BIBLICAL TRUTHS WE NEED TO KNOW
Thy word is truth.— John 17:17
Praying to the Father, Jesus said, “.. .thy word is truth.” There are two kinds of truth: truth based on what God’s Word says and sense-knowledge truth based on what our physical senses tell us.
It is all right to walk by sense-knowledge truth as long as it does not contradict Bible truth. But living in the natural as we do, we get so accustomed to believing what the outward man tells us that it is difficult to switch over and walk by the truth given in God’s Word.
The Bible says, “… Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
The teaching of the Word instills faith in us. There is difference between Thomas’ faith and Abraham’s faith — between the faith that is based on physical evidence and the faith that is based upon what God has said.
Most people who are untaught in the Word are seeking someone who can pray the prayer of faith for them. The prayer of faith may deliver them temporarily, but unbelief eventually will annul the effects of that prayer. The prayer of faith of another person may temporarily deliver the person being prayed for but we have to believe and resist any symptom that will come up later. Our unbelief can cause the same thing that was delivered to return.
There has been criticism of mass healing meetings because, in many cases, the healings do not last. This is true because where a mass faith is present, people can be helped temporarily. However, to maintain their healing, these people should continue to feed on God’s Word.
Once there was a Full Gospel woman preacher in Texas who had a condition in her body that caused her head to be pulled to one side. Specialists told her it was a deterioration of the nerves and nothing could be done for it. They warned her that the condition would grow worse and she should prepare to be an invalid within six months.
She and her husband got on a train and went to a divine healing meeting. She was instantly delivered and for eight or ten months she was all right. Then this condition returned. Later she got to understand why she had lost her healing. She had unbelief when the pain started a bit and she said to herself. May be this sickness is coming back. Unfortunately it came back. Knowing the truth is the foundation that can set us free.
If God heals us, we are always healed and we won’t lose it.” What we need to do is resist the devil who is the author of the sickness and the disease. In the book of Revelation, we read that Jesus appeared in a vision to John on the Isle of Patmos, giving him a message to one of the churches. It was “Hold that fast which thou hast” (Rev. 3:11).
The word “believe” is a verb — an action word. To believe in a Biblical sense means “to take” or “to grasp.” To believe Jesus means to take Him for all that the Scrip-tures declare Him to be: To believe on Jesus as Savior means to take Him as your Savior; to believe in Jesus as Healer means to take Him as your Healer.
A man can say, “I believe in salvation,” yet never be saved. He can say, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,” yet die and go to hell. He can say, “I believe that the New Birth is scriptural,” yet never really possess the New Birth.
By the same token, you can say, “I believe in divine healing” because you saw someone healed or because you read about it in the Bible. But that doesn’t mean you have received your healing. You, too, must take Jesus as your Healer.
Believing is an act of the will. Joshua said, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve… but as for me and my house, we WILL serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). In Revela¬tion 22:17 we read, “… And whosoever WILL, let him take the water of life freely.”
To believe, then, is to act on the Word of God. So faith is acting on the Word, and doubt is refusing to act on the Word.
As written earlier, there are two kinds of truth we can believe in: natural, human truth, or truth that is revealed in God’s Word. We could call the latter Bible truth, revelation truth, or spiritual truth. Spiritual things are just as real as physical things, because God, who is a Spirit, created all physical things. When the physical body is dead and in the grave, it returns to dust, yet the spiritual man lives on.
Through the senses — through natural, human truth — a person realizes he is sick and has pain or disease. But God’s Word reveals that “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Matt. 8:17), and by His stripes we were healed (1 Peter 2:24).
Isn’t God’s Word just as true one time as it is another? Isn’t it just as true when you have sickness and suffering as it is when you are well?
By believing what your physical senses tell you, you would say, “I don’t have healing; I am sick.” But by believing the truth of God’s Word, you can say, “I am healed by His stripes!”
BY KENNETH HAGIN
