Word of Salvation – Vol. 27 No. 43 – August 1982
Healing By Elders, Oil And Prayer (II)
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on James 5:15
Scripture Readings: James 5; 1Corinthians 12:12-31
Singing: Ps.H. 324; 250; 232; 201:1,2; 410
Introd: For a number of Sundays we have studied the matter of healing.
In 2Corinthians we heard about Paul’s thorn in the flesh.
We saw that there are times when (for good reasons) God does not heal.
In Mark’s Gospel we studied the healing of the paralytic.
We saw that forgiveness is more important than healing.
Then previously we studied verse 14 of James 5.
And we saw two things:
a) In the matter of sickness and healing the church is to be involved.
Involved thru its elders.
They are to pray over the sick as the sick call on them to do that.
b) We also examined that contentious matter of anointing with oil.
And we saw that it was not a sacred or spiritual ritual.
We saw it as – at best – a symbolic act recognizing God’s role in medicine.
Today we want to see the effect of this involvement by the church in healing.
A] PRAYER AND HEALING.
a) Remember we are speaking about the involvement of the church.
And that involvement is not just for comfort or sympathy.
It is for PRAYER.
So we wish to look firstly at the role of prayer in healing.
James mentions three kinds of prayer in this chapter.
1. There are the prayers of the sick or troubled themselves (v.13).
2. Then there are the prayers of the leaders… the elders (v.14).
3. Finally there are the prayers of the whole church (v.16).
IOW the sick are to be totally surrounded by prayer.
Their own… those of the elders… and those of their fellow believers.
However one question that arises is: What are they all to pray for?
How are they to pray? James gives us no specific instructions.
Should it be prayer for the sick to find strength in God?
Of course… but also much more than that.
In verse 16 the apostle says: Pray for one another SO THAT…!
So that you may be healed.,,!
The purpose of the prayer is healing.
So James shows prayer is to play a vital part in the healing process.
In fact he strongly implies…
that God may choose not to heal except in answer to prayer.
In previous studies I mentioned
the one-sidedness of the Christian healing movement.
If you are not healed it is because of sin… or because of a lack of faith.
However I want to suggest there is another one-sidedness on our part.
That is that we are inclined to under-estimate the value of prayer.
In times of sickness we DO pray. But how intensely?
And do we really urge one another, encourage one another to pray?
When did you last ask someone else to pray for your problem?
Or when was the last time someone asked you to pray for something?
In fact sometimes I detect a fatalistic attitude amongst us.
An attitude that says:
Well, it must be God’s will for me to suffer.
It has been pre-ordained for me so I’ll just grin and bear it.
So there is often a great stress on surrendering to the will of God.
Pain and all…! After all it is the will of the Lord.
Of course it is true: We must SURRENDER our lives totally to Him.
And our praying too must always be in the spirit: Your will be done.
And then especially when it becomes clear that God is saying: No!
In those times that it goes with us as with the apostle Paul…
then we must bear what He wills for His glory.
BUT… our acceptance of sickness must not become an excuse.
An excuse for us not to pray for healing.
As though we are not quite sure whether our prayers make a difference.
James urges precisely that kind of prayer.
Pray for each other… so that… for the purpose of healing.
And then to reinforce that urging of prayer he reminds us of Elijah.
Elijah prayed for a drought.
Imagine that – a minister praying for drought.
But it happened – and there was no rain for three and a half years.
And he prayed again and it came down by the buckets full.
We could easily think of other examples.
Hezekiah… told to put his house in order.
But he prayed to God and was healed.
In fact he was given another 15 years.
God is not only the God who has laid down a plan for our lives.
And who somehow also includes, at times, sickness in that plan.
He is also the God who hears and answers prayer.
A God who allows us to wrestle with Him in prayer.
So we must not too quickly resign ourselves to suffering and pain.
Until it becomes clear to us that God will not take that thorn away.
Because also our prayers for healing will serve the glory of God.
b) And yet..? We have a problem here don’t we?
After all James seems to speak in such an absolute fashion.
The prayer offered in faith WILL make the sick person well.
And the Lord WILL raise him up.
It seems at first glance that this is an open promise with no exceptions.
[Except of course that the prayer must be offered in faith
We’ll come back to that in a moment.] But it seems that all believing prayer will be answered positively.
Well that takes us right back to some charismatic healing services.
There are those who say: See, this is exactly the case.
It is always the will of God for all to be healed.
Suffering is never, never God’s will.
