It’s one of those passages we don’t really like to spend much time on given how it can spur some uncomfortable scenarios and questions for us ‘believers’. You can read there in 1 Cor. 11:27-32 how Paul was explaining why ‘many’ believers were being ‘chastened and judged by the Lord’. (32) He did not mince words either telling them why many were ‘weak, sick’, and yes...even ‘dead’. (30).

Would you take a moment and just let this sink in ... that what you are reading is indeed written down right in front of you in your own Bible? And please remember, we need not be afraid of things we read in our Bible, even if/when they don’t always ‘fit’ with how we have been taught to believe. I would also caution you to not get ahead of me here or start jumping to conclusions; the enemy likes to use that tactic when his lies are about to be exposed.

I warned you a few days ago that we’d be wading in to a subject matter that many might find unsettling. God’s word can do that oftentimes, especially when it comes up against false teachings that have found a way deep into our hearts. Unlearning and then relearning something is never easy. And I would also submit to you today that we can better understand the heart of the NT Jesus when we are more familiar with the heart of the OT ‘Jesus’.

“Wait?”, you say? “What do you mean the ‘Jesus of the OT’? Friends...Jesus has been around since the beginning of time. (John 1:1,14; 8:58). Do you recall one of the questions from the ‘pop quiz’ the other day on 1 Cor. 10? Who was traveling with those Israelites in the wilderness when they left Egypt? (1-4). Who do you think is the ‘express image of the invisible God’? (Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:1-3). When Philip asked Jesus to reveal the Father to them, what was the response Jesus gave? (John 14:7-11).

Jesus is the ‘same yesterday, today, and forever’. (Heb. 13:8) The same Jesus we read about in Acts 10:38 who went about ‘healing all who were oppressed by the devil’ is the same Lord who promised His people when they left Egypt that He would remove all sickness from them. (Ex. 15:26; 23:25; Deut. 7:15). The NT Jesus we read about who went about teaching and preaching the gospel and ‘healing every sickness and every disease among the people’ whom He had compassion for’ (Matt. 9:35-36) is the same Lord we read about in Ps. 103:2-3 whose ‘benefits’ include ‘forgiving all our iniquities and healing us of ALL our diseases.” Not to unnerve anyone here regarding that promise in Ps. 103, but if He’s not ‘healing all our diseases’, how can we be certain He is ‘forgiving all our iniquities’?

And the Jesus we read about in John 5 who asked that man (who had an ‘infirmity for 38 years’) if he would like to be ‘made well’ (6) and then healed him adding: “now go and sin no more or something worse will come upon you’ (14) is the same God who minced no words warning His people what they could expect if they refused to do what He asked of them back in Deut. 28:20-22,27-29,35,58-62. So once again I ask you: “Why do we think God changed?” (Mal. 3:6)

Tomorrow, Lord willing, perhaps a look as what significant component of truth was left out of the ‘faith and healing’ movement/teachings that was, and still remains in some circles today, so prominent.