I'm giving to you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and also authority against all the dynamic ability of the enemy. Nothing will ever hurt you. James 5 verse 14 says is any sick among you let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him having anointed him with olive oil in the name of the Lord.

The prayer of faith will save the sick the Lord will raise him up and if he has committed sins they will be forgiven him. Finally in Deuteronomy chapter 7 and verse 15 and the Lord Yahweh will take away from you all sickness and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt which you know upon you. Sickness is part of our life.

It's something that's present in all of our lives. Just look around you'll see that just about everybody out there is on some form of medical aid or medical insurance because medical bills are high. They're expensive.

Those people can't afford it so we have to take out some kind of insurance that if we get sick we can pay these bills. But you know in spite of the marvels of modern day medicine people still die of sickness and disease. Very often we live in fear and we might just get something serious.

Now medical treatment is mandatory by law. By law you are not allowed to give medical advice. You're not allowed to offer treatment that is not medical and treatment has to be from a medical a registered medical practitioner.

It's the law in every country these days. Now in the early New Testament that just was not the case at all. If James had tried to say today what he said back there somebody could sue him and take him to court.

Say how dare you tell people to come to you as their elders with their health problems. You are not qualified doctors. You are not authorized to treat them.

James should have said is there any sick among you let him call for the doctors. But he didn't did he? Now are we going to obey God? Or are we going to obey man? The trouble is the church has submitted to the ways of the world and we're quite happy to accept what satan through his world system has imposed on us and as a result we have denied ourselves what God has provided for us as his children when he died on the cross and paid the price not only for our sin but also for our sicknesses. Now there are two words that are used in scripture and actually we use them in normal life.

They were used in the Old Testament and they were used again in the New Testament and those two words are sickness and disease. Now if I say sickness and disease you probably say yes I know what those are but do you really know the difference between the two? Tell me what is the difference between a sickness and a disease? For most of us they're really the same thing just a different term but you see they are different emphases. Now how do we tell the difference? I tried looking up in the greek and basically the the greek meaning is they're both kind of very similar the same sort of thing.

I even tried looking it up in dictionary.com and sickness is when you're sick you know that's kind of about as good as it gets. Okay but I want to try and clarify what I think is the difference between sickness and disease. Okay sickness means a body that is not functioning at its peak efficiency.

Okay when you say I feel sick what you're saying in effect is my body is not in the perfect health that it should be and most of the time actually it's based on the symptoms, on how we feel, on what we are experiencing in our bodies. Now disease is slightly different. Disease is something that's very specific and a disease effectively is something that causes us to be sick.

You don't say I feel disease today. You say I feel sick right. You could say I have a specific disease and that would make sense.

See our diseases have been identified and even given names by the medical experts. A lot of famous people have given their name to a disease. You say I've got so-and-so's disease because that's the name of the guy who discovered it and isolated it and explained how it works.

Now sickness and disease are not natural. We all experience them but they're not natural. God never designed us to have sickness and disease.

So sickness and disease are against nature that God created. The body is designed to fight sickness and disease. The body is designed to heal itself.

It's designed to fight disorder. If your temperature goes too high your body cools it down. You start getting dehydrated your body says give me some water.

If you lack energy the body says you need some food. If your blood pressure goes up your body does something to bring it back down again until eventually it regulates it at an optimal pressure which they have discovered what is the ideal pressure for the blood. And if your blood is that normal just about everybody has the same kind of level if they're healthy or blood pressure because that's what your body was designed to be.

And your body does not like disorder. Your body does not like dis-ease. It will do everything in its power to bring itself back to normality.

Now how does the body do that? Well there's a lot involved but it has two main mechanisms that it uses. We have what is known as the nervous system and that works on electrical impulses. Your brain can send a message via the nervous system by a little electrical impulses.

Message goes down the telephone line and reaches a portion of your body. It comes to communication and the brain begins to tell that part of the body what to do or not to do. And then there's another system in the body known as the endocrine system and that doesn't work on electrical impulses it works on chemicals.

The brain will through the nervous system instruct one of your organs of the endocrine system to release the chemical and that chemical will go in through your blood and will pass through and will begin to touch another organ and thereby communicate to the organ the message that it needs to know. Isn't that brilliant? Two totally different ways that our brain central control actually tells our body what to do to keep everything flowing in perfect order and harmony and perfect health. People have the goal to say that this happened by accident through a process called evolution.

Oh God in his wisdom built into us the most amazing mechanisms of keeping our body in perfect health. Now there's lots of systems in the body and if you studied medically you could probably name all of them. Let me mention a couple of them.

