People come up with all kinds of reasons why prayers for healing aren’t answered, most of them placing the responsibility on God. He’s not doing that anymore, it wasn’t His will, or His timing. He gave you your disease to help you become a better Christian. He did answer your prayer and the answer was no, and the list goes on.

It’s obvious that many prayers for healing go unanswered but in this study I’d like us to consider the possibility that God is not the problem. He calls Himself the God who heals us (Exodus 15:26, Psalm 103:3). His word tells us that one result of the suffering and death of His Son is so we can be healed (Isaiah 53:4-5).

When we’re sick, His word instructs us to go to the elders for prayer and promises us that the prayer offered in faith will make us well (James 5:14-16). The New Testament contains many examples of the Lord and His apostles healing people without a single verse to justify man’s opinion that all that somehow stopped. In fact, news from around the world tells us of numerous healings happening in our time.

Because so much of the Western church denies the existence of supernatural healing today there are no ”official” statistics on the reasons why prayers for healing fail. But having done a fair amount of research on the subject I can give you an unofficial list of the top reasons faith healers from all over the spectrum have compiled over the years.

Unforgiveness

By far the number one reason is our unwillingness to forgive those who have wronged us. In doing so we think we’re punishing the other person, but it turns out we’re the ones who suffer for it. Here’s why.

In Matt 6:14-15 Jesus said, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Remember, there are two kinds of forgiveness believers receive. One is the forgiveness that brings salvation and eternal life. It’s a once for all time unconditional forgiveness that cannot be revoked (Eph. 1:13-14).

The second is the forgiveness believers seek when they sin. It’s the forgiveness that keeps us in fellowship with God while we’re here on earth. This is the forgiveness John spoke about in 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

In Matt. 6:9-13 Jesus was teaching the disciples how to pray by giving them what we call the Lord’s prayer. Only a believer can call God “Our Father in Heaven” (John 1:12-13) so Jesus was not talking about the forgiveness that brings salvation, but the forgiveness that keeps us in good standing with God. Among other things, this forgiveness is conditional upon us forgiving those who sin against us.

Paul explained it this way.

“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” (Eph. 4:26-27).

If we let the day end without forgiving the person who has made us angry we’re sinning. This will give the devil a foothold in our life which, if we continue in our unforgiveness, he will build into a stronghold, causing it to fester until it can actually turn into a sickness or disease.

I know of some God fearing born-again believers who have held on to their anger toward someone who wronged them for decades. It has made them bitter, unloving, untrusting, and in some cases physically ill, and yet they adamantly refuse to forgive the person who wronged them. What a different life they could have had.

Our prayers to be healed from a sickness or disease caused by this anger will go unanswered until we confess our sin to the Lord and are forgiven. And we can’t just go through the motions hoping the Lord will heal us if we say the right words. He knows the motives of our heart and is not happy when people try to fool Him. We have to sincerely forgive the other person. If we can, we should forgive the person face to face. If not, we can confess our sin to the Lord and ask His forgiveness.

Remember, James 5:16 tells us to confess our sins to each other so we can be healed. Confession purifies us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9) and makes our prayers powerful and effective.

The Unmerciful Servant

The Lord explained all this in greater detail in the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant Matt. 18:21-35:

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?

Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven times.’

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’

But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

What Does That Mean to Us?

We’ve often discussed the nature of parables; how they’re heavenly stories put into an earthly context and how the major characters always symbolize others. In the case of this parable the King is the Lord, you and I are His servants, the debts we owe represent our sins, and the jailer     is Satan.

The King had forgiven a debt the servant couldn’t have repaid in a thousand lifetimes, and did  so simply because he was asked to. The servant on the other hand demanded full and immediate payment from a friend for a much, much smaller sum. But the issue is not the legitimacy or even the size of the debt, it’s the comparative value. Shouldn’t being released from the burden of a debt so large he could never repay it have made the servant more forgiving toward his fellow servant?

The servant’s demand for payment demonstrated his lack of gratitude for what the King had done for him. That’s what aroused the King’s anger, and He turned the servant over to the jailer.

Our debt of sin against the Lord is similarly impossible to repay, but in the Lord’s case He can’t simply overlook it. His requirement for justice demands the debt be paid in full. Knowing we could never pay it, He sent His Son to pay it for us. This freed Him to completely and unconditionally forgive us just because we ask Him to.

