Healing the sick : a living classic

234 Pages·1992·0.96 MB·English

by  T L Osborn

Table Of Contents
Introduction
1 How Many Will God Heal?
2 Healing for All
3 Reasons for Faith
4 Why More Do Not Get Healed
5 Asking the Father in Jesus' Name
6 If Two of You Shall Agree
7 Anointing with Oil
8 The Laying On of Hands
9 Special Miracles by Faith
10 Healing in Redemption
11 Basis for Steadfast Faith
12 Looking at God's Word
13 The Nature of Faith
14 Some Unscriptural Teachings
15 The Prayer of Faith
16 Is Faith Essential to Healing?
17 The Importance of Your Words
18 Emancipation Proclamation
19 Satan's Defeat
20 The Authority of God's Word
21. Confession Brings Possession
22 Faith in Our Rights
23 The Language of Faith
24 Why Some Lose Their Healing
25 The Three Witnesses
26 Introduction by Daisy Osborn
27 Scripture Reading
28 What Are Demon Spirits?
29 The Manifestations of Demons
30 Synopsis
31 Sickness - A Blessing or A Curse
32 The Believer's Authority
33 Healing in the Lord's Supper
34 Some Enemies of Faith
35 To Do or Not To Do
36 The Power of God's Word
37 Three Questions About Paul's Thorn
38 Food for Thought on Paul's Thorn
39 Seven Redemptive Names
40 Salvation and Healing Parallel
41 100 Divine Healing Facts
42 Prayer for Healing
43 Life's Greatest Question
44 Jesus Christ - The Way
45 Introduction To New Life Facts
46 New Life Fact I
47 New Life Fact II
48 New Life Fact III
49 New Life Fact IV
50 New Life Fact V
51 New Life Fact VI
52 New Life Fact VII
53 Thank You Lord
54 Our Four Vital Visions
55 Our Witness
56 Christ At Work In You
57 Share The Good News
Introduction
AMONG THE tens of thousands who have been miraculously healed by the
Lord under our own ministry in 70 nations of the world, only a small fraction of
them have been individually prayed for. Most of them have been healed through
their own faith which came to them while meditating on the Bible truths we
presented from the platform or from the printed page.
When we published the first edition of this book, we never dreamed that it
would bless such vast numbers of people.
A continual stream of testimonies come to us from all over the world. They
are written by those who have been joyfully converted and miraculously healed
while reading our literature.
Those who carefully read and act upon the truths we present here obtain a
broader understanding and a more solid faith than those who hear only
occasional teaching on the subject of healing.
Many who have attended our crusades, but failed to receive healing, have
later been miraculously healed while reading this book.
God sent his word and (it) healed them.
The gospel is the power of God to everyone that believes.
When believed and acted upon, any promise of God is transformed into the
power of God.
Every promise of God contains the power of God necessary to produce what
it promises, when it is believed and acted upon.
God's promises are life to those that find them, and health to all their flesh.
It was when these facts became real to us that we decided to put into print
this volume of messages and offer them to the millions of sufferers to whom we
may never minister in person.
This revised and enlarged edition is sent out with confidence that those who
read and meditate on these Bible truths will receive vital faith, will act on God's
promises, and will be miraculously healed.
No literary style is pretended. Our only aim is to make the simplest possible
statements which may serve as an anchor for real living faith in the hearts of the
humble and sincere, of the poor in spirit, who make up the masses of humanity.
I am especially indebted to the writings of F. F. Bosworth and E. W. Kenyon.
The material abridged from their writings has been used by special permission.
Dr. Daisy Washburn Osborn, my wife, associate minister and my closest
confidante and collaborator in writing, has taken much valued time from her
own writing ministry to edit, correct and revise the latest edition of this book, for
which I am deeply grateful.
It is my prayer that the reader shall experience great spiritual and physical
blessings through the truths I have presented.
T. L. Osborn
CHAPTER 1
HOW MANY WILL GOD HEAL?
I WILL TAKE sickness away from you. The number of your days I will
fulfill. [Ex 23:25-26]
I am the Lord who heals you. [Ex 15:26]
The purpose of this chapter is to acquaint you with what the Bible teaches: If
you are sick, God wants to heal you.
