1. What most impacted you about Episode 9? Do you feel God may have given you a key to your own healing through this teaching? 2. Can you remember a time that God healed you or somebody you know? How did it happen? 3. Have you had any bad experiences regarding healing? How did you process those experiences and what did you learn from them? 4. After watching this episode, is there anything you’d like to change in your approach to healing? Action Point: Take some time to search your own heart regarding the topic of healing. Is there anybody you need to forgive for the way they have handled this topic? Do you need to say sorry to God for the way you have handled it, or for any wrong conclusions you may have come to as a result of your experiences? Thank God that He is a great healer and ask Him to give you His heart and His wisdom regarding this topic. Ask the people you are with right now if they need healing and put some of the things you’ve just learnt into practise!

hey guys and welcome back to this series on the power of words we’re now in episode nine we’re going to be talking about words that heal and i’ve been so blessed in my 18 years so far as a christian to see so many people experience healing sometimes it’s physical healing sometimes it’s emotional healing sometimes it’s freedom from evil spirits and sometimes it’s wonderful healing of broken relationships through words being spoken sometimes it’s because god has spoken to that person through his word sometimes it’s because another person has spoken words that brought healing and sometimes it’s because they’ve spoken words themselves that have brought healing and proverbs 12 18 says the words of the reckless pierce like swords but the tongue of the wise brings healing so if you have learned to speak wisely if you have learned to speak the way god speaks using his words actually your words will be bringing healing to those around you and of course we know that it’s god who is the healer it’s god who does the healing but in this episode we’re going to be looking specifically at healing that comes through words being spoken there are quite a few different ways that this happens so the first one is through gracious words proverbs 16 24 says gracious words are a honeycomb sweet to the soul and healing to the bones and we could ask ourselves well what are gracious words and if we look at the root word for gracious there actually it could be translated agreeable but that’s quite an old-fashioned word isn’t it so the probably the best word that we have to describe that is pleasant pleasant words can bring healing and i remember listening to a lady she was in her late 40s at the time and she was telling her boss that his leadership had brought great healing to her and that was because she had been treated badly by men for many years and when she encountered the way that he spoke to her he spoke to her in a caring patient kind and gracious manner she said that that had ministered deeply to her and perhaps it had brought healing from some of the wounds of her past and enabled her to be able to trust men again in a way that she had not been able to for a long time proverbs 15 4 says the soothing tongue is a tree of life but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit if we look at the hebrew words behind that sentence actually it could easily be translated the tongue that heals is a tree of life but a perverse tongue fractures the spirit and i just want to challenge you at the beginning of this episode and say whose words are you speaking and whose work are you doing are you speaking words that are healing people or are you speaking words that are breaking and destroying people so we’ve looked at gracious words now the second thing that i’m going to look at now is instruction from the word of god now we’ve already read a lot in this series from the book of proverbs so i just want to say something about the man who wrote it his name was solomon and he was not writing with human wisdom look at this first kings 4 30 29 to 30 says and god gave solomon wisdom exceedingly deep insight and understanding beyond measure like the sand on the seashore solomon’s wisdom was greater than that of all the men of the east greater than all the wisdom of egypt and solomon actually became famous for this wisdom that god had given him first kings 4 34 says from all nations people came to listen to solomon’s wisdom sent by all the kings of the world who had heard of his wisdom so i just want to look at some of the things that solomon said in proverbs chapter 4 in this context of healing and in verse 10 it says listen my son accept what i say and the years of your life will be many then in verses 20 to 22 it says my son pay attention to what i say turn your ear to my words do not let them out of your sight keep them within your heart for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body so there’s something about following the wisdom and instruction of the word of god that can bring health to our bodies and can actually extend the length of our lives and one particular instruction in scripture is specifically related to living a long life and you probably know this ephesians 6 2 to 3 it says honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth so another way that healing can happen is when we listen to and live according to the word of god okay so now let’s move on and look at what we usually think of when we use the word healing we’re going to look at james 5 and we’re going to find two keys to healing that involves speaking so james 5 14 16 says is anyone among you sick let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the lord and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well the lord will raise them up if they have sinned they will be forgiven therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective and of course it mentions anointing somebody with oil here but i’m only looking at the keys that involve speaking in this episode so the two keys that involve speaking that we’ve just read are the prayer of faith and confessing our sins one to another so these are two tools that have been given to the body of christ in order to bring about healing when we need it now i think prayer is what we usually do automatically if somebody is sick we immediately pray for them but let me ask you this is it normal in your church or community for people to confess their sins to each other i believe and i’ve experienced that this is a hugely important aspect of the healing ministry i have seen many people healed physically and emotionally after confessing their sins with another brother or sister and then praying together and i really want to encourage you to create safe spaces for that to happen in your church community and be the kind of person who others feel safe confessing their sins to knowing that your only purpose in listening is for their healing and freedom and that you’re not interested in sharing that