Don’t forget, from the Lord’s point of view we were all murderers, adulterers, blasphemers, thieves and such when He forgave us (Eph. 2:1-5). These are all crimes punishable by death. We’ve been forgiven so much, isn’t even a significant sacrifice justifiable under the circumstances? What offense would be too large to forgive in others when compared with what the Lord has forgiven in us?

Our unwillingness to forgive legitimate sins others commit against us demonstrates our ingratitude for what the Lord has done for us. It’s the result of the typical human double standard wherein we demand justice from others while expecting mercy for ourselves. This ingratitude            is itself a sin and like all unconfessed sin can cause us to miss out on blessings we might have otherwise received.  It also leaves us open to attack by our enemy which may even subject us to torment from the enemy. That’s why, in the parable, the jailer represents Satan.

The great lesson of this parable is in the Lord’s final statement.

“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart” (Matt. 18:35).

Please read this carefully. If your health issues are due to your refusal to forgive someone who has wronged you in the past, you can’t blame God. Holding onto your hurt or anger has put you out of fellowship with Him and given the devil a foothold in your life, which he has turned into a health problem for you.

Matt. 6:14-15 says God can’t forgive you for your sin of unforgiveness until you forgive the one who wronged you from your heart. Your sin of unforgiveness is blocking your prayers for healing.

Don’t take this lightly. When I asked the Lord to show me all the people in my life I had failed to forgive, I was amazed at the number. It seems like every day for weeks He was recalling another incident to my mind.

Ask Him the same question and when He brings someone to mind, forgive him or her from your heart. It doesn’t matter if your feelings were justified, the Lord would have been justified in refusing to forgive you, but He did it anyway. Go and do the same.

The Bible spends a lot of time on this subject and so we have, too. In the coming weeks we’ll look at some of the other top reasons why prayers for healing go unanswered. See you then.

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself” (Ezekiel 33:7-9).

Ezekiel 33:7-9 tells of the Lord appointing Ezekiel to be a watchman over Israel, which at the time consisted only of the Southern Kingdom. (This confirmed His earlier statement to that effect in Ezekiel 3:17.)  God had also said the prophets He sent to the Northern kingdom earlier were also His watchmen (Hosea 9:8). Notice the watchmen were also prophets God had appointed to speak to Israel on His behalf.

These are the only two places where God speaks of appointing a watchman to warn the people of the consequences of their sinfulness, and both are in the Old Testament and were intended for Israel. And only Ezekiel was held personally accountable for conveying the warning.

There is only one mention of a watchman in the New Testament (John 10:3) and then only in a few English translations. The KJV calls him a porter. Most translations use gate-keeper or door keeper. His job was to open the gate of the community sheep pen so the shepherds could retrieve their sheep. He was not a lookout, or “watchman on the wall.”

A porter is also mentioned in Mark 13:34. Here the Lord was telling believers who will be on Earth at the time of the Second Coming to be on guard and be alert, like a porter who stands at the door and awaits His master’s return. The door keeper/porter was not commanded to warn the people of impending events in either of these cases.

In summary, I believe Ezekiel 33:7-9 was intended specifically for Ezekiel as God’s prophet to Israel.  It was  was not meant to have application in the Church today.

But that doesn’t mean God has left the Church in the dark where His plan is concerned.  In fact Paul specifically said that we should not be in the dark concerning the things to come (1 Thess. 5:4).  You see, the Church has something the people of Ezekiel’s day didn’t have. We have the completed Word of God and it contains everything we need in order to know where we are on God’s timeline.

Therefore,  although I periodically draw comparisons between current events and Bible prophecy, I don’t see myself or anyone else alive today as a God-appointed “watchman on the wall.”  As a church we don’t need specially appointed prophets/watchmen to warn us of what’s coming.  Each of us is supposed to become our own watchman by studying His Word.

In this way we come out of the darkness (spiritual ignorance) and into the light (spiritual awareness).  We will not be taken by surprise but will see the signs of the coming Day of the Lord  for what they are and will encourage one another because we are not appointed to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:8-11).

If it’s Not One Thing, it’s Another …

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the things the Bible tells us about the times in which we live.

