Tree of Life Church, London

Hear and Be Healed

Hear and Be Healed

But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him; and great multitudes came together to HEAR, AND to BE HEALED by him of their infirmities. (Luke 5.15)

And he came down with them and stood in the plain and the company of his disciples and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon which came to HEAR him, AND to BE HEALED of their diseases. (Luke 6.17)

Kenneth Hagin was told this by the Lord several years before he died – “Hear and be healed”.  As he heard the Lord speak it to him, he cross referenced healing and hearing in the New Testament and found out that people came to the Lord to hear and be healed.  Many Christians want to be healed, but how many want to hear?  A lot of people want a lot of things from God, but to receive from God you need faith and faith comes by hearing.  If you want to be healed, you need to hear.

When we look at the Bible and look at Jesus healing the sick and ministering, there is an alarm bell that goes off inside people that says “That is Jesus, not us, we are not Jesus.  Jesus is the Son of God and we are not.”  Now it is true that we are not Jesus – none of us is God in the flesh, but a truth wrongly applied is worse than a lie.  The truth is that Jesus is different from us, but the lie is that this means that we cannot do what Jesus did.  Jesus said:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he do also; and GREATER WORKS than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father. (John 14.12)

If Jesus said that, and if the Bible says that, then you are supposed to do the works Jesus did.  Now, Jesus never said do them without the power of the Holy Spirit, he simply said to do them.  But you can do them because you have access to the power of the Holy Spirit.  You also have the same Father Jesus has.  In John 14.10 Jesus said “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”  In other words, Jesus is saying: “God inside me is doing the miracles, not me.”  Guess what: God inside you works miracles, not you.  Look at Acts 10.38: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him.”

When Jesus came into the world, He removed His mighty power and glory.  If you look at Phil. 2.5-7, you will realize that Jesus was born as a human being and functioned as a human being.  That is why Jesus could not heal anyone for the first 30 years of his life.  He could only work miracles after He was anointed by the Holy Spirit at His baptism.  When this happened, the miracles began.

As a person, Jesus is in a realm of his own: deity; the only God-man.  But as a miracle-worker, we can do the works Jesus did.  Philosophically speaking, Jesus and you are different ontologically, but functionally you are the same.  Jesus is not in a realm of his own when it comes to his ministry.  Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power, and therefore in his ministry, Jesus worked miracles.  But the miracles were by the power of the Holy Spirit, not the power of Jesus.   You have the same Holy Spirit so you need to function the same way.  Look at how Jesus did it:

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, TEACHING in their synagogues, and PREACHING the gospel of the kingdom, and HEALING every sickness and every disease among the people. (Matthew 9.35)

Can you see there that Jesus put teaching first, preaching second and healing third?  Most Christians want healing first without having to be taught or preached to.  They want you to run into them heal them and run away.   But it didn’t even work like that for Jesus – they had to hear and be healed.  Consider what happens when people did not receive Jesus and did not listen to him:

And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them (Mark 6.5)

A few people would probably be less than a dozen, I guess.   The Amplified Bible says “a few sickly people”.  Noah and his family were called a few in 1 Peter 3.20, so it could have been eight people.  If Jesus ministered healing the way many people wanted Jesus to minister healing, he would have rounded up six or seven blind people, gone and found a doctor and got a certificate saying that they were definitely blind.  They he would lay hands on them all, and prove He was the Messiah.

But Jesus didn’t – he only laid his hands on a few sick people.   Sick people – people who would get better anyway.  People who you could claim were not healed by Jesus but by nature.  If Jesus was trying to prove to the world He was the Messiah, he failed.  The truth is Jesus heals in response to faith in His teaching, not to prove He was the Messiah.  You can only find out Jesus is the Messiah by revelation from the Father (which is why Jesus was so surprised when Peter realized He was indeed the Messiah).

There were no manifestations of the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit at Nazareth because of unbelief.  Jesus didn’t prove anything – he got run out of town.   People were in the room which Jesus preached in but they did not hear.  They said “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” (Luke 4.22).

We must listen to teaching.  We must listen to Jesus’ teaching.  Now, we know Jesus went to all the towns and villages teaching, but the question has to be asked what did He teach?

Read Luke 4.14-21:

 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.  And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.  And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.  And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.  And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

I believe that Jesus preached the same message everywhere He went.  He turned to the book of Isaiah and read chapter 61, and taught and preached from there.  Some people believed and received his message and were healed and delivered, and others did not believe and were not healed and were not delivered.

Going back to Luke 5.15, Luke tells us that they came to hear and be healed.  Can you see that hearing is so closely linked to healing?  Why did more people in Nazareth not get healed?  They would not hear.

It is amazing how people can be sitting in the room listening but never hearing.  It is amazing how other people can have seen no miracle, never seen the manifestation of the power of God, but because they hear they believe and they are healed.

 And when they were gone over, they came into the land of Gennesaret.  And when the men of that place had knowledge of him, they sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto him all that were diseased; And besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole.  (Matthew 14.34-36)

This is wonderful example of people hearing and being healed.  Notice that they did not bring the diseased to Jesus until they heard.  How did they gain knowledge of Jesus?  By seeing miracles?  No – this was the first time Jesus went to Gennesaret.  They gained their knowledge by hearing. 

Now the Bible does not say what they heard.  It had to clearly be something to do with sickness because as they heard they went and brought all the diseased.  I consider that the most logical idea is that they heard Jesus preaching from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach... and to heal...”

The way you gain knowledge of Jesus is by hearing.  When you gain knowledge, then with great energy act according to what you know.  Before the church age, they had to bring the sick to Jesus.  Today, we are the body of Christ and we simply have to lay hands on the sick and they will recover.