We have the circulatory system and that's responsible for keeping the blood flowing through all our veins and arteries to different parts of our body and providing the oxygen and the nutrients that are needed for each part of the body. When that circulatory system stops functioning correctly the body can't maintain its health. We have a digestive system whose sole job it is is to take the food in that we eat and to convert it into energy and supply that energy to the rest of the body and then to dispose what's left.

What follows on from the digestive system is the excretory system and the excretory system is responsible now to dispose of all waste products and poisons in the body which can bring us harm. We have a system called the lymphatic system which is very much like the blood system. In fact they say you got more lymph what would we call them they're not arteries but they they're like tubes that flow throughout the body.

You got more of them even then you have blood vessels and their job is to filter out all the poisons to take from your body all the toxins and to flush them out. Harmless what God has created in us. The nervous system of course is used to communicate with the brain and the endocrine system is used to communicate from the brain through to the organs.

Now if all of these systems of the body operate the way they were designed we would have perfect health. There would be no such thing as sickness and disease unless unless somehow something interferes with their function and stops them working correctly. God has covered every base every need that the body could have he's covered it with some system in the body that he's specifically designed to deal with that aspect to keep you in perfect health.

Originally God made man to live forever and Adam he would have lived forever if they hadn't disobeyed God and put something into their bodies that he told them not to. When they put into their bodies that forbidden fruit whatever it was no it wasn't the apple or a pomegranate people have different theories of what the fruit was it was more than a physical fruit but the point is it was put into their bodies. Whatever that fruit was it caused something to take place because the Lord said when you eat that fruit you're going to die.

That fruit brought death into the human body and it took a long time like over 900 years before Adam and Eve finally died. Our satan's had a lot of years of practice since then to try and refine this and make it work quicker. Modern medical science has slowed it down a little bit but at the end the maximum age that a person can live normally according to the scriptures is 120 years and not many people have made it.

Now what causes sickness and disease is how we all know that it's germs and viruses right that's what causes sickness and disease or where do these germs and viruses come from they're around us all the time. As you're sitting there listening to this right now there's a germ sitting there right in your body waiting for a chance to attack you. There's a virus sitting there waiting for an opportunity to attack you.

We sit around with them all the time but you know what the body is designed to deal with these when you expose your body to a germ. For example, if you cut yourself your body immediately rallies together to deal with whatever germs or viruses or whatever are there. Your body has mechanisms built in.

Amazing mechanism. The white blood cells get in there you have platelets get in there to form a scab to cover it and to protect it so that germs can't get in the body heals itself. So what happens then when germs and viruses finally make us sick somewhere along the line for some reason the body lost its efficiency and capability of blocking them.

The body no longer was able to do what it was designed to do. When the body loses that power these things begin to damage us begin to cause things to take place in our body that produces sicknesses and diseases. Our physical injury can cause it.

If an organ in the body is physically damaged through some kind of accident or physical attack that organ can cease to function the way it was designed to function and as a result it's not going to be able to contribute what it was designed to do to the whole healing process. So an injury can bring sickness and disease. Here's one of the big things.

The body in order to heal itself and to function efficiently needs some very essential things to maintain life and if we fail to provide the body those essentials we make the body less capable of doing what it was designed to do. The body begins to lose its efficiency and power to fight sickness and disease and to keep us in a condition of health. Well what are these essentials? I'm not teaching anything you don't know here.

I'm just reminding you of what we forget. Your body needs a continual supply of a gas in the air called oxygen. If your body is denied the presence of oxygen in a matter of minutes you'll be dead.

Your lungs are breathing continuously whether you're awake or asleep to breathe in air and to receive the oxygen that is needed to take it in and supply it to the body and give it to every part of the body to keep it alive. If you do not give your body the oxygen that it needs your body cannot maintain the health that it should and the body gets weaker. Your body needs a continual supply of water.

Thank the lord this planet is in abundance with water and it doesn't cost us a fortune otherwise some of us would die through lack of ability to buy it. They say you can go about three days maximum without drinking any water and then your body starts to shut down. Now oxygen you can only go a matter of minutes maximum.

Try holding your breath and see how long you can do that. It's not very long. Some people can manage it longer than others and if you continue you'll pass out.

Water takes a little bit longer but it's still in limited supply. They say that your body consists of about 70 percent of water. So if you deny your body the amount of water that it needs your body starts to dehydrate.

All of your organs and your abilities begin to shut down and the body cannot maintain itself. Then your body needs to eliminate all poisonous wastes that can affect it. Now some of those wastes are produced by the digestive process because when we eat the body takes the goodness then throws away the rest.