So, some tell us that prayer for healing must never end with the words
“Nevertheless, not my will but your will be done…!”
It is God’s will for all to be healed
and if you are not healed then either you didn’t pray in faith
or else there is sin in your life you have not dealt with.
And now look here at this text – James confirms that.
It is always dangerous to take only one Bible verse by itself.
Or only one aspect of Christian teaching on its own.
We must always balance that with other aspects and other Scriptures.
For example Paul’s prayer for healing.
Paul’s experience was different
That it sometimes IS the will of God for His children to suffer.
For their own well-being and even for His glory.
Paul had a thorn in the flesh despite his prayers.
However there is another point that we need to make.
Something that is a little hard to learn just by reading our NIV Bible.
The word used for the sick person being MADE WELL has a double meaning.
It could also be translated: The prayer of faith will SAVE the sick person.
Notice: Not just HEAL the person but SAVE that person.
Interestingly, in Jesus’ healing ministry the same word is often used.
Time and time again it uses that same ambiguous word with two meanings.
For example in Luke 18:42 with the blind beggar, He says:
Go in peace, your faith has SAVED you – or HEALED you.
You may also notice that James closely links healing with forgiveness.
If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.
I believe James purposely puts it this way… Jesus too.
Because healing is not to be seen only in physical terms.
It is not only a matter of someone’s sickness being cured.
It isn’t just a matter of someone’s disease being healed.
It is also a matter of forgiveness.
It is also a matter of a person finding peace with God.
And when that happens we can still speak of healing…
Even though the body may remain diseased
Healing HAS taken place…
but at another level… a higher level.
There is also the statement that the Lord will raise him up.
And again there is no reason either why that cannot be taken two ways.
Again a double meaning:
Yes, the Lord may raise that person up to renewed good health.
But if not, then the Lord will raise him up at the last day.
And then at the resurrection raised to perfect good health eternally.
By saying this we are not playing down physical healing…
in answer to the prayers of God’s people.
We are only reminding ourselves once again…
that Jesus came to do a greater miracle of healing.
He came to heal our relationship with God by taking away our sin disease.
I once read a book about healing, “A doctor heals by faith”.
It was all about the power of Jesus to heal… also today.
He mentions again and again DIVINE HEALING in the name of Jesus.
Several times the book refers to James 5 in relation to physical healing.
But there is no mention of the power of Jesus to heal the sickness of sin.
That is the gospel… and that comes first and foremost in our lives.
And it’s beautiful when the prayers of the church and of the elders
play a role in bringing about that kind of healing.
B] FAITH AND HEALING.
a) We noted before that there was one condition that James mentions.
Faith. It is the prayer offered in FAITH that heals.
So we wish to look, secondly, at the role of faith in healing.
There is of course a sense in which faith plays a natural part in healing.
It is well known that our attitude can help or hinder the healing process.
A sick person may be bitter or angry.
– Angry towards God because of what He makes us go thru at times.
Why does God allow this to happen – I’ve always tried to serve Him?
– Bitter towards others because they are better off.
He’s as fit as a Mallee bull and lives a rotten life.
I suffer as a Christian.
And then the anger and resentment just build up and up.
One of the effects of that anger is that the healing process slows down.
Our mental attitude may well be the reason why we often continue to suffer.
OTOH when there is faith and trust there is peace of mind.
And somehow the body’s built-in healing mechanisms go to work much faster.
It is a well-known fact – and I’ve seen it –
that a healthy mind helps the healing process.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why James urges the elders to come.
So that anger and resentment can be discussed
and dealt with… sin confessed.
So that hostility towards God and man
can be prayed about and forgiven.
In fact the sin that James talks about being forgiven
may be precisely these resentments that build up in times of sickness.
Then the prayer of faith does indeed lead to a beautiful inner healing.
However, if we want to talk about faith and healing we must go further.
Today’s healing movements are often called FAITH HEALING.
And the name says it all.
It is healing that depends on faith.
Well, not that faith itself heals of course… only Jesus heals.
But He does that thru faith.
When we look in our Bibles we find plenty of evidence for this.
Time and again Jesus said: Go in peace, your FAITH has saved you.
It is obvious in the gospels that when Jesus heals
then He normally chooses to do that where there is a measure of faith.
That is also true of the apostles in the book of Acts.
It is even recorded that in one particular place there was only unbelief.
And we read: Jesus could not do many mighty works there because of it.
Jesus did heal in response to faith.
And James here supports that need for faith when he says:
The prayer offered IN FAITH will make the sick person well.
