Quote:
Originally Posted by n david
One issue I struggle with is healing -- specifically why it doesn't always happen. I believe like Billy Cole -- you should be surprised if healing doesn't happen instead of that it happens. I've posted this before, I agree with a minister who lamented over the medicine cabinet of saints being no different than that of the unsaved.
Now I understand that you can't abuse your body and eat a bunch of junk and expect God to keep you from diabetes or heart disease. But if I let myself dwell on it, I get frustrated that we don't see more (to use an Arnold message title) "explainable yet undeniable" healing or miracles here in the US. I hear all about it in foreign countries, but I want to see it happen here.
I want my kids to see it happen today, not just read about how it happened in the Bible or how it happens overseas.
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I think the answer may lie in the passage you referenced. In a town, there was unbelief. Not unbelief that God could heal, but unbelief that this Jesus guy they all knew was the Hand of God in their midst. A few sick folks got healed. Perhaps a village, city, or nation (?) can have so much unbelief due to familiarity that miracles are few and far between?
Another possibility:
1 Corinthians 11:29-30 KJV
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. [30] For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
Abuse of the Lord's Supper was a symptom of commonly held but erroneous views of the church membership. People weren't relating to each other as they should have. The result was "many are weak and sickly" and many had died. So it seems the general spiritual condition of the church can impact the physical health of the members. And this was a church that DID have regular pentecostal manifestations.
Then there's this:
2 Timothy 4:20 KJV
Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.
And this:
1 Timothy 5:23 KJV
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.
Why was Timothy often infirm? With stomach problems? Why was Trophimus sick? Why weren't they healed? Why did Paul prescribe what amounts to a bro-science alternative natural remedy for Timothy's ailments? Yet nothing is there to indicate any deficiency in faith.
Then there's this to consider:
The purpose of healing and miracles is, at least partly, the purpose of confirming the WORD being preached. Maybe not enough WORD is being preached?
If these signs are to follow them that believe, and the signs are missing, maybe that means the (correct) belief is missing? Or lacking, or deficient in some way, etc?
I've seen and experienced healings, as have my kids. So much so there is no hope for cessationists "correcting" my kids, they literally bust out laughing and you might as well try to convince them up is really down. Yet, we've all also experienced ourselves and seen other people just grind on through their problems.
Heard a preacher once say, If they happened all the time they wouldn't be called miracles, they would be called commonles.
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