John Hagee - The Power to Heal
Most every person in this audience and most every person watching by national television needs to be healed physically, emotionally, or in their mind. Every time I go to the hospital, I thank God for health and healing. When I see people in a bed who cannot walk, I thank God for the ability to walk. When I see people on breathing machines, I thank God for the ability to breathe unassisted with medical devices. What a treasure it is to hold in my arms, my healthy children. That is a blessing from God, and I never, never take it for granted. Every Lord's day, when we say, "How many of you here feel well"? And we raise our hands, it is a tribute to the God that heals our physical bodies and gives us divine health and healing. And I thank the Lord for that. It is a pleasure to be able to get up and physically go to work.
Don't you ever complain about having to get up in the morning. The time may come when you can't get out of bed, period. Thank God for the ability to get up, and go to work, and be an expression of God's health on earth. What do you do when health fails? What do you do when the doctor says there is no hope? What do you do when you don't know what to do? I want you to understand that you do what God's children have done in all ages past. We have turned to the Lord our God that heals all of our diseases. Our God is a healing God. There is no disease that is the master of him: for he is the master of wind and waves. He is the master of cancer. He is the master. Of heart disease. He's the master of multiple sclerosis. He's the master of the common cold. He's the master of anything that you need help and healing with today.
Our God heals! And don't ever forget it. Read with me, please, Exodus 15:26: and he said, "If thou will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and will do that which is right in his sight, and will give ear to his commandments, and all to his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee". Notice in that text, God controls disease. He said, "I will not put these diseases on you that I brought upon the Egyptians. I am the Lord that healeth thee". Say that with me. "I am the Lord that healeth thee".
Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, let us see in the Word of God the power to heal through the word and by faith released through the expectation of miracles. In Jesus' name, we pray and ask it. And all of God's children said, praise the Lord.
You may be seated. Let me initially say that the Bible is the greatest manuscript of miracles ever written. If you take the miracles from the pages of this book, all that you have is an empty, sterile, lifeless manuscript. I hold in my hand the most powerful document ever written as authentication of the fact that miracles are for today. I believe in miracles, because I believe the Word of God. Having said that, let me hurry to say that miracles are not the by-product of emotion. Miracles are the by-product of meeting God's conditions. Many people feel, in a time of crisis, that if they wring their hands enough, and beg God intently enough, or crawl down the aisle of a Cathedral, God will hear their prayer.
Wrong! God does not respond because you're upset. God responds when you meet his spiritual conditions for miracles to happen. Let me explain it in the physical, and then I'll explain it in the spiritual. If I fill a tray of water, and I place it in a freezer where the temperature is 32 degrees or less, that water becomes what? Ice. Is that a miracle? No. It's the only thing the physical laws of God will let happen. Therefore, when you meet God's spiritual conditions for miracles to happen, miracles are the only thing that can happen, because God established that he will work by natural and supernatural law. When sins are confessed and faith is released, miracles happen! And God is going to do that in this service this morning.
Does God heal? Yes! His very name is Jehovah Rophe. Say that with me. Jehovah Rophe, "The Lord our God that healeth thee". That's the text of the morning. David said in Psalm 105:37, "He brought forth the children of Israel with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among them". God brought out of Egypt's bondage, millions of Jewish people, somewhere between three and five million people. And they lived for 40 years. And David said, "There was not one feeble person among them".
That's better than sick. They were walking in desert sand every day for miles. And David is saying that these millions of people, in 40 years, not one of them was sick, and not one of them was incapable of Marching through the desert sand. Brother, that's a medicaid program I want to get in on. That one works. Continue in the Word of God. David said in Psalm 103:2 and 3, "Bless the Lord, o my soul, and forget not all of his benefits". What are all of the benefits of God? "Who forgiveth all of thine iniquities and healeth all of your diseases".