I think we would have to agree that this is still very often so.
It is the testimony of many Christians and many churches.
Often there has been a genuine conviction in prayer
that God could and would heal – and it did happen that way.
It is still the experience of the church
that the prayer of faith makes the sick person well.
So if we ask: Does God still heal today…
not only in response to prayer but also in response to faith
then I believe we ought to answer with a loud and clear, Yes!
That is why we dare to pray again and again as a church for the sick.
We dare come with boldness to the throne of grace also to pray for healing.
Because we believe… because our faith gives us that confidence.
And it happens:
…sometimes gradually at other times very quickly…
…sometimes almost miraculously at other times thru modern medicine.
The Lord does heal in answer to the prayers of faith.
b) But that leaves us with the problem we have to come back to.
What about when there is no healing?
Is it really true that they are not healed because they lack faith?
Can we really say to someone when they prayed for healing
but they got worse instead of better
that it didn’t happen because they didn’t pray in faith?
That is a very dangerous statement to make – for three reasons.
FIRST it is dangerous because it is unscriptural.
It is simply not God’s will for all to be healed in this life.
Or that no one needs to suffer if only they have faith.
It is not true.
Because the Bible gives us many stories of people not healed:
Paul… Timothy… Trophimus…!
Were all these, people whose faith was not strong enough?
No… it was simply because a sovereign God saw fit to use these men
in spite of their sicknesses and handicaps.
Yes… the prayer of faith will make the sick person well.
But where a sick person does NOT get well we may not say:
Well, that’s because your faith is not strong enough.
SECONDLY it is a dangerous statement
because it is devastating to the person concerned.
Many Christians have been burdened by unnecessary guilt
and their faith has been severely tried
because God in His sovereign wisdom chose not to heal them.
And then some well-intentioned brother or sister comes along
and tells them that their continuing sickness is due to lack of faith.
And that person has gone away and wondered
whether he is even a Christian.
This is a devastating judgment to make.
In fact it is judgmental and presumes to know what only God knows.
THIRDLY it is a dangerous statement to make
because it overlooks what faith really is and where it comes from.
This faith is not really so much SAVING FAITH though that comes into it.
It is more than just believing in Jesus as Lord and Saviour.
This is a very special faith.
The faith Elijah exercised on Mt. Carmel in contest with Baal priests.
He believed God would do a miracle. He trusted that fire would come.
And he was not disappointed.
This faith is the faith that moves mountains.
And then we ought to note that this faith too is a gift.
Saving faith is a gift… but so is the faith that expects a miracle.
In 1Cor.12 we read the list of the gifts of the Spirit.
And in that list faith is also mentioned.
Faith that assures us a miracle will happen is itself a charismatic gift.
IOW sometimes the Christian can pray with certainty and conviction
that God will heal
because God thru the Holy Spirit gave the gift of faith to begin with.
At other times the Holy Spirit gives no such assurance
and therefore we cannot pray with certainty and assurance for healing.
All this makes it senseless to chastise the genuine Christian
who prays for healing but who remains ill or diseased.
It is absurd to accuse them of a lack of faith.
Here again please note that the sick are to call for the elders.
And then not just ONE of the elders but the elders, plural.
And the reason is so that they can come to an agreement, a consensus.
To also test that gift of faith.
Michael Griffiths tells of a prayer meeting.
One person claimed God had given him the assurance
that someone in the group with a glass eye
would be healed and given a new eye.
He shared that conviction with the prayer group and they prayed.
But God did not see fit to do so.
That became a cause for stumbling.
The person prayed for stumbled – was his faith lacking?
– or was it because of a particular sin?
Others who prayed stumbled – perhaps they lacked faith.
That claim to faith should have been tested by the church.
Was it really faith… or was it subjective fancy?
James does not advise the sick to go to a “faith healer”.
Or to someone who may be convinced that God will heal.
No – he calls on the sick to call for the elders… together.
So that the leaders of the church… can look into things carefully.
Has the Lord really given them the faith to pray with conviction or not?
At times they may agree to pray together IN FAITH for healing.
At other times the church may not receive that freedom to pray that way.
And instead the emphasis will be on a prayer for patience and strength.
However, in closing, there is one thing the church may ALWAYS pray for.
It may always ask for that higher healing.
For the forgiveness of sins thru the Lord Jesus Christ
who came not just to heal our bodies
but who came to make us totally new creatures
fit for a world in which all pain and suffering has ended forever.
Amen !