God wants you well…

We know from the Bible that Sickness and disease are a result of our fallen condition, separated from God and is also the work of Satan…

How does Satan Brings Sickness and Suffering?

I believe that Satan works in three major ways to bring sickness and suffering on people:

1. Satan causes sickness directly.

An obvious tactic is demonization. For example, approximately 25 percent of Jesus’ healings as recorded in the Gospel of Mark involve demons.

The direct influence of the devil is explicitly demonstrated when Jesus healed a crippled woman and was scolded by a synagogue leader for doing it on the Sabbath.

Jesus said, “Ought not this woman being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” (Luke 13:16).

Satan’s direct role is also explicit in the case of Job.

What percentage of sickness is directly caused by Satan we do not know, but unquestionably much is.

2. Satan indirectly uses the natural results of the Fall to cause sickness and suffering.

He uses bacteria, viruses, malnutrition, accidents, fights, poison, old age, rapists, murderers and on and on.

In all probability most sickness falls into this category.

3. Satan tempts people to fall into sin, and God at times uses sickness to punish them for it.

There are many examples in the Old Testament of plagues, which God sent on His own people to punish them for sin.

When some Israelites rebelled against Moses and Aaron, God sent a plague and killed 14,700 (see Num. 16:45-50).

Then God killed another 50,070 Israelites at Beth Shemesh when they disobeyed Him by looking into the ark of the Lord (see 1 Sam. 6:19), just to cite two examples.

In the New Testament, God made Elymas the sorcerer blind as part of a power encounter (see Acts 13:6-12).

In Corinth some believers were sick and some had died as a result of abusing the Lord’s supper (see I Cor. 11:30), by not Discerning the body in the blood of our Lord.

In 1 Corinthians 11:29, Paul tells us,

“For he who eats and DRINKS in an UNWORTHY manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”

Unworthy is an advert modifying the action which is DRINKS.

By failing to discern the reason for the stripes and the cross they fail to receive the benefits of it, and so some were still sick and some have died.

The Bible tells us that the Devil Comes to Steal, Kill, and Destroy!

And so no matter what the immediate cause, the usual outcomes of sickness are pain, suffering and death, all of which are the works of Satan.

What Jesus did for us on the cross is absolutely incredible.

Isaiah 53:5 says,

“But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

And by His stripes we are healed.”
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What does “by His stripes” mean exactly?

This verse prophetically looked forward hundreds of years into what was then yet future to a day when Jesus Christ would literally become the suffering servant Isaiah talked about.

We know that Jesus Christ before He was put upon a cross received stripes upon His back.

Those stripes were a result of a cat of nine tails.

Those stripes were administered by a Roman Soldier who literally took that whip and beat Jesus back with it until stripes appeared.

Those stripes were severe — 39 times the whip came down.

If we believe that Jesus death on the cross provides us with forgiveness from transgressions,

And if we believe His death provides atonement for our iniquities,

And if we believe that His death was the chastisement of God upon Him for our peace with God.

Then we have to believe the last phrase of this verse that says, “BY HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED.”

In fact, Peter writes and sees what Jesus did on the whipping post as a finished work.

Jesus said, “It is finished” before He died.

He completed what was necessary on the cross for divine healing to be administered in the world.

1 Peter 2:24 puts it this way, “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you WERE healed.”

Not are healed, but WERE healed!

In other words, the work for your healing has already been finished. Your healing is available.

Many times we have to contend for that healing though because the enemy will resist.

Our part is to continue praying and believing, hanging on to the trustworthiness and reliability of both God in His Word, that would he promises you He’ll bring the past.

SELAH (let us pause and calmly think about these things)

Come join the Adventure!

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