Do you see the connection between the spiritual and the physical? "Who forgives all of your iniquities," your sin, and then he heals your disease. That goes together hand in glove, and there is no escaping it. Jesus said, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: and he that believeth not shall be damned". We have no problem believing that. Then he goes on and says, "And these signs shall follow them that believe", say that with me, "And these signs shall follow them that believe". Understand we are not following signs: the signs are following us. And there's a difference. You can announce a miracle crusade, and thousands will go because they want to see a miracle: they don't want to meet the master.
A lot of times, we are looking for a $2 solution when God is trying to teach us a $10,000 lesson. And if all that you're after is miracles, you are a candidate for deception on the highest order. Any miracle that happens that does not bring glory to Jesus Christ is the Genesis of a cult, and don't you ever forget it. I believe in miracles, but they must be under Bible authority, which brings glory and honor to Jesus Christ. But here are the four things that are supposed to happen to people who preach this gospel. One, "In my name they shall cast out demons. They shall speak with new tongues". Is that controversial? You bet it is. Do I believe in it? You bet I do. It's in the Word of God. I believe it.
Thirdly, "If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them". Early Christians were often poisoned, and their lives were spared by the healing power of God. Point four that we're talking about today, "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover". Say that with me. "And they shall recover". You get well when you pray instantly and progressively. But God says, the moment you release my authority and you meet my conditions, immediately, I begin to send an answer. And you will see the signs and wonders happen in your time. Does God heal in 1991? Yes, he does. There are whole denominations that say the day of miracle is over. But the Word of God does not say that.
The Bible says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever". Say that with me. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever". That means what he did at the Sea of Galilee, he can do in Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas today. If he had the power to heal then, he has the power to heal now. And he can heal you, because he's still God, and he still has the authority. Does God want to heal me? There are some who teach God can heal but he doesn't want to do that now. That's not scriptural. 3 John 2 says, "Beloved, I wish above all things that you prosper and be in good health, even as your soul prospers".
Notice again that the physical and the spiritual are linked together. You physically prosper as you spiritually prosper. Let me tell you that going to the house of God is the healthiest thing you can do. Reading the Word of God is the healthiest thing you can do. Praying is the most healthy thing you can do, because you are spiritually releasing the life-giving power of God within you. Then there are religious people who say, "Well, God did it then, but he doesn't do it now".
That's the definition of a religious person. A religious person is someone who honors what God did in the past, and fights what God is doing today. Get that in your mind. They say, "Well, the age of miracles is over". Is that right? James 5:14 says, "Is there any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church. They shall pray over him, anoint him with oil," which is the symbol of the Holy Spirit, "And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. And if he has committed any sins, they shall be forgiven him". Do you see how sins and forgiveness and healing all go together?
Now what's the important thing about James 5:14? If miracles were supposed to have stopped at the end of the apostolic age, this is the very end of it. And yet, God is saying to the last of the apostles, I want you to continue doing it. Obviously, he did not want it to stop. He is giving them a new charge and a new commission. If anyone in the house of God becomes sick, or they become feeble, or they become attacked by disease, anoint them with oil in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Drive that disease out of them. Release the life-giving force of the Holy Spirit within them, and let the community know God's children are a healthy children, as we walk across the desert, because our God is an awesome God! Hallelujah!
Jesus proved that he was the source of life itself. He said, "I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly". Say that with me. "I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly". "I am the way, the truth, and the life". He said that. And he proved that by raising Lazarus from the dead. He proved that by stopping the funeral parade of the widow's son, and raising him from the dead, and changing that funeral parade into a parade of celebration, because he came from death unto life. And then ultimately, Jesus raised himself from the dead and presented himself as the story of life. Moses said it first in the Old Testament. "I have set before you life and death... Choose life".
Let me tell you something. You choose to release your faith. You choose the life of Jesus Christ. You choose a miracle. If you want to choose your disease, and choose your skepticism, and choose all that ails you, fine: choose it. But if you want to have life in the sun, choose Jesus, and he can give you a new life, a new heart, a new beginning, and this can be the first day of the rest of your life, in Jesus' name. Jesus proved that he was a healer of muscles and nerves when he healed the paralytic by the pool of Bethesda. He walked up to this pool surrounded by five porches. Hundreds of people were there, because the angel troubled the water. And the first one in the water was healed.