If the rest is not thrown away it begins to rot and turn into toxic chemicals which if those are left in your body can take away the body's efficiency and it starts to get ill. So a lot of those toxins are produced by the digestion process. Some of them we actually pull in in the air around about us.

If you're living in an atmosphere that's full of smoke, smog, fog, dust very often we are breathing in and taking into our bodies things that are not good for our bodies. You've been exposed to certain chemicals and substances that are toxic to the body and our body absorbs those. Our body now begins to suffer.

We need to eliminate those poisons. Some of those poisons are produced because the body continually creates brand new cells to replenish itself and those cells are destroyed and die continuously and are then recreated. Now those dead cells they have to be taken out of the body.

If they're not they become toxic and begin to poison your body. Now the body is designed to do all of that without us thinking about it. Yeah you know I forgot to get rid of the toxins today.

He goes, oh I forgot to take the garbage out. Oh boy we missed the garbage collection today. See your body doesn't have that problem.

It has a very efficient garbage taker outer and like me I have to rely on my son to do that and if he doesn't we're in trouble. God has designed your body with all that it needs to carry that process out. But what happens if the garbage collector's sleeping on the job? Garbage begins to collect up.

Face begins to smell. The air is filled with that lovely aroma. I don't have to paint the picture for you.

You've probably experienced it already. Now imagine your body is filled with that aroma and the rest of the body is saying, man that stinks. Get it out of here.

I can't work in an atmosphere like that. Please. The next essential for the body to function efficiently is a healthy diet.

And you know there's not many things that we can't eat these days. There are things that are toxic and they are poisonous and will immediately kill you if you eat them. So we've kind of learned what those are.

And then we have the things that taste so good that we eat them anyway even though they contain quite a high level of poisons also. Well what's a healthy diet? Oh the world has gone crazy on this haven't they? And the diets that are out there, the systems of nutrition that are out there. You know you've got the Mediterranean diet and the South Sea diet and whatever.

They're all giving them all these names. These are all supposed to be ways of making your body healthier and helping you to lose weight. You know God has given us the opportunity to eat most things.

Well meat, that's what it is. Red meat. You shouldn't be eating that.

You should only be eating plants. Some people have gone so extreme they say you shouldn't cook your food. You got to eat it raw.

Some people think they're cattle and reckon you got to eat everything that's green. And yes there's a lot of good stuff in greens. But God's actually given us a variety of foods to eat so we can enjoy our eating as well as keeping our health with it.

But we need to maintain a good balance of foods that have a high amount of water in, of foods that have a high amount of fiber in. These are basic nutritional truths. Why? So that the body can digest them more easily and then also more easily get rid of the waste products.

Now if you're eating foods that are going to clog you up, your body's going to starve of the right hydration. Your body's not going to be able to eliminate it because it's going to clog your excretory systems. But you know it's common sense.

If the food that you're eating is producing more toxins than your body can handle, it makes sense to change your diet. It makes sense to eat a little bit less and eat more of what is healthy. You don't have to get some great big medical diet.

It's common sense. And then we have physical exercise. The body has to keep itself efficient because the body is a living active mechanism.

If you stand still in one place for long enough, you will pass out. Seen that of soldiers standing on the parade ground, standing to attention on parade. They're not allowed to move and after a while you see you see them starting to faint and pass out.

Your body can't take it. It's meant to be moving because when you're moving, it motivates all of these other important systems. So physical exercise is important.

We need to keep our muscles working efficiently. We need to keep our muscles flexed. There's some muscles that we never flex and they can do with a bit of flexing.

As you know, we don't have to go on a major exercise routine to get all the muscles in your body flexed. You can actually just sit and say, okay, where's the muscle? Start with my head. Work down, flex them all for a little bit and release them.

And that alone actually can have quite an amazing effect. We need to keep the circulatory system working well. Now that requires exercise because as we exercise the body, we motivate the heart to beat faster, to beat more blood.

And when we do that, when the blood flows faster, we breathe in deeper, we get more oxygen. The cells of the body get more oxygen. The wastes are eliminated more quickly.

Exercise has amazing benefits because it motivates these essential things. Exercise also is absolutely essential for the lymphatic system because the lymphatic system, although it's a lot like the blood circulatory system, it doesn't have a heart to pump it. The lymphatic system actually is pumped by action.

When you're moving like this, your lymph system is flowing. If you don't move, the lymph system cannot flow. So the more you move, the more your lymph system can help get rid of the toxins.

I'm sure that's what you didn't think when you went to exercise. You said, I just like a good workout. Yeah.

Some people do it until they get the endorphins and they get on a new, a kind of a drug high. They say runners have this. I've never run enough to experience it.

