Sin and Sickness: Are they related?
There is a close relationship between sin and sickness. How many know that their sicknesses are a direct result sin? I hope that no one will come to be prayed for who was living in sin. But if you will obey God and repent of your sin in stop it, God will meet you, and neither your sickness nor your sin will remain. “The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven” James 5:15
Faith is just the open door through which the Lord comes. Do not say, “I was saved by faith” or “I was Healed by faith.” Faith does not save and heal. God saves in heals through that open door. You believe, and the power of Christ comes. Salvation and healing are for the glory of God. I am here because God healed me when I was dying, and I’ve been around the world preaching this full redemption, doing all I can to bring glory to the wonderful name of the one who healed me.
“Sin no more, lest a worst thing comes upon you” John 5:14. The Lord told us in one place about an evil spirit going out of a man. The house that the evil spirit left got all swept and put in order, but it received no new occupant. That evil spirit, with seven other spirits more wicked than itself, went back to the unoccupied house, and “the last state of that man was worse than the first.” Matthew 12:45.
The Lord does not heal you to go to a baseball game or to a racetrack. He heals you for His glory so that from that moment your life will glorify Him. But this man remained stationary. He did not magnify the God. He did not seek to be filled with the Spirit. And his last day became “worse than the first.”
The Lord wants to so cleanse the motives and desires of your hearts, that we will seek one thing only, and that is His glory. I went to a certain place one day and the Lord said, “this is for My glory.”
A young man had been sick for a long time. He had been confined to his bed in an utterly hopeless condition. He was fed with a spoon and was never dressed. The weather was damp, so I said to the people in the house, “I wish you would put the young man’s clothes by the fire to air.” At first, they would not take any notice of my request, but because I was persistent they took out his clothes. When They had been aired, I took them into his room.
Upon entering the room the Lord said to me, “you will have nothing to do with this,” and I just lay prostrate on the floor. The Lord showed me that he was going to shake the place with his glory. The very bed shook. I laid my hands on the young man in the name of Jesus, and the power fell in such a way that I fell with my face to the floor.
In about a quarter of an hour the young man got up and walked back-and-forth praising God. He dressed himself and then went out to the room where his father and mother were. He said “God has healed me.” Both the father and mother fell prostrate to the floor as the power of God surged through that room. There was a woman in that house who had been in an Asylum for lunacy, and her condition was so bad that they were about to take her back. But the power of God healed her, too.
The power of God is just the same today as it was in the past. Men need to be taken back to the old paths, to the old-time faith, to believing God’s word and every “Thus says the Lord” in it. The Spirit of the Lord is moving in these days. God is coming forth. If you want to be in the rising tide, you must accept all God has said.
“Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6). It is Jesus who asks this question. Give him your answer. He will hear, He will answer.
From “Smith Wigglesworth on Healing”
Copyright 1999 Whitaker House Publishing