Key Life Network

Announcer: Does God still heal? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life. If you think laughter isn't spiritual or that faithfulness to God means conformity to Christian stereotypes, then this program probably isn't for you.

But if you are looking for honest biblical answers to hard questions, then welcome to Key Life. Here is our host, author and seminary professor, Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from Forge Truth.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. Hi, Pete.

Pete Alwinson: Hey, how you doing?

Steve Brown: How are you doing?

Pete Alwinson: Good.

Steve Brown: I ask first, how are you doing?

Pete Alwinson: You know, I really am doing pretty good. I mean, I probably need healing in some areas.

Steve Brown: Speaking of healing. We are going to deal with that question in just a minute. And that was Pete Alwinson.

And incidentally, if you have not read Like Father, Like Son, you can get it at Amazon, you can get it at Key Life, you can get it at Forge. And it is an incredible read and a life-changing one. And I am not saying that because I like Pete and he wrote it. It is a great book.

By the way, check out Forgethetruth.com. And Pete comes in, as you know, and each Friday we answer questions. And we love your questions. The only question we don't like is the one you don't ask.

So if you have got a question, call 1-800 Key Life. That's 1-800-539-5433. Or you can send your question to Key Life Network, Post Office Box 5000, Maitland, Florida 32794.

In Canada, it is Post Office Box 2060, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 6J8. And you can ask your question by email: steve@keylife.org.

If you can help us financially, please do. If you cannot, please don't. We, this is an expensive ministry, and I promise we will squeeze every dime for the glory of God. And if you can help us, that means you help a whole lot of other people who cannot. So be generous if you can, if you cannot, say a prayer for us.

Pete, speaking of prayer, lead us in prayer. We will get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson: You got it. You got it. Our Holy Father, what a joy to stop today and and just thank you for who you are and how you have revealed yourself to us. We thank you for this week. We thank you for the work that we have, the people that are in our family, the people that are in our church family.

We thank you even for the trials. You say, in everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. And we even thank you for the trials that teach us to trust, that allow you to continue to get out of our life, our sin and unbelief, and continue to conform us to the image of our Savior.

So we love you. We need you. Life's not easy for us, and we come to you with our needs as well. And so you know us, you know our listeners, you know every one of us by name and face.

And Lord, you know those that need healing, you know those that need friendships, need forgiveness, need to see their blind spots. Lord, you know exactly what we need. And so we pray, Holy Spirit, that you would open our eyes and you would help us to receive your joy and comfort and ministry to us.

And even this weekend, we pray that that ministry would come through our pastors and priests and teachers and leaders and worship directors. Lord, we we we pray that as we go to church that we would experience your grace in a fresh way, and that you would re-energize us for the week to come. So thank you for your goodness. We praise you, we honor you, and we commit this time of Q&A to you right now. In Jesus' holy name we pray.

Steve Brown: Amen. Great. Pete, let's go to our phone lines.

Guest (Male): Jesus didn't always heal everyone because he wasn't sent to everyone. He was only sent to the children of Israel at that time. We are under a new covenant now. Jesus was ministering under the law. And he said that the healing was the children's bread.

So it was God's will for all of his children, the children of Israel at that time, to be healed. Jesus healed all his children, all those at that time, and he does the same today because he is the same yesterday, night, today and forever. He heals all those that come to him in faith. He said their faith made them whole.

On most occasions, Jesus, when he healed someone, he didn't say he healed them, he said their faith healed him. There is not any occasion in scripture where he didn't heal his children because it's the children's bread.

Steve Brown: Now, I think Pete and I can understand what you're saying, and that's a legitimate point. But you're wrong.

Pete Alwinson: Laughs.

Steve Brown: Jesus sometimes healed people that were not God's people. And sometimes he didn't heal people who were God's people. And you have got to be careful. Although, I am saying you're wrong. I am not putting you down. That was a thoughtful question.

But the problem with that is you get into trouble. You know, at some point, everybody who is listening to our voice on Key Life right now is not going to be healed. They are going to die. And they are going to assume, as somebody Rush Limbaugh said, assume room temperature. In other words, they are not going to be healed.

And you have got to be careful because you lay on people a problem that they cannot solve if God decides not to heal them. Now, with all of that being said, of course God still heals.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: Of course he uses our faith sometimes, and sometimes he doesn't use our faith. The guy that was healed in the early chapters of Acts didn't have a bit of faith. They just said, we don't have any money. He expected money.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: And Peter and John said, we don't have any money. But dance. See how that works for you.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: And there was no faith involved in that. So you have got to be careful about giving absolutes because you can hurt people.