information with anybody else so so far we’ve looked at gracious words instruction from the word of god the prayer of faith and confessing our sins one to another now for the first 30 years of my life it was very normal for me that if a person was sick i would see and experience people praying for them my parents would pray for me if i was sick i would see other people in the church praying for people who were sick but about six years ago i noticed something very interesting in the bible i noticed that jesus never once told his disciples to pray for the sick isn’t that interesting and do you know that there is not one example in the bible of the disciples ever asking god to heal somebody so how did they do it well first of all jesus told them not to pray for the sick he told them to heal the sick luke 9 1-2 says when jesus had called the twelve together he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases and sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of god and to heal the sick matthew 10 1 says something similar says jesus called his twelve disciples to him gave them authority to drive our impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness now after that verse it’s it lists the name of the 12 disciples and then it says in in verses 5 to 8 these 12 jesus sent out with the following instructions do not go among the gentiles or enter any town of the samaritans go rather to the lost sheep of israel as you go proclaim this message the kingdom of heaven has come near heal the sick raise the dead cleanse those who have leprosy drive out demons freely you have received freely give so it’s interesting that jesus never told them to pray for the sick and he never told them to ask god to heal the sick it’s very clear that he gave them power and authority to do it and then he simply told them to go and do it and of course that’s exactly what they did luke 9 6 says so they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere now after jesus died and was raised from the dead the apostles continued to heal people all throughout the book of acts and what’s really interesting is that we only find one example of a believer praying for a sick person in the book of acts and look what it says this was while paul’s on the island of malta after being shipwrecked okay acts 28 7-9 it says there was an estate nearby that belonged to publius the chief official of the island he welcomed us to his home and showed us generous hospitality for three days his father was sick in bed suffering from fever and dysentery paul went in to see him and after prayer placed his hands on him and healed him when this happened the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured did you see that it says after prayer paul placed his hands on him and healed him so paul did pray but actually the prayer didn’t heal him after praying he placed his hands on him and healed him and we could say well how did he heal him if it wasn’t the prayer how did he heal him well we don’t know if paul simply placed his hands on him or if he spoke some words there’s one example in acts chapter 3 where we do see exactly how it happened and this is acts chapter 3 verses 1 to 7 it says one day peter and john were going up to the temple at the time of prayer at three in the afternoon now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called beautiful where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts when he saw peter and john about to enter he asked them for money peter looked straight at him as did john then peter said look at us so the man gave him gave them his attention expecting to get something from them then peter said silver or gold i do not have but what i have i give you in the name of jesus christ of nazareth walk taking him by the right hand he helped him up and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong so it’s clear here that peter used words he literally told the man to get up and walk he commanded him to walk and look at what peter said he said what i do have i give you you see peter knew that he might not have any money in his pocket but he knew that he had been given power and authority over sickness and he simply exercised that power and authority by speaking in the name of jesus and we could call this word of command so number five is word of command this is also the primary tool that was used throughout the new testament to cast out demons the believers would simply speak to the demons and command them to leave in the name of jesus now we could ask ourselves were the believers always successful in healing the sick and casting out demons when we look at the bible and the answer is no they were not always successful matthew 17 is a great example of this it says when they came to the crowd a man approached jesus and knelt before him lord have mercy on my son he said he has seizures and is suffering greatly he often falls into the fire or into the water i brought him to your disciples but they could not heal him you unbelieving and perverse generation jesus replied how long shall i stay with you how long shall i put up with you bring the boy here to me jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of the boy and he was healed at that moment then the disciples came to jesus in private and asked why couldn’t we drive it out he replied because you have so little faith truly i tell you if you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mountain move from here to there and it will move nothing will be impossible for you so let’s just stop here for a moment what did the disciples do when their attempts to heal or deliver someone had failed did they condemn themselves no did they give up trying to heal and deliver people no did they try to explain what had happened with human logic no did they blame the sick person no did they create some kind of theology that legitimized their failure and made it okay for christians not to be doing these things no they didn’t they realized that their experience had not matched what jesus had told them and they saw it as an opportunity to learn so they went back to jesus and simply asked him jesus why couldn’t we drive out why couldn’t we heal this boy and can i really really encourage you to do the same thing in those moments ask jesus why something hasn’t worked if it doesn’t agree with his word ask him why your experience doesn’t agree with his word and let him teach you see scripture gives us a number of different reasons why people might be sick in john 9 3 jesus says that a particular blind man was born blind simply so that the work of god could be shown through him a few moments ago we read james 5 which said if they have sinned they will be forgiven which suggests that perhaps the sickness may have been caused by a particular sin and it says therefore confess your sins one to another so that you may be healed in luke 13 there’s a woman who is a crippled she couldn’t bend over and of course the problem looked