One question that Christians often have when it comes to healing is how long should they expect to wait between the time they know they need healing and the healing itself. We are used to reading accounts of healing in the New Testament where they are all instantaneous, and we think it should always be that way. We see no reason why God should delay in healing us.
Yesterday morning at 5 A.M., I got up to pee. It’s common for men as they get older to do
that more often, and more noticeably, when they’re sleeping.
The urinary tract runs right through the prostate. The prostate often enlarges for various
reasons, so it restricts the flow of urine, so you often don’t feel like you’ve
emptied your bladder.
Now I am told I have an enlarged prostate and a cancerous
one. I don’t know if the cancer caused
the enlargement.
But between the time I got up and the time I went to back to
bed, I was thinking about my prostate, and the cancer, and the fact that this
whole thing is still going on, and Hezekiah comes to mind. And like I’ve said and will say so often, I
listen to things that come to mind in the middle of the night.
Now Hezekiah is Old Testament, and Christians often don’t give
the Old Testament the attention it deserves, because that’s the Old Covenant, and
we are in the New Covenant. But Paul
says (1 Corinthians 10:11 NASB95): 11 Now these things happened to them as an example,
and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have
come.
The word ‘example’ τυπικῶς [tupikos, or
typikos] is related to the English word ‘types.’ We often speak of types of Christ, things in
the Old Testament that are pictures of Christ.
And things in the Old Testament picture things in the New Testament, so
don’t be afraid to study them. Sometimes
things change, but often they are the same.
In II Chronicles, there are three long chapters telling us
what a great king Hezekiah was. There
were a lot of bad kings before him, including his father Ahaz.
But as soon as Hezekiah becomes king, he begins to work to bring
the nation back to God (II Chronicles 29:3 (NASB95) In the first year of his
reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and
repaired them.)
And after 3 chapters describing his faithful acts, his
country is invaded by Assyria, which had been making its way throughout the
neighboring nations, destroying and conquering them. What is interesting is that the Bible
connects the two. When Assyria invades
the land, it explicitly connects this with Hezekiah’s strong devotion to
God. (2 Chronicles 32:1 NASB95 After
these acts of faithfulness Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah
and besieged the fortified cities, and thought to break into them for himself.)
God would soon deliver them.
Miraculously. Spectacularly. But first, Assyria is allowed to wreak some
havoc and try to intimidate and frighten the people of God by reminding them
that no other nation had been able to withstand their might, so why should they
think that they will be any different?
Disease, and particularly cancer, strike fear into people
everywhere, and even Christians. And why
should Christians think that they will be any different?
So like I said, all this came to mind between the time I got
up and the time I went back to bed. I’m
lying there in bed, thinking about all this, so I got up and wrote most of this
lesson.
The whole situation is told in great detail 3 times in the Bible:
II Kings 18,19; II Chronicles 29-32; and Isaiah 36-38.
Hmmm! Do you think
God wants to get our attention here?
The king of Assyria sends an emissary to Hezekiah, actually
to the people hearing from the city walls: 2 Chronicles 32:13–17
(NASB95)
13 ‘Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all
the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the nations of the lands able at all
to deliver their land from my hand? 14 ‘Who was there among all the gods of
those nations which my fathers utterly destroyed who could deliver his people
out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you from my hand? 15
‘Now therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you like this, and
do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his
people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God
deliver you from my hand?’ ” 16 His servants spoke further against the
LORD God and against His servant Hezekiah. 17 He also wrote letters to insult
the LORD God of Israel, and to speak against Him, saying, “As the gods of the
nations of the lands have not delivered their people from my hand, so the God
of Hezekiah will not deliver His people from my hand.”
There are at least two important things in this passage that
Christians need to understand and embrace.
The first is that God didn’t deliver Hezekiah immediately. It was going to be a spectacular miracle, but
He waited. And that’s OK. Maybe He waited so they could this all on
record for people to read for thousands of years to come.
It seems like it, because God wanted everybody to be clear
about what was going on here. All these
other nations had their own gods, but they couldn’t deliver their people from
the hands of the Assyrians. The Assyrians
concluded that Hezekiah’s God was no different.
And this is the second thing. The difference between the living and true
God and the other gods is that the true God delivers His people from their enemies.
I know a lot of people will object here and say that God often
doesn’t deliver His people from either sickness or their enemies, and it wasn’t
His will to do so.
It would take a book to answer all the questions and answer
all the objections, but we need to start with what the Bible teaches.
We don’t know what happened with anyone else. We only know what goes on inside of us.
The whole point of this story is that God delivers His people,
and you should expect Him to.
If you have not read the story of Hezekiah or at least not
lately, I would encourage you to do so. There
is so much to learn there about how God works.
Personal update:
I went to my oncologist Monday. (9/27)
I had lymphoma from 2017 to 2019. My prostate doctor gave me a name of a
prostate specialist, who I will see in October.
My doctor ordered three tests to see if the cancer had spread:
a blood test, a CT scan, and a bone scan.
He took the blood test Monday. I will have the CT Thursday and the bone scan
Friday. I will see him again
Monday.
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