Study the Word

Guest (Male): Battling an illness? Pastor Tom Keller offers these practical steps to take.

Pastor Thom Keller: When you get ill, there's certain bases you cover. Number one, you pray to God, first place you go. Secondly, you go to the doctors as you should. Third, you anoint with oil. But fourth, I believe it's important to acknowledge that Satan could be causing it. It's possible.

Guest (Male): It's well known that Satan uses suffering against us, but what's not so well known is that he can sometimes be the source of it. So we must be alert to that possibility and learn how to combat it. Well, today's study the word with Pastor Tom Keller will help us on both counts. We'll find that help as we continue in Job chapter two. But Pastor Tom begins with more on the value of calling for prayer and the anointing of oil.

Pastor Thom Keller: What it does is it brings closure to what your responsibility to be before God. Remember I said when you get sick, you ask questions you never asked before? It'll take you places you've never been before. Here's one of the questions you will ask. Probably you will say, God, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? Because what's my responsibility before God with this illness? Well, we go to the doctors we should. That's why babies die of burst appendixes because they pray to God and don't go to doctors. You should go to a doctor.

You should pray. But you should also consider James chapter five because what I started with was that understanding there are some people that would not have been healed. There are some people that were cured of cancer that would not have been had they not been anointed. We have anointed a lot of people through the years. We've anointed a lot of people through the years and we just had within last two week a woman came up and said, we anointed her. They had a cat scan, x-ray, something and it showed a mass. We anointed her. She went back.

They took it took the image again. He said, this is a miracle. It's gone. There's nothing on your screen. We've seen that multiple times, that same story. So I just encourage you and the article that I handed out there says anointing with oil may be for you. It says actually the word James uses for sick is a Greek word which means to lose strength. There are many experiences in life that cause us to lose strength, not just physical illness. There are a wide variety of sicknesses we may experience in life, emotional, psychological, spiritual, as well as physical.

The brethren, this was written by Galen Hackman, who's a brother and pastor. The brother and pastor manual lists a variety of times when seeking anointing might with oil might be appropriate when experience and decline in health, suffering of disease, in injury, illness, when dealing with depression or disillusionment, before a scheduled surgery, before making a weighty decision, after receiving a word of a terminal illness, after a marriage separation or divorce, after a miscarriage or death of a loved one, when losing a job, when there's brokenness in a relationship, when answering the call to a new ministry or making significant commitments of service, to lay hold of God's promise for forgiveness when increase of faith is needed.

Again, it says it means when they're sick to lose strength. So I encourage you to keep this in mind. You have a friend. Listen. When Jesus healed people, did they first have to profess that I put my faith and trust in you, Jesus, and I'm going to tithe to the 12 disciples after you died? Did they have to do that? No. He healed indiscriminately, right? And what did his healing accomplish? It caused enough faith in him, right? So my point is if I were you, if you work with someone and they're not a believer and they have a son that gets very ill or their wife gets very ill or their husband gets very ill, I would say there's a verse in the Bible that talks about being anointed with oil and that God would use that to heal.

If you want, I could if you come to church on Sunday, I could have one of our pastors anoint your son with oil for healing. You know what that could accomplish in the life of that person to have that done? Listen. And you know this, many of you know this, but some of you might not. If you're in a work setting and there's someone that you've worked with for a whole bunch of years and they are openly hostile to the gospel, you can't talk to them about Jesus. I'll give you an example. If you have someone in a work setting and they're close to the gospel and something comes up where there's an illness that's touching them, them or a family member, especially a child, that's an open opportunity to pray with them.

Ask them if you can pray. I've never had anybody say no. No one's that hard. No one's that hard. But the anointing is the same thing. You say well, not even a believer. That was my earlier point. They don't have to be. It's an opportunity for God to get the glory through what happens. Suggest it. Suggest it. It may be the beginning of a relationship with the Lord. Now on the anointing, what it does is it brings closure to what your responsibilities before God. It allows you to say I've done everything God has wanted me to do and now this is surrendered to the Lord.

So I tell people this. Can it ever be wrong to pray for somebody's salvation? No. Can't be wrong. That's God's will. You know it's God's will for them to be saved. Doesn't mean they will be, but you know it's his will. Is it always God's will for every person to be healed of an illness?

Guest (Male): No.