See all of these things, they bring us back to the essentials. Enough oxygen, enough water, elimination of poisons. We've got to keep these things going.

But you know, there's a lot more to health than taking care of the body. And unfortunately, the entire health system, the entire medical system is so majored on the physical that we're trying to cure the body using only physical things. And from a physical point of actually, it's two simple things that you've got to keep maintaining to keep the body efficient.

Diet and exercise. That's it. Strangely enough, the medical industry doesn't seem to have picked this up because every time I've been to see a doctor, I've been told what medications I must take.

And we'll deal with that shortly. Very seldom anybody who's been trained in medical practice will tell you, you need to watch what you eat and you need to exercise more. Don't tell you that.

But yet it's common sense. God's made it that way. And if we would just eat better and keep our bodies moving and make sure that we get enough oxygen, make sure that we get enough water, make sure that we move our bowels and our bladders on a regular basis, body actually will take care of itself.

You maintain your health. But you see, there are other factors that affect the body, deeper factors than the body. And this is where the world has missed it.

This is where the worldly system, like the medical system, have missed it. Because we are not just a body, we are a body and a soul and a spirit. And if you don't take into account the soul and the spirit, body's still going to fail.

There's people out there that for years have watched what they eat, go on regular exercise programs, keep themselves physically fit, and yet they will just die like that. Bam. You see it.

I can't understand why he got sick. Man, you should see how this guy eats. You should see how he exercises.

He's at the gym every second day. He's one of the healthiest people I know. But he's dying of cancer.

Why? Because there's a lot more involved in health than the body. Because God made us to be a complete being, a spirit and a soul and a body, all flowing together in perfect harmony. We cannot leave out the soul.

An inefficient soul will lead to an inefficient body. An inefficient soul will interfere with the body's ability to heal itself. You realize that your emotional condition has one of the most powerful effects on your body, sometimes more powerful than the things you eat.

Sometimes those emotional disturbances that we have are based on the experiences that we've had in life. And when you've had bad experiences in life that affect your emotions and your feelings, those emotions, they communicate messages via the brain down into the body. When they do that, the whole balance of the body gets upset.

Some of those messages are communicated via the nervous system and affect us very quickly. Others begin to get communicated down into the endocrine system and your body starts to release hormones and chemicals, helter-skelter, uncontrolled. And the next moment, there's this flood of chemicals in your blood and all the organs are saying, I've got mixed messages here.

First you tell me to do this and you tell me to do what I'm supposed to do here. Your body gets confused. Well, you know, all of that can be produced by your emotional condition.

I know sometimes it works in reverse too. And in fact, when your hormones are out of balance, your emotions get affected as well. Every woman knows that.

If you can learn to control your emotions, you can stop a spiral effect. Because you see, if the chemicals in your body are producing negative, strange feelings, and you respond to those feelings, you know what's going to happen? Those feelings are going to communicate back to those hormones. It's just going to get a cycle.

It's just going to go around and around and around. You can't control the hormones naturally. Spiritually, there may be a possibility.

So you've got to control your emotions. You're not going to do that with medicines. You're not going to do that with the food you eat.

It's going to take a bit more than that to control the emotions. And this is a huge subject. I don't have time to go into detail now.

But I want you to understand that perhaps some of the things you are suffering with are a result of some of the emotional disturbances that you've been having. Okay, what are some of the emotional disturbances that we have in our lives? Most of them come as a result of sinful responses to circumstances in life. What's the biggest one? Anger.

You made me so mad. I'm sitting mad. I'm angry.

I'm getting red in the face. Why am I getting red in the face? Because my emotions are telling my body to pump more blood. My body's been given instructions to do things that it shouldn't be doing.

My heart begins to pump faster. Because I need to somehow have the energy to punch you in the face when I get angry or do something. You know, we all get mad.

How often do you get mad? Think about what effect it's having on your body. How about jealousy, and envy, and lust? All of these things release an effect in the body, which will either communicate via your nervous system the wrong messages or release in your body the wrong chemicals at the wrong time. Do you know that the body releases certain chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol? Ever heard of the fight or flight mechanism? We call this stress.

You know what stress is? Stress is trying to solve problems that are out of your control. Now, if you're faced with a problem that you can deal with, those chemicals that are released will give you the energy. If you are faced with danger, you may have the power to run away or to fight.

That's why they call it fight or flight. But what happens if you're facing an imaginary foe? It's all in your mind. There's no enemy to fight or run away from.

And your body's filled with these chemicals. That's what stress does to you. It destroys your health.

It causes your stomach to release additional acids when there's no food to digest. So the stomach starts digesting itself. Fear.

It causes arthritis. It causes your whole autoimmune system to stop working correctly. So many complexities involved, but we leave these out.

