January 29, 2007

• Bible study on healing and covenants by Tony Williams

  Tony Williams, one of our members taught Wednesday’s Bible study. It was a wonderfully edifying study, and all walked out with their faith strengthened. As I mentioned before, we begin our Bible study with prayer requests that have come into the church during the week, and any requests from members attending the study. Before praying, Tony asked us all to come up with healing scriptures like, “By his stripes we are healed,” so that we were fully in faith to pray for healings.

  He pointed out that when a person dies they usually leave a will. The Bible is God’s will and testament, and Jesus actually rose from the dead and is making sure that all parts of His Will are being kept. When we read the Bible we are reading what our heavenly Father has left us. Left with a blood covenant. These words are not MAYBE, PERHAPS, but Words that we KNOW are true and can be trusted.

  We know that healing is the children’s bread, so we ask Jesus, to pass the bread.

  Salvation is the will of God. Faith begins when the will of God is known. God wanted that none should perish. John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

  2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

  Before we come to God, satan tries to condemn us, but God helps us to come to Him. When we come to Him, and then sin, we know. 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

  When we repent and come to Him for forgiveness, we are forgiven. He will not remember our sins.

  1 John 5:14-15 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

  2 Peter 1:5-11 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

  When we confess our sins we are not telling God something He doesn’t already know. He knows our sins, but we need to confess them so that we are aware of them. Jesus will purge us from all unrighteousness, through His shed blood. Our sins are overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the blood of the Testimony. The devil’s fate is sealed. The blood speaks for me. Guilty feelings, once we have confessed our sins and are forgiven, are lying symptoms. We are not redeemed by corruptible, but by the precious blood of Jesus. He separates us from our sins as far as the East is from the West. God forgives and forgets. Only He can supernaturally forget.

  Romans 5:17 For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One Jesus Christ.

   Who is the one man’s offense? – Adam’s disobedience.

  Because God makes us righteous, we do not have to be afraid of the devil.

  Smith Wigglesworth once woke up in the middle of the night and felt a presence on the stairs, when he went to investigate he saw that it was satan on the stairs. He looked and said, “Oh, it’s you.” Then he turned around and went back to bed and sleep. He did not give satan the time of day or any concern.

  What is most important is who you are in Christ Jesus, not Holy Ghost do-dads. God is no respecter of persons. The gifts he gives, all have available to use. The gifts of the Spirit are not relegated to supernatural stars of faith, we can all apply the gifts of the Spirit.

  It is because of Adam’s sin of disobedience that death entered the world – for sin is death.

  There are three different kinds of death.

  There is physical death – when our soul and spirit leaves our body.
  There is spiritual death – when we are eternally separated from God.
  There is the lake of fire death – the final death after the Last Judgment.

  Jesus told people that their father was the devil, that the satanic nature and unrepented sin reigned in the people. Jesus came to give us Zoe, the God kind of life.

  Before Jesus, sin reigned as king. Sin brings sickness, sorrow, pain, agony, depression. In Deuteronomy God tells the people that he sets before them, life and death, then tells them the right answer: choose life.

  The people chose to disobey God, created idols, and did not do what God commanded, so they chose death. Jesus came to bring life and life more abundantly.

  How many unsaved people tell us that they want to do what they want to do, and look at what they are doing, saying, “This is my life, I can do what I want to do.” What they call life is really death.

  Others tell us that, “This is the hand I was dealt.” in reference to their life. It is not necessarily the hand that they have to play. I have never played poker, but Tony told us that if, in poker, you are dealt a bad hand you can put the cards on the table and ask for a new hand. Jesus is willing to deal us a new hand, and all his cards are life and love.

  We are the blessing of God. Jesus was made a curse, and died on the cross for us, so that we could be saved. When He rose, he conquered sin and death. We now have satan under our feet as a defeated foe.

  We then looked at Isaiah52:13-14 Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.  When Jesus was scourged the 39 lashes tore at his skin so that there was so much damage that He could not be recognized. Then we read Isaiah 53:1-9 which is entirely about Jesus, and was predicted long before Jesus’ birth.  Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 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. All we are like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent. So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked–but with the rich at His death. Because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.

  Jesus bore all of our sins, yet He did not sin while He was on earth.

  We also need to remember that we too have the blessings of Abraham, for we were grafted into the vine of Israel because of Jesus. If you can, read Deuteronomy 28 which details all the blessings of God that we can have if we obey Him, and all the curses if we disobey. The first words God spoke to Adam concerned the blessing and abundance of the earth that Adam had dominion over, but once Adam disobeyed God’s simple commandment, Adam lost dominion over the earth, giving it over to satan.

  Proverbs 10:27  The fear of the LORD prolongs days; but the years of the wicked will be shortened.

  Galatians 3: 7-10 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

  When God talked to Abraham and His seed, He also talked to those who are in Christ. Abraham was bold. He conquered two kings’ armies with 318 servants. When the King of Sodom wanted to give Abraham rewards, Abraham refused them, wanting no earthly king to say, “I made Abraham rich.” Abraham met and communed with Melchizedek (Jesus will be called a priest of the order of Melchizedek). God cut a covenant with Abraham. Abraham was put into a deep sleep when God cut the covenant, so that only God is the one to keep the covenant. God knew that we could not keep covenant, so God, cut covenant and swore to keep it. We know that God keeps His covenants perfectly.

  David acted on this covenant, and defeated the Philistines.

  Those of us who have no knowledge of the covenant, have no hope, as Ephesians 2:3 “among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”

  But because of Jesus, we are brought back into the covenant relationship with God. And God keeps His covenants. If God did not keep His covenants Heaven and Earth would pass away. He puts His Word above Himself.

  Abraham believed God and it was accounted for righteousness.  God’s covenant settles all arguments, we come before God, take communion, and are anchored in Him.

  When we believe God, accept Jesus’ sacrifice we receive an abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness.

  Wasn’t this Bible study a blessing? We all left with smiles on our faces, refreshed in remembering the goodness of God.

  Have a blessed day,
  Heather

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