Until you are fully convinced that God wants you to be well, there will
always be a doubt in your mind as to whether or not you will be healed. As long
as there is that doubt in your mind, perfect faith cannot exist; and until faith is
exercised, without doubt or wavering, you may never be healed.
Without faith it is impossible to please him: for they that come to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. [Hb
11:6]
But let them ask in faith, nothing wavering. For they that waver are like a
wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not those (who waver)
think they shall receive any thing of the Lord. [Ja 1:6-7]
Once people are fully convinced that God wants to heal them and that it is
not God's will for them to be sick, they almost always receive healing when
prayed for, if not before.
Knowing God's will concerning sickness provides the ground on which
perfect faith can act.
GOD IS HONEST
To one puzzled about faith, who said to me, "I just can't seem to get faith to
be healed," I asked, "Have you confidence that God will keep His promise to
you?"
"Oh, yes," she affirmed.
"That is faith," I assured her, then added, "Isn't it simple?" And she was
healed.
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the Son of man, that he should
repent: has he said, and shall he not do it? or has he spoken, and shall he not
make it good? [Nu 23:19]
There has not failed one word of all his good promise. [I Kings 8:56]
Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. [Ps 188:89]
I will hasten my word to perform it. That word hasten means: "to watch
over," "to look after," "to protect," or "to stand behind." In all of His unlimited
power, God is standing behind His word to accomplish it. Believe that.
There is no reason for doubting God.
F. F. Bosworth said: "Don't doubt God. If you must doubt something, doubt
your doubts, because they are unreliable; but never doubt God, nor His word."
D. L. Moody said: "Is there any reason why you should not have faith in
God? Has God ever broken one of His promises? I defy any infidel or unbeliever
to place a finger on a single promise God ever made and failed to fulfill."
Satan is a liar. Jesus said so. I can open the Bible and show you how, for six
thousand years, Satan has lied to people, telling them that God's word is not true.
The devil has denied God's word, and promises people everything - but has
broken every promise he ever made.
THREE MILLION HEALED
God announced Himself to be the healer of His people with these words: I
am the Lord who heals you. He spoke those words to about three million people.
Everyone of them believed God's words were true. The result: Everyone of them
who needed healing was made perfectly whole.
We are told: He (God) brought them forth and there was not one feeble
person among their tribe. [Ps 105:37] Can you imagine three million people all
well and strong? Not one feeble, not one weak, and not one sick?
If that was true in Israel, under the law, it is much more true for you, who
have been redeemed by the blood of God's Lamb and are living under grace,
mercy, and truth.
Let this become a settled truth that you know, as well as you know two plus
two are four: Healing is for you - all may be healed.
THEOLOGICAL TRADITION HINDERS
It is God's will for every individual to be well and strong -when His
conditions are met and His word is believed. If there is a justified "maybe" in
your case, then we are compelled to apply a "maybe" in every case, because God
is no respecter of persons. If God will heal anyone, He will heal you.
In the world today, disease and sickness are claiming a terrible toll of human
lives. In spite of the fact that medical science is demonstrating its greatest
achievements, disease persists to ravage human lives all over the world.
The tragedy is that these sicknesses and diseases affect the bodies of
thousands of Christians, while preachers and teachers, influenced by theological
traditions, often stand by with little more than words of sympathy and pity,
assuring the sufferer that it must be God's will; that it will work out for the best;
that God is teaching the patient some lesson in humility; that possibly it is God's
chastisement; or that by it, the sick person is being drawn closer to Him who
often works His will in our lives through sickness.
Christians need never be sick, any more than they need to be sinful. It is
always God's desire to heal you.
Why is disease such a persistent enemy? How is it that sickness has been
able to take such a toll among Christians today? In the Old Testament, three
million of God's people believed His word when it was spoken, and everyone
was completely healed.
THREE MILLION BELIEVED
The only reason those three million Israelites became well and strong was
that they believed what God said: I am the Lord who heals you. That was said to
them, and they believed it.
The only reason disease takes such a toll among Christians today is that
many do not believe what God has spoken. They know that God said, I am the
Lord who heals you.