Jesus used the symbolism of a woman in labor in reference to the Second Coming.   Birth pangs begin well ahead of time to alert the woman of the nearness of her child’s birth.  Jesus said in the same way wars, famine, earthquakes, and pestilence alert us to the nearness of His coming (Matt. 24: 4-8, Luke 21:11).

In both cases, the increasing frequency and intensity of the occurrences signal movement toward the culmination of the event.  After years of denial, most people agree the signs Jesus identified are in evidence all around us and are rapidly increasing in both frequency and intensity.

Of particular importance is the Lord’s mention of a growing hatred of the Jewish people as the end approaches that will result in them being hated by all nations (Matt. 24:9).  Who can deny that we’re seeing a dramatic rise in anti-Semitism as a general trend in the world, as well as the abandonment of pro Israel positions by nations who have traditionally been Israel’s friends.

Paul added other signs that would indicate the end was approaching.

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons (1 Timothy 4:1).

As I look at the current state of what passes for Christianity today, I’m convinced that Paul was really using his letters to Timothy to warn us, not just him.

To me, much of the “emerging church” movement has abandoned the fundamentals of our faith in an effort to attract everyone while offending no one, turning Sunday services into up-tempo variety shows and mistaking attendance figures and bank balances for evangelistic success.  Lately there’s even been a blending of Christianity and Islam into “Chrislam” in another attempt to appeal to everyone while offending no one.

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

People regularly comment to me about the mean-spirited nature of some who frequent Christian forums.  They ask if these people are really believers.  The name calling, personal insults, and pronouncements of judgment against those with differing opinions would make a reasonable person wonder. I tell them the less confident people are in their beliefs the more abusive they can become in defending them. If you have limited knowledge you’re forced to resort to personal attacks in response to questions.

It’s said that many thousands of new believers are born-again every day, mostly in China, India, and Africa.  Are these third world converts responding to the construction of huge campuses in their towns, and the arrival of professional musicians and cast members to entertain them? No.

They meet secretly in barns, caves, and forests, often without professional leadership of any kind, and respond to signs and wonders as the Holy Spirit moves powerfully among them. Where are the miracles in the emerging church? Or are they just practicing a form of godliness while denying its power?

“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

One of the great myths in the church today is the “inclusivism” taught in some liberal denominations. It claims there are many roads to eternal life and as long as people are sincere in their beliefs, no matter who they worship as God, they’ll find their way to salvation.

But Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt 7:13-14). “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9). “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Sounds pretty exclusive to me.

Another is the elevation of dreams, visions and prophetic messages above the written Word as the preferred source of information concerning God’s plans. It is true that Peter spoke of dreams, visions, and prophetic messages as signs that the last days are upon us (Acts 2:17-18). But these were meant to support the written Word, not replace it.

Because of this misuse use of spiritual gifts, a growing number of Christians believe the time of God’s wrath will actually be a time of glory for believers who are spiritually prepared, a time for the “Manifestation of the Sons of God.”   They don’t believe Jesus is coming to take His Church to heaven.  Instead they believe the Church will create heaven here and when it’s ready we’ll summon the Lord to come and lead us.

By relying primarily on these dreams and visions they’ve re-written God’s plan for the end of the age, making it into a human centered elevation of man to godhood.  But God said His word is the lamp for our feet and the light for our path (Psalm 119:105) not our dreams and visions. Paul’s admonition to “search the Scriptures daily to see if these things be true” (Acts 17:11) seems to have been forgotten.

These examples of false teaching in the Church were predicted by Paul as part of the apostasy that would precede the Day of the Lord (2 Thess. 2:3).

… Or Another

In past articles I’ve pointed out the similarities between Islamic prophecies of  al Mahdi and Biblical prophecies of the Antichrist.  For example, both show a leader coming on the scene during a time of great turmoil on earth.  Both depict him as man who will initially appear to be a peacemaker who will have a seven-year reign, head up a one world religion and one world government, and claim supernatural origins.

Both prophecies culminate in a battle between good and evil that brings about earth’s final judgment. It’s as if they’re pointing to the same person. The difference is that in Islam he’s a good guy, while the Bible calls him evil.

Take this charismatic (in the secular sense) political and religious leader with his supernatural power, add the widely held but incorrect belief that God and Allah are the same, and that Islam is a religion of peace, and then subtract the spirit of discernment that will disappear with the Church and you can see how this Islamic leader could unite a frightened world on the brink of disaster.