When you go and sit down with a medical practitioner to share your sickness and disease, do they ever stop and say, have you been getting angry lately? Have you been under stress? What kind of emotional situation have you been going through? And yet, they of all people should know the effect these things have on our body. We don't deal with these, do we? Do you know what? There's actually only one way that we can deal with it. That's with the Lord's help.

As believers, we should know better. As believers, we are not free from stress. We are not free from anger because we are sinful creatures.

We are not free from fear and all these negative emotions. But with God's help and with the truth in his word, we should know how to deal with these and bring them into order. And if we just do that alone, just the peace and the calm.

See, the body has, God has a solution, which we'll look at shortly, called the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace. See, positive emotions have a very healing effect.

Many years ago, when I came down with arthritis, the medical specialist that I was with at that time, he said, Les, they've made a new discovery now for arthritis sufferers. They make them sit and watch funny movies until they laugh their heads off. And he said, people are getting better just from laughing, just the joy.

Scripture says, the joy of the Lord is your strength. Well, you know, if we could learn to get these positive emotions, and how are we going to get them? Only with the Lord's help. And we'll look at that shortly.

Now, whether it be positive or negative emotions, they affect your body. One of the most negative effects in the emotions is what we call depression. The doctors are trying to figure out what gene or what chemical or whatever it is that causes depression so they can somehow treat it.

No, depression is actually not caused by a physical effect. Depression is caused by an emotional response to a problem. And actually, if you can identify the problem and why you responded to it incorrectly, you can find out what caused you to feel bad.

The trouble is, once you feel bad, you let it affect another part, which affects another part, and you get caught in a cycle of depression. And you know what happens when you get depressed? Your body starts to slow down. Every part of your body starts to slow down.

The whole natural mechanism and processes of the body actually slow down. A depressed person is in a state of slowness. I don't feel like working today.

I'm just sitting watching TV, playing a game. Why do I just feel so weary, so tired all the time? You might just be depressed. Oh, we better get some medication to get rid of the depression, right? We'll get to that shortly.

See, all of these things, these emotional conditions in our body, they affect us. Now, how can we get a hold of this? Well, what produces emotions? Another part of the soul called the mind. The things you think affect the way you feel.

Negative pictures in your mind will always produce negative feelings. Positive pictures will produce positive feelings. Now, what happens if you obey your feelings? If you obey those negative feelings and you maintain the negative thoughts, the emotions become negative, depression sets in.

And then you let that same feeling of negativity come back into your mind again, and you start thinking more negative thoughts, you begin to produce more negative emotions, which produces, and you see the cycle over and over. It gets worse and worse and worse. Now, you've got to break the cycle.

And to do that, you're going to have to use the weakest part of the soul, which is called the will. You thought your will was the strongest, didn't you? Oh, you know, I've got willpower. Do you really? Your will has no power whatsoever.

When your little emotions say, woohoo, you know how your will dances to the tune of your emotions. You will do what you feel like doing. If you had the power and you got out of bed in the morning, feeling negative, would you do what you had to do? Well, most of us, we get up and we have to go work or do what we don't want to do.

And we're forced to, but it's hard. It's hard because your will wants to follow your feelings. That's a whole study all on its own.

And again, I'm not going to go into detail, but if you want health, you're going to have to deal with your mental processes. You're going to have to deal with your emotions and you're going to have to deal with the condition of your soul. Now, God has given us tools to deal with our souls and to make them efficient.

We need medicine for the soul, good medicine. Well, what's the good medicine? Well, start feeding some good pictures in. You've got tons of that in the word of God.

You can get it from the spirit of God, from revelation and prayer. So many things you can do. If you'd stop spending all your time working on your diet and thinking if I could just get the right exercise program, I could be healthy.

Perhaps your real problem doesn't lie in your body at all. Perhaps it lies in the soul. Perhaps your mind is still too full of fears and anxieties and cares and negativity.

And those are the things that are actually stopping your body from healing itself. You can eat the best food and do the right exercise program won't help. So we come finally to the last part of our being, which is our spirit, a contaminated spirit.

It's got the most powerful effect of all because it affects both the soul and the body. If we are walking in the flesh and resisting the influences that in our spirit, we are opening ourselves to spiritual influences that are going to affect our whole being. You're going to open yourself to curses and to demon powers that are going to attack you, not only in your spirit, not only in your soul and in your thoughts, but those spirits are going to attack your body.

Now those we call them spirits of infirmity. And most of the time we're not even aware that they're there because we're looking at the physical effects in our body. Now, unless you get revelation in the spirit and you have the gift of discerning of spirits, the chances are you are never even aware that such things existed.

