The epistles that mark the distinction between Christianity and Judaism, show that healing is not characteristic of Christianity, and that faith is the gift of God, and not the manufacture of the natural mind. Forcing the mind into believing that they are healed, is not subjection to the will of God, but it is blinding their minds, and allowing Satan to lead them away from God, to get their own will done. That God can heal and does, we all know, but it is done in such a way that we can own God in it, but not make a system of it. How many are thus led into delusions of the mind.
True faith rests on the Word of God, submits itself to the will of God, and has the glory of Christ before it.
If, as in James 5, a brother feels the hand of the Lord upon him in discipline, and asks godly brethren, in whom he has confidence, to pray with him, they confess their and his faults before the Lord, and the Lord removes His hand from him. That does not say that we are to expect healing in every case of sickness. The Scriptures do not lead us to expect it.
Death had no claim on Jesus; no decay could ever touch His blessed, holy Person, yet He laid down His life for us.
There is nothing too great, or too little to tell Him. Our times are in His hand. What blessed lessons are taught us in the desert path of earthly experiences where the soul finds its refuge in God. We might be as poor as Lazarus, and as sick, too, but like him, our “help is in God,” and our blessings are spiritual ones, blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. His God is our God, His Father is our Father.
Paul would not heal Trophimus, or Epaphroditus, or Timothy, and the Lord would not take away Paul’s thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan the Lord had sent to buffet him, lest he should be exalted by the abundance of revelations the Lord had given him. And the Lord sees the needs be in every trial He sends upon His people. He sends them because He loves them. Shall we not say, “Thy will be done?” Without this, the trial must remain bitter still. Marah was on the way to Elim. (Ex. 15). We must not stay at Marah.