How many of you are familiar with that Bible story? It's there. You should go home and read it. Jesus walked up to this man and asked him a very probing question, and I want to ask it of you. He said, "Do you want to be healed"? Most people, who do not have a life-threatening disease, need to be asked that question. "Do you want to be healed"? And if you answered that, some of you would say, "No, I really don't. I enjoy the worst of health. Thank you. If I were healed, I wouldn't have anything to talk about. 90% of my personality would be flushed if I were healed. So I choose to suffer along, so I can get everybody's attention, and everybody weep and wail over my condition". So I say, "Do you want to be healed"?
If you do, Jesus can heal you. If you don't, all of the holy Trinity can't help you. Why did Jesus, a Jew, spit into his hand, and put dirt in his hand, and put it in the eyes of a man to heal his eyes? Because the Jews believed that the firstborn son had healing virtue in his spittle. So Jesus spit in his hand, and put dirt in that spittle to testify that he was the firstborn son of his father. That's why he did that. Then he put it in the eyes of the man, and he was healed. Now if Jesus did that in San Antonio today, every preacher in town would say, "How much spit do you put in your hand? What's the ratio of spit and dirt? Do you put it in the left eye first or the right eye first"?
We would find a way to put that in a formula, so that we could have a way God had to perform. Let me tell you something. God has a thousand ways to answer every prayer. Don't try to put God in a religious formula. He has the ability to answer ten thousand different ways, every prayer that you pray. Release God and let his supernatural power flow into your life, in Jesus' name. How do we release God's power? By faith and by the Word of God. The Bible says, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God". Say that with me, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God". "Without faith it is impossible to please God". Everything that God has for you, comes at the cost of faith. "To him that believeth, all things are possible".
And to him that believeth not, nothing is possible. Faith is the daring of the soul to go further than the eyes can see. Faith is the daring of the soul to see further than the carnal mind can believe. All of you have a limit of faith. But there is no limitation to what God can do. You have been taught only things can happen in this dimension. But I am telling you, there is a miracle dimension that goes beyond the limits of your knowledge and the limits of your experience. Proverbs 4:22 says, "For your commandments are alive to those that find them, and they are health to all of your flesh". Psalm 43:5, "Why art thou cast down, o my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God: I will yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance". Isaiah 40, "They that wait upon Lord shall renew their strength".
The Hebrew word for "Strength" is your life force. If you want your life force, your energy factor, to be renewed every day, wait on the Lord! That's where it comes from. Jeremiah 30:17, "I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of your wounds". Matthew 21:22, "And all things, whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive". Preacher, do you know if the Word of God has ever healed anybody? Yes, I do.
My uncle J.L. Hagee, who's a retired assemblies of God minister, who now lives in southern California, had a massive heart attack a number of years ago. He recovered from it, began to read the Word of God where the Bible says that the Word of God is life to the body. And he grabbed hold of that truth, and he made a one-hour tape of one verse after the other in the Word of God that will heal the mind and the body when the body is under attack from disease. And he told his wife, "If I ever have another heart attack, I want you to put this tape in a cassette, and I want you to play it over and over in my years in the hospital".
After he made that cassette, several years later, he had a massive coronary attack, and he was taken to the hospital where my cousin is the chief resident surgeon there. And he was pronounced dead when he got there. My cousin, who is a Presbyterian, certainly not into the miracle mentality, told my aunt, "It's all over but the slow walking and hymn singing". She said, "Well, if he is fundamentally dead, then it won't hurt for him to listen to these tapes, then will it"? She looked at him, and he looked at her. He said, "I don't think you understand. You just need to call the relatives and tell them this man is not going to make it. It's over. Scientifically, he's dead". She said, "Then it won't hurt for him to hear these tapes". "He can't hear the tapes"! "How do you know that"?