The gift of discerning spirits is one of the first I ever moved in. And I began to see demons in the spirit. And one of the earliest experiences I had of spirit of infirmity.

I've shared this story before. I'm not going to give you details, but my eldest daughter got a kidney infection, became very ill. We went to see the doctor and the doctor booked off school.

They have a treatment. As I was praying, I felt I needed to pray and minister with her. And as I prayed with her, Lord opened my vision and I saw sitting on her kidneys what looked like a spider.

And the Lord showed me that she was actually being attacked by a spirit, a demonic power, which in the spirit was pictured as a spider. With the knowledge I have of how to deal with demons, I spoke to that thing and I commanded it in the name of Jesus to leave her. And I saw it crawl off her and walk out the door.

And then I came to lay hands on her and the anointing of the Lord came on me. And now I saw her kidneys and I saw they were inflamed. And as I prayed, I saw them gradually change in color, become a more natural color.

And the healing power of God flowed through me into her. The Lord took away the kidney infection almost instantly. She was ready to go back to school the next day.

She was perfect. See, now two processes took place. On the one hand, there was a demon power that was attacking her body and it had caused something real.

The body was affected. Now I got rid of the demon power and if we'd left it at that, the body would have then reverted back to healing itself, which could have taken place slowly over a period of time. But God instead gave an additional power, a ministry or anointing of healing, which speeded up that process so we didn't have to wait days and weeks and months for it to take place.

It happened almost instantly. And sometimes we need to deal with both of those when we're ministering healing. And sometimes in order for us to be healed, we have to deal with spiritual forces first that are attacking our body before we can move into healing.

And sometimes that's all it takes is to get rid of those demon powers to release the body again to heal itself. Sickness and disease are caused when the body has come to a place where it cannot heal itself. Now you've got to first get rid of what causes this and then you can help the body to heal itself again.

You can't do the second without the first. You can't treat an illness until you remove what caused it. Unfortunately, most of the time the medical practice fails here.

They've got plenty of solutions and treatments to offer for the sickness or disease, but they can't tell you what caused it. Most of the time they'll say we don't know what caused this and sometimes they'll even tell you we can't cure it. But we can give you medication to relieve the symptoms.

We'll just hope for the best. If you're riding along in your car and one of the warning lights comes on that says your oil pressure is low, your car's overheating, what do you do? You know some people do. They reach in the back and see the wire that's going to the light and they cut it.

So now the light's off. Thank the Lord we solved that problem. You know that's what medical practice sometimes does.

Well why did the light came on? Come on, there was something wrong in the engine. Oh you know as long as we can get rid of the lights, we're okay. A lot of what you experience in your body in pain and symptoms of illness and disease, are your body giving you a warning to say something is wrong.

The first thing we do is we grab a pill to get rid of the symptom. You say well I'm feeling good now. What happens when the pill wears off? The problem is still there because the original cause has not been dealt with.

Well at least you know at least I'm feeling good. The pain's gone. It's going to come back.

It's going to come back. See now unfortunately medical practice very often has the wrong approach. Now is it bad? Is medical practice bad? Is medicine bad? No.

Thank the Lord for the medical practice. Thank the Lord for what doctors and nurses and people like that have learned. It could save our lives sometimes.

You see we can help the body to heal itself. We can alleviate some of those symptoms while the body is getting back to healing itself. We can somehow give the body an extra thing to fight with.

So the body is better at fighting. We can help by giving a substance that will kill those germs and viruses that are attacking our body so the body can recover to the point where it can attack them back because it's not being overwhelmed by them anymore. So medicine don't ever think medicine is a bad thing.

Some people think medicine is unspiritual and we as believers we shouldn't be taking medicine. That is foolish. Oh you should never go to a doctor.

I didn't say that. Let's keep a balance and know how limited each of these are. Doctors can remove diseased parts of the body to stop an illness from spreading.

Did that cure what caused that in the first place? No. But it may help stop it getting worse. So again all of these things we thank the Lord for them.

They have limited benefit. They cannot cure any disease. Only your body can do that outside of God.

It's God designed the body to do it. Now God has a way of healing. If your body is to heal itself firstly it needs the help of your soul and your spirit.

If we can get those three flowing together in perfect efficiency your body will be able to do what it was designed to do and you will walk in divine health. Now God's way of healing very often will start in the spirit. We want somebody to come and lay hands on us and pray for healing and fix our bodies.

What does laying on of hands do? Laying on of hands actually was always known as identification. When you lay hands on somebody you actually join with them in spirit and soul and body and what actually happens is you're combining your spirit with theirs in that moment. It's releasing a spiritual power and that power adds to the power in that person's spirit giving their spirit a greater ability to have an influence on their body and their soul.

