[Music]
a church planter can walk 20 miles in a
day
give him a bicycle and he can go three
times as far
and be three times as effective
welcome back thanks so much for joining
me we're continuing our chronological
study of the entire new testament right
back into matthew chapter 9 once again
today and it occurred to me as we were
thinking about
this program today
that there's only two kinds of people
who are watching
people who are healthy and people who
are not healthy and people who are not
healthy all want to be healthy amen
certainly they want to be healthy uh it
it
it concerns me sometimes when people
adamantly object to anyone who teaches
anything positive about healing
they'll say well maybe god doesn't want
me to be healed in fact they might even
be so bold as to say
i believe that god wants me to be sick
for a reason
okay
however are you being consistent with
your belief if you believe it's god's
will for you to remain sick
why are you going to a doctor
why are you taking medication
you know why you're doing things to
relieve yourself of the suffering and
pain and relieve the symptoms if god
wants you to be in pain well then you
shouldn't be taking any aspirin you see
and so i think that we need to be honest
with ourselves in this regard
you know healing it seems to be
quite obvious from studying the gospels
is the will of god
and just by studying our own bodies just
think uh for a moment
how when you become ill your body always
does what it can and it succeeds most
time
in bringing recovery you cut yourself in
a few days you know there's
there might be a scab that grows there
but eventually it's just as smooth as it
was before you're healed you get a cold
you get the flu you get a stomach upset
i mean god has just built this fantastic
system within our bodies to keep us
healthy if you've ever studied the
immune system i mean it's just millions
of miracles all tied in together for one
point and one purpose and that is to
keep us healthy and when we do become
ill to get us back to health okay so
just natural theology that is just
observing what god has done would lead
us to believe that healing
is god's will when you take that and put
put it combine it with what the
scripture reveals i mean you just have
all that much more reason to believe
it's god's will for you to be healed so
if you're if you're sick let me
encourage you let's keep studying these
wonderful stories that god has
had matthew and mark and luke and john
record for us to build our faith
some folks will say well those stories
are only in the bible not because they
have any bearing on god's will for us
because
he's just trying to establish the deity
of christ i mean wow when he did these
miracles jesus was proving to everybody
then and now that he is divine
i will not object to that a bit of logic
but i will add a little caveat to it for
example we've just finished studying the
healing of jairus daughter the healing
and the and the resurrection of jairus
daughter
and uh
we read in matthew 9
and verse number
uh
well actually excuse me it's not in
matthew's gospel i'm mistaken it was in
mark's gospel after jesus healed her and
raised her from the dead he said don't
let anyone know about this keep it quiet
see so if he was doing it to advertise
his deity and he would have said let
everybody know this is a great miracle
and i want people to see that i am the
son of god so by telling them not to
tell anyone about this miracle it
indicates that his motivation wasn't
primarily
to glorify himself and to establish his
deity
he did it because
of compassion just wanted to be a
blessing responding to the faith of
jairus okay now if you're healthy you
say well this doesn't apply to me well
sooner or later it might apply to you
and so now's the time to build your
faith right
i think you know when you're when you're
when you're healthy well then do all you
can to feed your faith with the word of
god and the promises of god so when
sickness does inevitably strike you can
go right at it against it with your
faith okay so this benefits
all of us no matter who we are i'm glad
i'm studying this with you because i
like to have my faith build up
and when it comes to healing it's not
going to hurt us at all or maybe you
know somebody else you could be an
encouragement to them all right so we're
starting off today in matthew chapter 9
and verse number 27. jesus has done a
number of miracles there in capernaum
now he's just leaving the house of
jairus leaving behind a very grateful
crowd of people and a very happy family
a little girl who was dead and who came
back to life 12 year old girl
and we read in verse number 27 as jesus
went on from there two blind men
followed him crying out and here's what
they cried out have mercy on us son of
david now you might not have noticed
this
or put the pieces together but it says
that there were two blind men who were
following him
well if you're completely blind it's
really difficult to follow someone uh we
can assume that they had somebody uh
helping them of course they could have
heard the crowd inquired oh that's jesus
and so forth and just you know
directed themselves towards the
commotion because jesus had a crowd with
him
um but they're trying to get his
attention and they're crying out uh have
mercy on us son of david jesus does not
immediately stop and minister to them
apparently he just keeps on going we
don't know if he heard them or not but
you know matter of speculation but in
verse number 28 we read when he entered
the house
the blind men came up to him and jesus
said to them now listen to the question
that jesus asks them
obviously it's not a
you know
unimportant question
it's a question that is significant
here's the question do you believe
that i am able to do this
they said to him yes lord now question
for you
what if they had said um
no
i i don't think it's your will for me to
be healed
would they have had their eyes open the
answer is
no obviously that's why he questioned
them he's testing their faith he wants
to see
you know do they believe or not because
faith is a component if they're going to
be healed they're going to have to have
some faith and they're going to have to
demonstrate it okay more to say about
this next time and so
i'll see you next time