Somehow they have failed to believe that He meant what He said, which is
basically what Satan said to Adam and Eve: God did not mean what he said.
Influenced by tradition, people have changed God's "I am" to "I was".
If, under the old covenant, three million of God's people could be well at one
time, then how much more may God's people be well today who are living under
the new covenant of mercy, grace, and truth, established on better promises, with
a better priesthood, through a more excellent ministry.
CHAPTER 2
HEALING FOR ALL
IS IT STILL the will of God, as in the past, to heal all who have need of
healing?
The greatest barrier to the faith of many seeking healing in our day is the
uncertainty in their minds as to it being the will of God to heal all.
Nearly everyone knows that God does heal some, but there is much in
modem theology that prevents people from knowing what the Bible clearly
teaches - that healing is provided for all.
It is impossible to boldly claim by faith a blessing which we are not sure God
offers, because the blessings of God can be claimed only where the will of God
is known, trusted, and acted upon.
READ THE WILL
If we wish to know what is in a person's will, we read the will. If we want to
know God's will on any subject, we read His will.
Suppose a lady would say, "My husband, who was very rich, has passed
away. I wish I knew whether he left me anything in his will. " I would say to her,
"Why do you not read his will and see?"
Testament means a person's will. The Bible contains God's last will and
testament, in which He bequeaths to us all of the blessings of redemption. Since
it is His last will and testament, anything later is forgery.
If healing is in God's will for us, then to say that God is not willing to heal
all, as His will states so clearly, would be to change the will - and that, after the
death of the testator.
Jesus is not only the testator who died; but He was resurrected and is also the
mediator of the will. He is our advocate, and He will not beat us out of our
inheritance, as some earthly advocates might do. He is our representative at the
right hand of God.
There is no better way to know the will of God than by reading the Gospels,
which record the teachings and the works of Christ. Jesus was the physical
expression of the Father's will. His life was both a revelation and a manifestation
of the unchanging love and will of God. He acted out the will of God for us.
A FAITH-DESTROYING PHRASE
When Jesus laid His hands on everyone of them and healed them, He was
revealing and doing the will of God for all people.
Lo, I come, to do your will, O God. [Hb 10:7]
I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that
sent me.
[Jn 6:38]
Everything Jesus did for needy humanity during His earthly ministry was a
direct revelation of the perfect will of God for the human race.
F. F Bosworth says in his book, Christ the Healer: Perhaps no one could be
more conservative than the scholars of the Episcopalian church. Yet, the
commission appointed to study the subject of spiritual healing for the body, after
three years of study and research in both the Bible and in history, reported back
to the church: The healing of Jesus was done as a revelation of God's will for
humanity. Because they discovered that His will is fully revealed, they reported
further: No longer can the church pray for the sick with that faith-destroying
phrase, If it be your will.
Mr. Bosworth goes on to say: The message taught in the Gospels is one of
complete healing for spirit and body, for all who will come to Him. Many today
say,"I believe in healing, but I do not believe it is for everyone." If it is not for
everyone, then how could we ever pray the prayer of faith?
Among all those who sought healing from Christ during His earthly ministry,
there is only one who prayed for healing with the words, If it be your will. This
was an outcast leper, in Mark 1:40, who did not know what Christ's will was in
healing.
UNCERTAINTY CORRECTED
The first thing Christ did was to correct this uncertainty by assuring him, I
will.
It is no longer, if it be your will - it is God's will.
The leper said: If you will, you can. Jesus answered, "I Will".
Let that settle it forever with you: God will heal the sick. If He wills to heal
one, then He wills to heal all.
He is not willing that any should perish.
James asks: Is any sick among you? Any includes you if you are sick.
Of those who were bitten by the fiery serpents, the Bible says that as many as
looked to the brazen serpent lived. Even now, as many as look to Christ as
redeemer are saved - are healed.
When it comes to the benefits of Christ's redemptive work, all are on an
equal basis.
The words whoever and whoever will are always used to invite the
unconverted to be saved.
The words as many as, everyone, all, and any are used to invite the sick and
the diseased to be healed.
THE UNIVERSAL INVITATION