And so the spirit gets a power which it can pass to your soul which your soul can pass to your body and that by itself can release the body to heal itself the way it was designed to. It can also speed up the healing process and so it's possible that God through the power of his spirit as we lay hands on somebody an anointing power of the Holy Spirit can come upon the person's body and actually speed up the healing process. Sometimes that speeding up may still take days or weeks.

Sometimes it's miraculous and it happens instantaneously but not always. Very often when we have somebody lay hands on us or we pray we expect instant results but you know we have the confidence to do as the doctor says and take these say take these pills three times a day for two weeks and we don't expect that when we pop the first pool we're going to be better. We know it's going to take time but we get impatient when it comes to the ministry of healing and we pray and we say oh nothing happened.

I guess God doesn't want to heal at this time. I guess I'm not very anointed or why don't you do it again. You know Jesus had such power that he could lay hands on people that were healed instantly but there are a few occasions mentioned where it didn't happen.

Jesus laid his hands on the man who was blind. He said can you see now? He said I can see a bit better but I see everybody walking like trees. He laid hands and prayed for him again.

Now we've been looking at the authority and the ability that God gives us by the spirit and a lot of that is to be used to bring healing to sick bodies. Now the question I want to ask you today before I end is this. When sickness strikes in your body what is your first response? Is it fear? Is it panic? Is it let's call the doctor right away it's an emergency? A lot of the time we want the doctor to tell us whether we're going to die or not.

We're wanting the doctor to give us some medication that perhaps will heal us. Unfortunately a lot of the time the doctor puts more fear in you than what you had when you went. He tells you how serious it is or how serious it could be.

Now you go home feeling even worse because you put your faith in man first. Now there's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with using what is available but what did you give priority to? Did you first look to man? Now what happens if you die in medical aid and you got no money to pay the doctor? What happens if you can't run to the doctor and say please please I'm sick help me? What are you going to do? A lot of people are in that condition.

Not everybody else has the privilege benefit of medical aid insurance. So what are you going to do? You sit and die? Sit in panic? In fear? You're a child of God. Where does the Lord fit into all of this? You know what happens with most people? They go to the doctor first.

When the doctor says there's nothing I can do and we come to the Lord we say Lord Lord they've given up on me. Lord you're my last resort. Yeah and you know when people do you that way? Well you know I went to the other people first because I have more confidence in them but since they weren't available you're the next choice.

Do you feel like helping somebody like that? I think the Lord is in that way. Isn't that the way we do him? Lord I don't really trust you. I don't have confidence in you.

I have more confidence in man but now man has failed me. So okay Lord you'll do. And then we wonder why nothing happens.

We come to the Lord. Should be the other way around. Your first response when these things strike is let's take it to the Lord.

James tells us what to do. He says go and call for those that are spiritually mature that have knowledge and anointing and let them pray over you. And perhaps perhaps there's some demonic or sinful things in your life that are opening the door and they can counsel you and you can deal with it.

It's why he says you'll be healed. Your sins will be forgiven you because very often sickness has a sinful root. You go to the doctor he's not going to tell you that.

Sure she is the case maybe. They're not going to tell you you know what your problem is. Who else did you go to church? No no we don't want to get negative and condemn people when they're ill.

But sometimes we need revelation from the Lord that perhaps you opened a door somewhere to the enemy and brought a curse into your life and that thing has caused spirits of infirmity to attack you. And so we come to minister to a person. God has given us authority as believers.

In my name he will cast out demons. He's given us authority over sickness and disease. So Jesus when he sent his disciples out and they came back all excited.

He said these words to them which you read there in Luke 10. He said I'm giving you authority. We said well that was just for them.

No no. He said I'm giving you. Not I gave you.

I'm giving you. It's the present continuous tense in the Greek. It's a continual process.

God is going to continually give you the authority over what? Serpents and scorpions. Oh yeah. I'm going to kill snakes and scorpions.

No it had a spiritual base. Those two creatures that cause harm and danger. They have a spiritual significance.

Well you could think of them as sickness and disease if you like. Is there too? But I believe a serpent has always been a picture of the serpent in the Garden of Eden who came with his craftiness and his lies and his deceit. So I believe that the serpent there speaks about demonic powers that try and affect us spiritually.

Whereas the scorpion speaks about those things that attack our bodies directly and cause the pain and the affliction. And the Lord says I'm giving you as a believer authority over all of those things. You don't have to be subject to them.

He said I've given you my name. His name is the greatest name in heaven and on earth. That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.