All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world (Rev. 13:8).

The Mahdi/Antichrist’s arrival will be a time of great excitement, with people everywhere believing that the savior of the world has come to bring the peace they’ve longed for. They’ll all marvel at the power and presence of their pseudo savior.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:21).

While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape (1 Thess. 5:3). But alas, all too soon they’ll realize he’s an imposter and they’re stuck in the deadliest period of time in history, a time that half of them won’t survive.

But Wait, There’s More

So far, we’ve looked at signs that have an indeterminate rate of acceleration from which we can only make general observations. Does the Bible give us anything more specific to watch for?

The first clear sign Jesus gave the disciples when they asked about the end times was the Abomination of Desolation standing in the Holy Place (Matt. 24:15). Within a few years of His death and resurrection the Temple was destroyed. Shortly after that the nation ceased to exist altogether.  In order to have an abomination of desolation you have to have a Temple, and in order to have a Temple you have to have a nation of covenant keeping Jewish people in Israel. These conditions have not been met since 70AD.

Therefore the rebirth of the nation was the first major sign that the time of the end was upon us. But Israel is not yet a nation of covenant keeping people, and won’t be until after the battle of Ezekiel 38 (Ezekiel 39:22). Out of that battle a seven year covenant will emerge, which will start the clock on Daniel’s missing 70th Week (Daniel 9:24-27).  At that time they will build a temple. In the middle of the 70th week the Abomination of Desolation will occur and the Great Tribulation will begin (Daniel 9:27; Matt. 24:15).

Then, 1260 days later it will end and shortly after that, on a day and at an hour no one could have known in advance (Matt. 24:36, 24:42,44; 24:50; 25:13) the Lord will return to establish His Kingdom. In Matt. 24:34 Jesus hinted that all these things will happen within the lifetimes of people being born when the first sign, the rebirth of Israel, appears.

In Psalm 90:10, Moses wrote about man’s lifespan, saying it would level out at 70-80 years on average.  Current UN statistics show that average lifespan in much of the world fall within that range today. Counting forward from the birth of Israel in 1948 gives us a window of opportunity from 2018-2028.

The Rapture of the Church

In Acts 15:13-18 James said Israel was being set aside while the Lord went among the Gentiles to take out of them a people for Himself. After that He would rebuild David’s fallen Tabernacle, a reference to the Temple.  The Greek phrase translated “to take out of” literally means “to carry away from the time and place.”  The Church will be carried away from the time and place of the Temple’s rebuilding before it takes place.

Paul, who heard James say this at the Council of Jerusalem, confirmed it in his letter to the Romans. He said Israel has been hardened in part (against God) until the full number of Gentiles has come in. After that all Israel will be saved (Romans 11:25-26). The Greek phrase translated “full number” indicates a specified or predetermined number.  To “come in” means to arrive at one’s scheduled destination” as when a ship or train “comes in.”

Paul was saying the Church has a predetermined number and when that number is reached we will come in to our scheduled destination.  Jesus said our scheduled destination is His Father’s house (John 14:2-3).  After that He will turn to Israel again. The Temple will be built and the remaining seven years of Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy, known as the time of God’s Wrath will be fulfilled. During this time Israel will be purified in preparation for the Kingdom Age.

These two statements confirm that the Rapture of the Church will take place before the restoration of Israel’s covenant with God, which will take place 7 years before the Lord’s return to establish His Kingdom on Earth.

It Doesn’t Take a Watchman

In closing, I advise everyone to stop watching the network news and instead scroll through the daily headline summaries that many websites offer to gain a more complete understanding of the state of our world.  Then, as you become more familiar with these and other similar passages of Scripture you can gain a perspective on current events that those who are not knowledgeable simply cannot acquire.  You’ll discover you can literally have your Bible in one hand and a cross section of world news in the other and see how it’s all unfolding.

During His First Coming Jesus accused the religious leaders of the day of being better at predicting the weather than they were at recognizing the signs of his coming (Matt. 16:2-3) even though those signs were clearly identified in their Scriptures.

As you can see the same can be said about most of our leaders today.  But because we have the completed Word of God we don’t have to depend on anyone else to tell us where we are on God’s time table.