She won. Put the tapes on his ears. The machine's straight across, no sign of life. At the end of the first day, there was a little blip on that screen that signified something was happening there. Of course, there was a medical explanation of how this was a post traumatic shock and the body was responding in some wild unexplainable manner, but he was still dead. She said, "He's going to live". He continued to listen to that tape. The second day, his eyes began to blink, and he started reaching out and grabbing people by the hand. They said, "It is a reaction. He can't possibly understand what's going on here. He has an oxygen deficiency debt. He's supposed to be brain dead". The third day, he sat up in his bed, and he began to eat. The fourth day, he began to speak. The fifth day, he walked out of that hospital. And there was a scramble to get the hands on that tape, because the Word of God heals by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Romans 12:2, "And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable, perfect will of God". How are you transformed in your mind? By the reading of God's word. The Bible says in Proverbs, "As a man thinketh... So is he". The Bible says, "Thy word have I hidden in my heart: that I might not sin against God". When the doctor comes to you and tells you, you have a fatal disease, the first thing you're going to experience is fear. Fear is going to grab you by the throat. And when faith lives in your heart by the Word of God, instantly, your mind is not going to be attacked by fear, but you're going to have the counter attack of the Word of God.
When fear pops up its ugly head, you say, "God has not given us a spirit of fear... But of love, and of a sound mind, and of self-control". When Satan whispers, "You can't get well," just quote him Jeremiah 30, "I will restore my health unto you, and your wounds will I heal". When Satan suggests you don't have faith, quote him the book of Romans that said, "God has given to every man, a measure of faith". When Satan whispers, "Don't you feel weak and don't you think you're not going to make it"? Say, "The Lord is the strength of my life: of whom shall I fear"? "And of whom shall I be afraid"? Daniel 11, "The people that know God shall be strong, and do exploits".
Remember that health is the law of the Kingdom of God. Jesus Christ is the great physician. God the Father is a healer. And whatever your body problems happen to be, heart, soul, mind, or body: he can, he will, and he wants to heal you today, in the name of Jesus Christ! There are three steps to your healing. First, confess your sin, because God cannot heal over sin. Everything that Jesus, every person Jesus ever healed, they had to confess their sin. Secondly, believe that God wants to heal you. Don't allow your thoughts to dwell on your sickness. Allow your thoughts to dwell on the Word of God and Jesus Christ, who is our great physician. And speak the Word of God in faith.
Take the Bible and read aloud the scriptures about God's healing power. And while you speak the Word of God, the divine radiation of the Holy Spirit begins to fight the disease in your body, and you begin to feel the wholeness of a child of God. And then you'll begin to realize the power of this manuscript that I hold in my hand. And thirdly, expect a miracle. Don't focus on your feelings. Don't focus on your negative medical reports. I don't know why doctors feel endowed of their Creator to share all the negative news they can in the first 30 minutes you're in a hospital, but they do. God bless them. I love them. Many of them are my relatives. But I'm telling you, I serve a great physician whose knowledge goes far beyond theirs, whose ability is greater than theirs. And when they come and say there is no hope, I am glad to rejoice that man's extremity is God's opportunity. And he can do it, in Jesus' name!
You begin to read the Word of God and you begin to quote the Word of God, you will feel the supernatural life-giving power of the Holy Spirit invade your life, your mind, and your body. And you will begin to be well, in Jesus' name. If you're in this room, watching by national television, and you want to be healed in your body, in your emotions, or in your mind, this is the day that the great physician comes by and he gives you that chance, and asks you the question, "Will you be healed"? Will you be healed? Will you exercise faith that goes beyond the limit of your knowledge, and reach out and touch the hem of his garment, and let him heal you and change you? This is greatest day of the rest of your life, as you begin to experience God's power to heal. Can we stand throughout the building?
Heavenly Father, we gather here today, in the name of the Lord Jesus. And I ask you, Lord, that you liberate us from all doubt, and from all fear, and from every kind of skepticism that prevents us from experiencing God's very best. And let your Holy Spirit now fill this room, as we begin to receive healing for the body, for the mind, and for our emotions, in Jesus' name.