purely physical but the scripture tells us she was crippled by a spirit and sometimes we might assume that a person needs healing when actually they might need deliverance of an evil spirit before they need healing in paul’s first letter to the corinthian church he mentions that many of them are weak and sick and he explains why he says that it’s god’s judgment for a particular type of sin which you can read all about in first corinthians chapter 11 but he says when we are judged in this way by the lord we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world so in some cases it could be that for a temporary season having a sickness could be better for the person than being healed in that moment it could be more beneficial for them to learn whatever it is the lord is teaching them than actually to be healed in that moment so depending on the situation god might teach you something different but in the story that we just read jesus had absolutely no problem answering their question and we we just read that he answered because you have so little faith and actually i just want to say that that is not a good translation the literal translation of what he said is actually because of your unbelief that’s one word in greek unbelief now since jesus said quite a few times to people your faith has healed you or nothing will be impossible for him who believes we could say that this issue of faith and unbelief seems to stand out as the primary reason that healing either takes place or doesn’t take place now in mark chapter 9 which seems to be the same story of the boy who is demon possessed but told a little bit differently jesus tells the boy’s father that everything is possible for one who believes and then it says this in in verse 24 immediately the boy’s father exclaimed i do believe help me overcome my unbelief so sometimes we think that either we believe or we don’t believe but here the father is saying that he believes but he also has some unbelief so it seems that he had faith and we know that we don’t need huge faith a mustard seed is enough jesus said but at the same time he also had unbelief and he confessed that to jesus and later on in the version of this story it says in verses 28 to 29 after jesus had gone indoors his disciples asked him privately why couldn’t we drive it out and jesus replied this kind can come out only by prayer and in some manuscripts it says by prayer and fasting but what jesus could be suggesting here is that the more time we spend in prayer the less likely we will be to hesitate in unbelief and the more likely we will be to see healing deliverance take place anyway one thing is really clear from this story and that is that words alone are not enough you can speak the right words but see no healing and deliverance at all and a few moments ago we read that the prayer of faith will make the sick person well so whether it’s the prayer or whether it’s the word of command it’s clear that the words themselves don’t contain any special power the key ingredient is faith we could say faith not mixed with unbelief so i want to ask you where did your unbelief come from one thing’s for sure it didn’t come from god did it come from your experiences did it come from teachings you heard or a book that you read who taught you that christians can’t heal the sick or cast out demons today did god teach you that sometimes we need to identify where our unbelief has come from there may be people that we need to forgive but we will certainly need to confess to god that we fed ourselves on the wrong things and what we’ve harboured unbelief in our hearts perhaps then as we feed on the word of god and as we pray we will find faith rising up inside of us that god’s power will work through us as we speak faith-filled words and that our words will be able to bring healing and deliverance to many i love what happened when peter combined prayer faith and words when he encountered a dead woman in acts chapter 9. this is verses 40 to 42 it says peter sent them all out of the room then he got down on his knees and prayed turning toward the dead woman he said tabitha get up she opened her eyes and seen peter she sat up he took her by the hand and helped her to her feet then he called for the believers especially the widows and presented her to them alive this became known all over joppa and many people believed in the lord now this is why we want to see god’s power working through us peter combined faith and prayer and the word of command and many people all over that area believed in jesus as a result we don’t do these things to glorify ourselves or to try to make a name for ourselves it’s so that people would see his power and that they would believe in him use your words mixed with faith to glorify god and let others see who he really is finally i just want to end by mentioning two of the most powerful sentences i have ever come across when it comes to bringing healing to people’s hearts and to their relationships the first one is i’m sorry and the second one is i forgive can i encourage you to use these two sentences often ask god to give you the humility to use them ask god to soften your heart and enable you to say them and really mean them you know saying i’m sorry to someone can melt their heart and it can be the beginning of the healing of a relationship even if you think that what they’ve done to you is worse than what you did to them saying i’m sorry to god is a sign of humility and god says that he opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble i often come before the lord and say lord i’m sorry for whatever it is i know i’ve done why not ask god right now if there’s anyone that you need to say sorry to it might be him or it might be a person that you’ve hurt with your words or actions why not ask god right now if there’s anyone that you need to forgive you see when we release a person from our judgment actually we are the ones who get set free sometimes we don’t even need to go to that person sometimes we need to simply say god what that person did to me really hurt but because you’ve so generously forgiven me i choose to forgive them i choose to let it go now and i’m asking you to heal me heal my heart from all the pain that was caused now these two sentences don’t come easily and they don’t come naturally but when god softens your heart they come and they unlock such tremendous healing that your life will never be the same let’s pray father we just want to thank you that you’ve given us so many keys from your word in this episode for healing i want to thank you lord that if we are wise with our words we will see healing come to many around us as we speak your words gracious words words of instruction words full of faith words not with unbelief words that carry your power and authority we thank you lord that you are the healer would you continue to heal us and would you continue to heal others through us in jesus name amen and i’ll see you in episode 10.