devil. We live in a fallen world and satan and his demonic forces are going about seeking whom they may devour, and you will just be attacked.
Now, there is an answer to all of these things. I’m not saying that we have to put up with sickness and disease, but I’m just trying to say, why is it even present? Individual sin, just sin in general that causes us to live in a fallen world where we are living in a hostile environment with demonic powers, and then the third thing is, there’s just natural stuff that happens. You know what, you fall down the stairs, you’re going to, you could get hurt and then you could wind up breaking something and getting an infection and none of this is necessarily demonic, it’s not anything specific that you did, there’s just natural things that happen.
If you have a car wreck, you could have back pain, you could have all kinds of things happen to you, you could become a quadriplegic and it doesn’t have anything to do necessarily with the devil or an individual sin, but there’s just natural things that happen. I know about one person who jumped off of a rock into a pool, there was signs there that said don’t do it: no diving, yet they did it. They hit their head on a rock and broke their spine, they’re quadriplegic and they’re blaming God for that. I don’t think God did that to them. I don’t even think the devil did it to them. It’s just, there’s natural things and if you aren’t careful, you can do things to you and there’s just natural consequences.
I had a friend of mine one time that was driving a cement nail in the ground and the nail broke and ricocheted off of the concrete and stuck in his eye and they brought him over to me and he had this nail sticking out of his eye. I don’t think that that was his individual sin that caused it: I don’t think it was a demonic attack necessarily, you just do things. There are physical, natural things that happen. There are natural things that we do that cause sickness, and again, you could relate a lot of this to the lifestyle that people have. There are some people that are sedentary, they’re couch potatoes, they don’t exercise, and exercise has been proven that it boosts your immune system, it helps you, and you are going to naturally have less resistance to sickness if you are inactive and if you don’t take care of yourself.
There’s scriptures that talk about a merry heart does good like a medicine, and stuff like this, and so there are some natural things that you need to do and sometimes sickness comes just because of these natural things. So, these are three main areas, and again, I can’t turn to a scripture and show you this, but I believe everybody can agree that there’s times that through your own personal sin you just give satan an inroad against you and it was your sin, just like Jesus said, go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you. But then there’s sometimes it’s not your individual sin, but it’s sin that corrupted this entire world. We live in a fallen world and because of it, we have an adversary the devil, going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, and he just attacks us sometimes.
You know, this is a little bit of a rabbit trail, but there’s a lot of times in scripture where Jesus cast demons out of people to effect physical healing: blindness was demons, deafness was demons, curvature of the spine was demons, paralysis was demons. You know, I haven’t got time to turn over and show you all of these things in the scriptures, but if you would study the gospels, you’ll find this and a lot of things are demonic. In our day and age today, people just don’t believe that. They believe all of the demons are in Africa some place, but certainly not in one of these developed countries, but I’m telling you, there’s a lot of sicknesses that are demonic in origin.
They’re attacks and we’re trying to deal with them in totally a natural way by cutting something out or treating something or giving a pill or something and you may be able to affect the body and the effects that these demons are having on the body, but you cannot deal with a demon by just physical, natural things. So anyway, some things come because we live in a fallen world, there are demonic forces, satan is going about, seeking whom he may devour, and some things are just an attack with no, you know, occasion, you didn’t purposely give satan an inroad into your life, and then there’s just some natural things that happen because of the things that we do. You know, I work with wood a lot and I have table saws and stuff and one of the things I did was buy one of these saw stops, where you could actually stick your finger into that table saw and it will not cut you, it will instantly stop.
It’s amazing, and the reason I did that is because you know what? There’s just some natural things that can happen. I work with all these power tools and I could hurt myself and so I take some precautions. If I was to cut a finger or do something like that, that’s not the devil and it’s not a direct sin that caused it, there’s just natural things and you’re working with some of this stuff, there’s things that happen and you need to take precautions. So, these are some of the ways that satan comes against us. I’ve categorized it into three areas, a direct sin that you do that opens the door to the devil, then just living in a fallen world where we have demonic powers that are out to destroy us and the third thing is, there’s just some natural things that happen.
These are some ways that sickness and disease and things like this comes against us, but you know what? Jesus has provided an answer for them all. It doesn’t matter if it’s an individual sin, if it’s just the fact that it’s an attack from the devil or if it was something natural that caused the affliction in your body, by the stripes of the Lord Jesus, you are healed and you can walk in total health. And so, as we continue this teaching, tomorrow I’m going to start talking about reasons why people aren’t healed. I’ve talked about reasons why sickness is even present in the world, now we’re going to talk about reasons why people aren’t healed and in talking about this, we will deal with a lot of things, answer a lot of questions and I believe it’s going to help you.