Pastor Thom Keller: Good answer. Good answer. Some say yes and that gets him in a lot of trouble down the road. You got to be very careful of that one. But no, you don't know if it's his will. So here's the dilemma. In James chapter five, we're supposed to pray for healing. But we don't know if it's God's will for that person to be healed, right? He may have a a different plan than the healing. So here's here's the reality. So when we pray, I say I say we're going to pray in faith believing that God's going to heal you of this cancer.

And we all know he can. He created all that is seen and unseen in six days. He can heal you of this cancer. There's no question he can heal you. So we're going to pray in faith believing that he will or allowing him to do something even better if he chooses to do something better instead. See, this is where people go south. This is where when they pray, they actually in their mind say something like this. God, I pray that you would heal old Joe, but if you're not willing to do that, I can live with that.

That's okay too. But that's not the right prayer because that's saying that God, if you're not willing to give me what I'm asking for, I'll settle for less. That's not that's not what God does. You see, when you trust God in a situation, you say to God, God, this is what I'm praying for, but if you choose to do something better, why would I not want better? Different from what you ask in this situation is not less than it's better than. Do you get it? It's not less than it's better than. God's love is not capable of disappointing when you trust in his love.

Not possible. Not possible. And I'm back to the old premise. If I'm wrong, you going to get to heaven and he owes you an apology. He won't. Not because he's too big to give an apology, because he knows what he is doing. And listen, you may say that sounds like a cop out. I'm going to tell you something. I've prayed this prayer just like that with people in hospital rooms, with inoperable brain tumors, with with things that are really bad. And when I say to them and then I quote Matthew where it says, what son asks his father for a loaf of bread and he gives him a stone instead?

Or if he asks for a fish, we give him a scorpion? He said, of course not. And he said, if you hard-hearted fathers know how to give good gifts to your children, don't you think your heavenly father will do the same, at least the same for you? Do you get it? So when we anoint, we're asking for loaf of bread. He is not going to give a stone. He might give you angel food cake. That's better than that's better than a loaf of bread, at least it is to me. But he isn't going to give you a stone.

See, this is what makes Jesus's prayer in the garden make sense. If it be your will, take this cup away from me. If it be your will, take this cup away from me. If it be your will, take this cup away from me. But but not my will, but thine be done. And when we hear that, we hear Jesus surrendering to God doing less than he's asking. It's not. It's a surrender to God to do more than he's asking, more than he's asking. So you're in a hospital room with five believers and you're praying for Joe who has cancer.

He's in bad shape. You're all around the all around the bed. You're holding hands praying. And you say, God, please heal old Joe here. He's a great guy. We love him. We We know you can. Next person prays, Father God, we just have all the faith in the world that you can heal Joe. And as you go around that group of people, this prayer starts to take on the wings of faith. I mean it just gets woo. It's like wow, this is the Holy Spirit is here empowering us to pray. But then at the end someone says this, but thy will be done.

And that whole prayer of faith comes crashing to the ground because of a misunderstanding what that means to submit your yourself to the will of God. You see, if you have a plan and you submit yourself to the will of God and he and you trust him in that and he does something different than you're asking, it can only be because the different is better than you're asking, not less than. It's not possible. His love cannot disappoint you when you trust him. Doesn't matter the situation. Doesn't matter what's going on. Not possible. And as I said, it brings closure when Sue and I were in our 30s, we wanted to have children.

And there was no medical reason why we couldn't have children. We could have done the in vitro thing. We just didn't feel we felt God close and open the wound. Everybody figures that out for themselves. That's where we came out. But we went to the elders of our church and we were anointed for healing for having children. And when we walked away from that, we both felt that God gave us closure that day in really trusting him through that. And God has blessed us in so many ways. Would children have been a blessing? Of course.

But I know we've been blessed more than how we had children because if that wasn't true, we would have had children. Do you get it? There's the proof. And one other thing, if you ever if you ever have a friend at at work or some place and you suggest maybe them being anointed for oil, know that in the Catholic church this is called last rites. They take this to mean last rites and and they only call the priest in when you're you're five minutes away from dying. And so if you suggest anointing with oil, some people going to say, you think I am dying?

You think I am dead? I'm not going to call for the priest to to certify that I'm dead. You know, so just understand that you might have a little explanation to do there. So I encourage you if you get in a situation where there's a health issue, we do anointings almost I'd say at least every other Sunday we're anointing someone with oil for healing. And so if that ever comes up, please see one of us. We would be honored to do that and be a part of them. So that's James chapter five. Let Let's go on.