He's given you the right to use that name. He said well you know I'm not very anointed. And I don't really have the gift of healing.

You don't need it. It's wonderful if you have it but you don't need it. You have the right, the authority to speak to a spirit of infirmity that's attacking somebody and say in the name of Jesus you must bow.

You must leave. You know that alone could bring the healing that's needed. Can release the body to heal itself.

God has more for us. We have the gifts of the spirit which are available to all of us as believers. And there are gifts of healing and gifts of miracles.

And if you desire it, earnestly desire it of the Lord and ask him for it, he'll give it to you. And then as you come to minister to those are sick you can use your authority and then you can use healing. Because I did what happened with my daughter.

I used authority to get rid of the spirit of infirmity. Then I used the gift of healing to fix what was damaged. You don't have to be a healing evangelist to do that.

You don't have to be an apostle. Yes the elders of the church the chances are they probably already flowing in that. But Jesus said you as a believer have that right and that authority.

In other words he wants to use you as a channel of healing. Now you might be able to bring your health by simply dealing with the things in your body. The chances are you're going to have to go deeper and you're going to have to deal with the state of your soul and your emotions and your thoughts.

The chances are you're going to have to go deeper than that and you're going to have to see where you have opened the door. Sometimes through sinful activities to getting involved in things that we shouldn't. And sometimes even by being associated with people that are contaminated.

That your spirit has become contaminated to the point where demon forces are being licensed to attack you. If we take all of these approaches and follow them through healing should come. Now you can use the doctor along the way and certainly until your faith is up to gear.

Until you know and are confident and flowing in these things. I would suggest you go and get that medicine. At least it will relieve your body of some of the symptoms while you're trying to get your faith level up.

By all means. But realize that that's not going to cure you. It's only going to help you.

We need to take everything that's available to us as believers. We go to the Lord first. You know how wonderful it will be if you come to the Lord and in prayer and get healed.

You know how much money you're going to save? Medicines are not cheap. Doctors are not cheap. Man you could save a fortune.

So what is your approach today? Are you suffering physically today in some way? Do you have a sickness? Do you have a disease? Perhaps you've been to the medical industry and they've treated you but you're still sick and it's not cleared. What recourse do you have? Go back to the beginning. Go back to the beginning and ask the Lord to give you revelation and wisdom on what is causing your problem and what you can do to fix it.

The first step you should take is to come to him. Oh Jesus you are my healer. You are my doctor.

I come to you first. Come to you to receive. The Bible calls the bread of the children.

Because healing is the bread of the children. And I feel I'm speaking to somebody right now. Because you've been suffering and you've been crying out.

Perhaps you felt like the Lord has forsaken you. You've tried to pray and said Lord help me. Lord heal me.

Nothing's happened. I tell you right now that healing always comes through another person. Solomon comes directly as you pray.

So if you've prayed by yourself that's a wonderful start. Or why don't you find somebody who says I don't know anybody who has the gift of healing. Do you have another believer in your home? If you're married is your spouse a believer? Simply ask them to come and lay their hands on you and stand on the promise and receive God's healing power.

And if nothing happens the first time do it again and again and again until that power begins to flow. Until healing begins to come. Now I want to pray for those who are watching this right now.

And I'm going to ask God to touch you right now where you are. I don't want you to put your confidence in me. But I'm going to stand in the gap for you.

And I want you to stand in agreement with me as we pray. Can we do that? Reach out and expect the Lord to touch you right now. Father in the name of Jesus I pray for whoever this is that's reaching out to you right now.

And in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus I ask that by the power of your spirit you will move upon them. That you will touch them.

That they will feel your power going through their body right now. And I speak to you spirits of infirmity that are attacking this body. And I command you in the name of Jesus to let go and to leave them alone.

Leave. You're not welcome. In Jesus name.

Just you just reach out and begin to thank the Lord for his healing. As he's touching you right now. He's touching you right now.

Probably feeling a gentle, gentle tingling. Thank you Lord for your healing power. Thank you Lord for setting your people free.

Thank you Lord. Lord we make ourselves available fresh to you. To be your agents of blessing in this world.

I say Lord use me. Use me to bless your people with health. With healing.

I give it to you now in Jesus name. If that's been your desire I want you to do that now. And I want you to reach out by faith and say Lord I receive your healing power.

Lord I'm going to take your name and the authority that you have. And I'm going to go out and I'm going to use it in Jesus name. Then do it.

The scripture says these signs will follow. You'll see things start to happen even in your own life and ministries. You do that.

Trust that as you've heard these words you've been inspired in some way. Motivated to press into all that the Lord has for you. Thank you for this father now in Jesus name.

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