***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.
Speaker: Matthew 8, verses 1 through 17. When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And behold, there came a leper, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou can make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will, be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man, but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this man, Go, and he goeth. And to another, Come, and he cometh. And to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness, and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus saith unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and ministered unto them. When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils. And he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.
Dallas: Thank you, John. I believe that the children are supposed to leave, and so I have a signal from the back that that’s true. And we’ll give them a moment to leave. And we’ll be meditating on verses 15 and following for the remaining moments that we have today. You will find in your bulletin notes on a much longer discussion. Today, I simply want to call your attention to this passage and lead you in a thoughtful reading of it, and make a few comments upon the healing ministry of Christ, and its relationship to us today. That is to say, what part we are to have in it today.
Let us briefly pray that God will empower his word in our hearts. Lord, send forth thy word, send forth thy light. Let the word of thy kingdom invade our lives in every dimension, that we may understand the fullness of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Direct our minds in particular to this matter of healing. In a world that is so full of brokenness and sickness and infirmity, and lead each of us into that area of power and action, where we would bring to bear thy healing work upon a broken and bruised humanity. We ask it in your name. Amen.
I’ve been attempting in these weeks that I have with you to bring before you the ministry of Christ, so that we could see him as he is, so that we could live with him then in a full knowledge of all that he should be and can be to us. Thus far, we have dealt mainly upon his teachings, but the ministry of Christ, while he was alive upon the earth, is often expressed in the Gospels in verses which say something like this, that he would go about into the synagogues and all the parts of the country, and he would announce the kingdom of heaven. He would proclaim its availability, he would teach about what was in the kingdom of heaven, he would heal the sick, and he would cast out demons, a fourfold ministry. And this morning, I want us to look at the ministry of healing in the hands of Christ. You will see from verse 15 of chapter 5 of Luke, that there went about the countryside out from him a fame. It says a fame. There went out a fame of him. And great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed, to hear and to be healed. I think there is a priority in that order. And Jesus never missed that. The main business of Jesus here was not to heal. That was a part of his business, but his main business was to teach and to preach, and that’s the main business of the church.
But there is also the ministry of healing. And as Jesus went about, he taught and he healed. And his healing nearly always took place in the context of his teaching.
You will see that he went out in the desert places to pray, to escape the press. In the desert places to pray, to escape the press. Then he would come back into the places where the people were and he would teach. And now we have the setting for this story that I want to bring before you this morning. Verse 17, it came to pass on a certain day as he was teaching. See, this was his main business. And there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem.
And the power of the Lord was present to heal. The power of the Lord was present to heal. Healing is a matter of power. It is the capacity to rearrange the heart, the mind, and the body of those who are not well, whose bodies are perhaps twisted and broken, or perhaps there is a sickness of some other kind in them, whose minds are twisted and broken, whose hearts are twisted and broken. And to change the disorder in the body, or in the mind, or in the heart, is a function of power.
And this power was present to heal. And the writer notices it because, you see, it was not always present to heal. The power of the Lord is not always present to heal in the church. It was present to heal because of the abundant faith which had been excited and called forth by the words and ministry of Jesus in that country. And because of what he had done, there was a rising tide of hope and confidence in God that he was about to do something magnificent and great and new, and that this man, Jesus, who stood before them, was the focus of that power and that hope. And people were asking, is this the Messiah? Is this the one who has been promised for all of these centuries? Some said, no, he’s only a prophet. But even that was outstanding, because until John the Baptist and Jesus were born, they were the only ones who were able to do something magnificent. Because until John the Baptist and Jesus came, the ministry of prophecy had been absent from the nation of Israel for many centuries. And it was this rising tide of hope that drew expectant people together, which made it possible for the power of the Lord to be present to heal.
Now contrast that with the situation of John, which is recorded in the 13th chapter of Matthew. And in that fatal 58th verse, the last verse of that chapter, we read that he could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. It is the presence of faith, expectant faith, in a group of people that makes it possible for the power of the Lord to be present to heal.
Now what happened in this circumstance? And behold, men brought in a bed. They were carrying the bed with the man on it. A man that was taken, as the old version says, with a palsy. Some of your other versions will have a man who was paralyzed. And they sought means to bring him in and lay him before him. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, there was such a group of people there, they went up upon the housetop and they tore up the roof, laid the tiling aside, and they let him down through the roof. You can imagine Jesus sitting there teaching, and all of a sudden the racket begins up here, and the ceiling begins to disappear, and these anxious faces begin to look down here, and they devise ropes, and they let this man down before Jesus.
That’s faith. That’s real expectation and belief when you’re ready to take the roof off of your neighbor’s house, just so you can let the object of need down before Jesus.
And it impressed Jesus. Look what he says in the 20th verse. And when he saw their faith, when he saw their faith, not the man’s faith, the man for all we know may have been saying all along, let’s don’t do this. Let’s go back home. For all we know, it was the faith of the people who stood by that Jesus saw, and when he saw it, he said a strange thing. And you may wonder why he said just this, but Jesus saw to the heart of the situation, and if you look at the work that Jesus did as a healer, you will notice he seldom ever did the same thing twice. And you may ask why, and the answer is very simple. Jesus, the master healer, and the Lord of the universe knew what the need was, and the need is so variable that there are no two of us alike. And in this case, he says to the man, man, thy sins are forgiven thee.