Job chapter two verse four to six. It says, Satan replied to the Lord, skin for skin. He blesses you only because you bless him. A man will give up everything he has to save his life, but take away his health and he will surely curse you to your face. All right. Do with him as you please, the Lord said to Satan, but spare his life. So Satan left the Lord's presence and he struck Job with a terrible case of boils from head to foot. Do you get the picture? This poor guy has just been through everything.

Again, we don't know the time frame here. It could be a day, could be a week, could be a month. But now he's going to get nailed with uh an illness. And what does that tell you about Satan? It tells you that he has the ability to send illnesses when God allows it. Now that's profound. Listen to that again. You can't deny it. It is right here in black and white. Satan has the ability to send illnesses when God allows it. Now the implications are huge. We said this before. When you get ill, there's certain bases you cover.

Number one, you pray to God, first place you go. Secondly, you go to the doctors as you should. Third, you anoint with oil. But fourth, I believe it's important to acknowledge that Satan could be causing it. It's possible. He sends it. And Jesus knew this and Jesus dealt with this. Look in Luke 13. Matthew, Mark, Luke 13 verse 10. Luke 13 verse 10 says, one Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in the synagogue, he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. Does that need any interpretation? Was crippled by an evil spirit.

She had been double bent for 18 years. Now double bent, they think that means that her curvature of her spine was so that she walked and was unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, woman, you are healed of your sickness. Then he touched her and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised and thanked God. But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant, angry that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. There are six days of the week for working, he said to the crowd.

Come in those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath. But the Lord replied, you hypocrite. You made a friend there, didn't he? You hypocrite. You work on the Sabbath day. Don't you untie your ox or your donkey from their stalls on the Sabbath and lead them out for water? And wasn't it necessary for me even on the Sabbath day to free this dear woman, listen, from the bondage in which Satan had held her for 18 years? So we learn from Jesus that Satan had held us and he knew Jesus knew what was going on with this woman, that Satan had held her in this bondage for these 18 years.

When I taught on this, I said there's a lot of profound truth in this. You know, if you've ever heard of some faith healer that's not a Christian, some faith healer that or some other religion and they heal people of illnesses, real illnesses, you say, wow, how can that be? Listen. If Satan causes an illness, can he lift the illness off of them? So he's the deceiver. That's his role. Can you imagine how much mileage he can get out of it by having some of his false prophets, his false religious leaders heal people to give them credibility that they're really of God?

But it was just him causing the illness and then him taking the illness off of them. You say well, why in the world Satan is so malevolent? Why would he ever take an illness off of someone once he has it on them to accomplish a greater good for him? Yeah. So the point is the bigger point I wanted to make here is Satan can cause some illnesses. And I believe that God has given us the authority in some of those situations to deal with them. Uh he Jesus did. And he freed this woman from them.

Now so we know Satan can send illnesses. Can I deal with it if he does? Well, if God is allowing that illness from Satan as he did with Job, then it's improper to ask for it to be taken away from you. Even if Satan send it. If Job would have prayed and said, Satan, take this illness off of me, what would Satan have said? Who said that? That was the right answer. Was that my wonderful wife? Yeah. Yeah, God allowed it. Satan would say, no, I'm not taking this off. God gave me permission to send this illness so we could not So when we deal with this we acknowledge that some illnesses could be from Satan, God allowing it to work for our good in our life to bring about a refining work in our life.

That's possible. But apart from that, if he sends an illness, I believe we have the ability to use the name of Jesus against that and to deal with them. So as I say, there are four places to go. You go to God. You go to your doctors. You anoint. And then just deal with it just briefly. I mean Satan I don't This is what I say. Satan, I don't know if you're causing this illness. I don't know how could I know that? I don't know, but I do know this. I know that if you're sending this illness apart from God's express will, I know that I have the authority to command you to take this illness off of me.

And so I do. I command it in Jesus's name. Maybe something's there, maybe it's not. I don't have to figure that out. I just cover my tracks. I just cover the bases. I give you a lot of examples, a lot of stories. I just give you one. When I started doing this, I had a pain I had a pain in my ear for many many years. It was like someone taking an ice pick and driving it into my ear. That hurts. If you ever had that, it's like oh man, I have to lay down and keep my neck a certain direction.

And it was just uh you know you just couldn't get rid of it. And I thought I'm going to try this sometime because I started doing spiritual warfare and I thought, I wonder if it could be connected to this. And so when it came, I would say, Satan, I don't know if you're causing this pain. I don't know how how could I know that? I just know that if you are and if you're causing this apart from God's express will, I know that I've been given the authority to use the name of Jesus against all the power of the enemy.