Pete Alwinson: Oh, I love that. That that's so good. What this friend of ours did is that he imposed, he took an idea and imposed that on all of the data in scripture about healing. And so and then he back-loaded all that into it. And so and you cannot do that.

And so what we encourage our, what I encourage our listeners to do is read one of the gospels, it doesn't matter which one, but just reread the gospels and look at the people Jesus heals and how they get healed, and it will support everything you just said. That there is no monolithic methodology of of healing.

It is a sign. Jesus healed to prove he was Messiah. God come in the flesh.

Steve Brown: That's true.

Pete Alwinson: That is the main reason he healed. And he didn't heal. And now, he did raise Lazarus from the dead. But Lazarus died again.

Steve Brown: He didn't have a lot of faith.

Pete Alwinson: I mean,

Steve Brown: When you are dead, it is hard to have a lot of faith.

Pete Alwinson: Right? Right? But then Lazarus died again.

Steve Brown: Yeah, that's right. Still had to die.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. So we have to understand that it was primarily to illustrate and prove who Jesus was with the healing. And the early healings in the in the early church were for the same reason, to prove the Gospel was real.

Steve Brown: You know, one time I was invited to a public university to in a religion course to talk about the theology of Paul.

Pete Alwinson: Wow.

Steve Brown: They said that Paul was not sexist, but Jesus was. Or that Paul had said some bad things about women. And Jesus had, at any rate, I lectured for an hour on the subject.

But the teacher when I came was crying. I said, young lady, why are you crying? And some Christians had told her that her son who had juvenile diabetes could be healed if she had the faith. And the way she had to demonstrate her faith was to withdraw the insulin from her son.

Pete Alwinson: Oh.

Steve Brown: Isn't that terrible?

Pete Alwinson: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown: And, you know, she was caught. Her son could die if she withdrew the insulin, and she and it would be her fault if he wasn't healed if she kept the insulin. And I told her, I said, you are fortunate, you got somebody who knows what the Bible really teaches.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: And I said, listen to me, and I told her the truth, which is what you just said about that.

Pete Alwinson: Oh, my goodness. And and and and this makes this makes healing an act of human willpower and faith. And and and now, I I will not deny that we do need to have faith when we pray. That that's a big part of it. Whatever we are praying for, we have to have belief that God will answer the prayer.

Steve Brown: True.

Pete Alwinson: But but healing is is in a very unique category, as are other issues. I could have a lot of faith that I want that I have belief that God will give me that job. But maybe that's not the job he wants me to have.

Steve Brown: That's true.

Pete Alwinson: Right? So we have to we do not demand of God. Faith is not a magic element, a wand, or something we wave in God's face and say, you have to do this.

Steve Brown: Good. Good stuff. This is an email. Is it accurate to say that we are created earthly creatures and do not know exactly why our God allowed the fall?

Pete Alwinson: Yeah. I I I would, we are.

Steve Brown: We know why he allowed the fall, for his glory.

Pete Alwinson: Ultimately for his glory.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: So we can say that, that we know we know that big picture. We don't know all of the the details.

Steve Brown: Exactly.

Pete Alwinson: But we do know that truth. Absolutely.

Steve Brown: And I don't think sometimes we take that very seriously. You know, we have an anthropology that often is not biblical.

Pete Alwinson: What do you mean by anthropology?

Steve Brown: Study of human of humans.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: And you know, there are two views. People are basically good, they make some mistakes, or they are basically bad and sometimes do some good things. And the Bible takes the second of those.

Pete Alwinson: Mm.

Steve Brown: And that's the result of the fall. We were talking about sin yesterday on our talk show with Michael Horton.

Pete Alwinson: Mm.

Steve Brown: And we were we were talking about when you see Christian sin. And he says he has a friend who always says, when a Christian falls, my doctrine of sin covers that.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. That's right.

Steve Brown: That is a great statement.

Pete Alwinson: That is.

Steve Brown: And that's true. The fall is a bad thing. And it's the reason we struggle, it's the reason we doubt, it's the reason we sin, one of the reasons. There are others.

Pete Alwinson: Mm.

Pete Alwinson: And it's important to keep in mind that for most of the history of the church, people believed in in sin and that they did believe that they were primarily sinners and needed God's grace every day.

Steve Brown: Absolutely.

Pete Alwinson: And it wasn't until the Enlightenment that that we tended to say, well, no, we don't have that. We are not that bad.

Steve Brown: Yeah. And look what happened as a result, guys. Well, we have got to go. But thank you for spending this time with us. We love your questions and you can ask yours by calling us anytime. Got to go. Key Life is a listener-supported production of Key Life Network.