I believe that we should say that in this case, Jesus saw that it was the sins of the man that had paralyzed him. And you must understand that that’s not always true. You remember the story of the blind man in the ninth chapter of John. And the disciples said, Lord, who did sin, this man or his parents? It was their assumption that if there was something wrong with you, it was because you had sinned or your parents had sinned. And he said, neither did this man sin nor his parents. But in this case, he seemed to see to the heart of the matter, and he dresses it, and he says, my and thy sins be forgiven thee. And may I just as an aside say, there is no way of calculating the amount of suffering, physical suffering, and brokenness that is the result of a heart that is not reconciled to God, a heart that has no peace, and that carries constantly the back-breaking burden of sins unforgiven.
Many times, these are not even real sins. They are only imagined sins. But you see, the principle is this, that if you believe it is wrong, and you rebel against God on the point, it will still kill you. Sin is like that. It is so deceitful that it cannot even be there and make you sick.
And Jesus in this case saw and addressed the problem. He forgave the man who sins. And those sitting by said, verse 21, who is this that speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? There was, of course, a recognition in those words that they were dealing with God, even though that recognition was unwillingly given.
And when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered and said, What reason ye in your hearts, which is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Rise up and walk?
Now, Jesus is putting it to them very simply. He’s saying, Listen, very easy thing to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, because you can never tell if they were or not, could they? But if I say to this man, Rise up and walk, I’m saying something which really puts me on the line. You see, he’s going to prove to them his power to forgive sins. He says, I’m going to show you something even harder. And he says to the man, Take up thy couch, and go into thy house. Take up thy couch, and go into thy house.
Now we see the faith of this man. Immediately he rose up before them, and took that upon where he lay, and departed unto his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, that is, with awe, saying, We have seen strange things today.
When Jesus came into the world, he brought with him the kingdom of God in a new and powerful way. And he committed that kingdom to a prepared people. And before he left them, he said very clearly in the 14th chapter of John, the 12th verse, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go into my Father.
Every congregation that calls itself after the name of Christ has imparted to it the ministry of healing. It is a work given to the congregation.
I do not have time to comment this morning upon the many abuses of this ministry, but I say to you very simply, in the New Testament, we find this work given to the local congregations in two ways. One, through people who are especially gifted in that ministry. And that is found very plainly portrayed in 1 Corinthians 12 and elsewhere in the scriptures. Secondly, to the elders of the congregation. They are expected to exercise that ministry, and anyone who is sick in the congregation is commanded in James the 5th chapter to call the elders of the church for the ministry of healing through prayer. He has indeed borne our infirmities and carried our sicknesses away.
Are you prepared for that ministry? Will you exercise that ministry and learn what it involves? If you are called to exercise it as an individual, will you accept it? And will the elders of this congregation gratefully, thankfully accept the ministry which is given them in the word of the New Testament? That is the challenge of your faith. You must understand now. This is something that is for you. And if you reject it, you will hurt yourselves, and your ministry will be limited.
And you may try to have a great evangelistic outreach, and a great missionary work, a great work of charity and helping those who are needy, and all of that is good. But you must accept the whole ministry of Christ, dear friends, in humility and dependence upon the Spirit of God to lead you into it and teach you what it may be. And you must accept the ministry. And to give you all of those safeguards that are needed to protect it and the other ministries from abuse. And if in your heart you rebel against this call, you will be hindered in your life and in your ministry.
There are so many things which might be said, we cannot say them this morning. But I want you to understand that this is the part of the Christ whom you have accepted. This is the part of the work which he gave you to do. The power of the Lord is present to heal, where people come together in faith and love. And it’s expectancy that God loves them so, that he wants to accomplish his work in their bodies and in the bodies of those around them in the world to whom they minister.
God never gave signs to the church to prove the validity of the message. Jesus refused to perform signs to prove his ministry.
God gives the mystery of healing into the hands of a church who can unveil it because of his compassion upon people who need it. The passage which Carol read to us a few moments ago, you find a characteristic word from Jesus to the leper that he healed. He said, tell no man, don’t tell anyone. Go to the temple, give thanks to God, don’t tell anyone.
Jesus did it to help the leper. And that is the only function of healing in the congregation of the church. It is to love and to help people. Will you reach out your hand to those who are in need in this way?
Let us pray together. Lord Jesus Christ, by your spirit, have supervision over all of our minds and hearts that we might be led into this ministry by your grace to accomplish your purposes. In Jesus’ name, amen.
We’re going to sing number 434 now, the first two stanzas. If you’re here today, and I think there may be someone here today who needs to come and give themselves into the hands of this Savior, we invite you to do that now. Or if you need prayer or counseling, there will be those here who can meet with you and help you. Let’s stand up.