So in Jesus's name I command you to take this pain from me. And invariably within 15 seconds, 20 seconds it was gone. This was a pain that would last for hours. And it really started to get kind of interesting because I thought I thought Satan, why do you keep sending this? Because all you're doing is causing me to know all the more the power that is in the name of Jesus. Every time you send it and it goes away. Do you know what I mean? So this is not theory to me. I could give you a lot of examples.

This is not theory. Is it all the time? No. Half the time? No, probably not. I have no idea. I just encourage you to cover your bases. Listen. Listen, how would you like the end of this? How would you like to get to heaven? And you say, God, there's one thing I don't understand. In 2018 I got an illness that knocked me out for a year. I was laid flat. What was that all about? I don't want to hear Jesus say that was an attack from the enemy because here's what would happen next because I know how that discussion would play out.

Why did that happen to me in 2018? That was an attack from the enemy. And then what would I say? Well, what was I supposed to do about that? I know what I'm supposed to do about that, right? I'm supposed to use the name of Jesus. And here I am. Jesus telling me that and I'm thinking, you mean that's all I would have had to do is deal with it? So and he say, Tom, it's not it's not you. It's It was my name that had the power. Yeah. Look Look, you're here. You would had a much better year, but you're here.

You got here anyway. Maybe you got here a little faster because of that. You know, but I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear Jesus say that. And then I'll say, well, back in 2013 I had an illness like that. Was that an attack? No, no. That was just you walked in a room of 50 people that had the flu. You know, that was stupid, Tom. That was not an attack. But in 2018 that one was. So you could have dealt with it. Yeah, I was waiting for you to deal with it, but you didn't.

Okay. God, doctors, anoint, deal with the possibility of what it could be from. Okay? Don't yell and scream. Don't make a big deal about it. Don't spend an hour on it. The name of Jesus doesn't need all that fan fair. It the power's in the name of Jesus. Satan, I don't know if you're causing this, but I know this. If you're causing this apart from God's express will, I know that he's given me the authority to use the name of Jesus against all the power of the enemy. And so if you're causing this apart from God's express will, I command you to take this off of me now in Jesus's name.

Guest (Male): Yes, there's power in the name of Jesus and it's available to those in a relationship with him. Pastor Tom Keller will be right back to lead us in prayer. Stay with us as study the word continues. You can hear this message from Job again online at ccleb.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. If you'd rather have a CD copy, call us at 717 273 5633. Have you been helped by the ministry? Let us know that. It would be so encouraging to Pastor Tom. Give us a call at 717 273 5633 or write to Study the Word 740 Willow Street, Lebanon, Pennsylvania 17046.

You can also email us through the website at ccleb.com. Study the Word is made possible through the generous support of listeners just like you. And thank you for helping us reach thousands with the love and truth of Jesus. You can give online at ccleb.com or call 717 273 5633. Uh we hope you'll visit us sometime here at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. For our service times and more information go online to ccleb.com. You can also watch our live stream there at ccleb.com or on our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. Here again as promised to lead us in prayer, Pastor Tom.

Pastor Thom Keller: Father, we thank you. We thank you for the power there is in Jesus's name. Everything in the universe is held together by you. Molecules, atoms are held together by you. Without your limits on those on matter, everything would fly apart. And so as you hung on that cross, you were holding the molecules of those spikes together at the very moment you're on that cross. That's That's the control you have over everything. That's the power that there is in the name of Jesus. Father, we are in awe of that power. None of us have an inkling as to how powerful your name really is.

But I pray, Lord, you'd help us to take more seriously what you've said about that name and the right that you've given us to use that name and the power there is in the word of God as it relates to anointing with oil, that we would take your word seriously, know that you meant everything that you wrote. And that when we obey your word, when we trust in your word, we are honoring you. So Lord, make us men and women of the Bible. Make us men and women of the world. Make us men and women that look to you, Jesus, to be to have the answer for every situation in life that we encounter, health being one of them.

We love you, Lord. We praise you and we ask this in Christ's name and all of God's people said

Guest (Male): Amen.

Pastor Thom Keller: Amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. This is Study the Word. Come back next time when Pastor Tom Keller will go a bit further in Job chapter two. Study the Word is a presentation of Calvary Chapel Lebanon, Pennsylvania.