Level: 2, Lesson: 8
HINDRANCES TO HEALING
OUTLINE

STATEMENT: In our previous lesson, we learned that it’s God’s will to heal us. If this is the truth, then why isn’t everyone healed? We’ll try to answer that question in this lesson.

Healing is God’s will, but not everyone is healed. God’s will doesn’t automatically come to pass. We have to exercise our authority and the power in His Word.

Ignorance can be a reason, but not an excuse for people not being healed. You can’t operate in something you don’t know or understand.

John 5:14, "Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."

Sin can hinder you from receiving your healing. Jesus tied the result of sickness to sin. Sometimes sickness, disease, and problems can be a direct result of sin. However, this doesn’t mean that God is the author of them.

Romans 6:16, "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?"

Whether you are a Christian or not, if you are living in sin, you are giving Satan an inroad into your life.

John 9:1-3, "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. 2And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? 3Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."

It’s untrue to say that all sickness is related to sin. Some things happen just naturally.

John 10:10, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

Jesus is trying to bring His life and health to us and Satan is trying to make us sick. If, through sin, we are yielding ourselves to Satan, then we are empowering him. By our actions, we are allowing the devil to come in and bring sickness upon us.

If there is some known sin in our lives, and we are believing God for a healing, we need to stop sinning and repent because through sin we are hindering our receiving what God is doing in our lives.

It is wrong however, to believe that God won’t heal you because you don’t deserve it. God’s activity in our lives isn’t based on our performance or our holiness, but on what Jesus has done for us and our faith in Him. You’ll see healing work more quickly and easier when you quit anything that gives Satan an inroad into your life.

Matthew 13:58, "And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief."

The unbelief of people around you can affect your receiving your healing.

God will not move against a person’s will. You can have someone else’s faith help you, but you cannot get healed just on someone else’s faith.

God is faithful. It’s His will for us to be healed, but we have to learn to cooperate with Him.

HINDRANCES TO HEALING
Lesson Text

In our previous lesson, I talked about the truth that it’s God’s will to heal - that it’s a part of the atonement. And there is, of course, much, much more that could be said about that, but supposing that you’ve accepted it and you’ve seen it in scriptures, let us now discuss why some people don’t receive healing. If it’s God’s will to heal us, then why isn’t everyone healed?

I was raised to believe that God’s will just automatically comes to pass and that I don’t have any authority, power or say so in it. So, through my ignorance, a number of things happened. My dad died when I was 12 years old. I was with two or three people when they died (in their presence) by the time I was 21. I was praying for all of them to be healed. I didn’t see that healing manifest - not because it wasn’t God’s will, but through my ignorance.

There are some laws in the things of God that people are ignorant about. They don’t know how God’s healing system works. Ignorance is killing a lot of people.

Another thing that hinders people from receiving their healing is sin. This really upsets people when you say this because they interpret it as all sickness is because of some sin of theirs. That is not true. That’s not what I’m saying. In John chapter 9, there is an instance where Jesus was coming out of the temple and his disciples pointed out a man who was there who had been blind from birth. The disciples said, "Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" In other words, they were trying to relate his sickness directly to sin saying, was it his sin since he was born blind or was it his parents that caused this sickness to come on him. Jesus’ answer was that neither of them had sinned. Of course, that’s not saying that the parents or the child had never sinned, but He was saying that it was not their sin that directly caused this blindness.

It’s untrue to say that all sickness is related to sin, but it’s also untrue to say that sin is not one of the factors.

If a person goes out and lives a homosexual lifestyle, that’s just a perversion of nature and the human body is not made to live that way. Some sexually communicated diseases come out of this life style. This is not to say that God is the author of these - it’s just nature rebelling. Nature is not created to support this life style. It is similar to a person who goes out and eats the wrong food. If you eat poison, your body will respond negatively to it. It’s not God who is doing it to you. There are natural laws - natural factors.

None of us are ever going to be able to obtain healing from God because we deserve it. God has never had anybody qualified working for Him yet. So, you must not tie God’s movement in your life to your performance - to your holiness. It needs to be based on what Jesus has done for you and your faith in Him. At the same time, you cannot ignore your actions and yield yourself to the devil without him hindering you.

Another factor that concerns our healing, that people don’t think about, is that of the unbelief of people around us.

It is God’s will to heal, but do you know that God will not move against a person’s own will? God will protect your right to be sick. You can’t push a car that’s in park or reverse. If a person is just set against healing , he cannot overcome it.

Every time Jesus healed people there was faith present - even when they were dead - He would go up to someone and say, "Weep not." He told the mother not to weep and then He raised her son from the dead. Somebody’s faith has to be used somewhere. There needs to be faith on our part.

How does Romans 8:22-23 show us there are natural laws set in motion by Adam’s transgression?

HINDRANCES TO HEALING
(Additional Information)

In Acts 3:7 a lame man was healed instantaneously (Luke 5:25), but not until Peter had reached down and lifted the man up. Faith has to be acted on (John 9:7). Peter acted on his faith and this lame man acted in faith by allowing Peter to give him a hand (Acts 3:7).

Faith is made perfect or complete by our actions (James 2:22). Actions do not produce faith. Faith is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8) that comes through hearing God’s Word (Romans 10:17). But true faith doesn’t carry its full power until it is acted on. There must first be faith, then actions, then physical results, always in that order. In Acts 3:7, it doesn’t say that this man was jerked up by Peter. No, the man leaped up with Peter’s help. This man had faith!

If it was simply Jesus’ willingness to heal that determined whether or not healing took place, then all the sick would be healed. James 5:15 says that it’s not prayer that saves the sick, but rather the prayer of faith that saves the sick. Healing is governed by law. Impassioned pleas to God will not obtain the miracle we seek, although Jesus is touched by our feelings (Hebrews 4:15). It requires faith (Hebrews 11:6). It’s not because Jesus knows our needs and hears our cries that miracles don’t happen, but rather it’s because very few know how the law of faith works.

One of the main differences between a God-kind of faith and a natural faith, which everyone has, is that human faith believes only what it can see, taste, hear, smell, and feel. God’s kind of faith believes in things that cannot be seen. You must believe that you receive your answer when you pray - not when you see the things you desired. Simply put, faith is our response to God’s ability, made complete by our actions. Trust Him completely, and because you believe, your actions will follow

Here are some questions to think about for this lesson

Level 2 Lesson 8 Questions
HINDRANCES TO HEALING

1. A According to Romans 6:16, what happens to one who continues in sin?
2. According to the instructor on the video, do you remember the first reason why people aren’t healed?
3. Ignorance is not an excuse because we have God’s Word to teach us. What was the next hindrance to healing?
4. According to John 9:1-3, what did the disciples think caused this man’s blindness?
5. According to Jesus, was their idea correct?
6. According to John 5:14, what could sin produce in someone’s life?
7. What is the devil’s goal according to John 10:10?
8. What inhibited the people from being healed according to Mark 6:1-6?

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