Sermon Central
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Getting To Know God - Part 2 - The God Who Heals Series
Contributed by Stephen Belokur on Sep 23, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: Jehovah-Rapha; the God Who Heals. How does He heal? Who does He heal? What does He heal? This is not your usual "healing" sermon but it takes a more broad approach. Praise His Name Forever!!!
Getting To Know God - Part 2 - The God Who Heals
Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …
“Jesus said, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our home with him.
“He who does not love Me will not obey My teaching. These words you hear are not My own; they belong to the Father who sent Me.”
And our memory refresher verse(s) for today is(are) …
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Please open your Bibles to 2 Kings 20:1-11
Last week we started taking a look into WHO God is.
It is difficult to love someone you know nothing about.
How much do we REALLY know about the One we call God?
We know that we can see God in Christ as it says in Colossians 2:9 AMPC
“For in Him (Jesus) the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form [giving complete expression of the divine nature].”
And, we wholeheartedly believe that to be true.
And even though we can see the fullness of God in Jesus, it is good to look into the Old Testament and see the attributes of YHWH also called Jehovah. These names may be used interchangeably.
Last week we took a look at the account of Moses and the Burning Bush and we saw that the Lord’s name is YHWH, substituted with the two word description of, “the LORD”.
We also saw that YHWH is identified as “I AM WHO I AM”.
He is the same wherever He may be encountered at any point of eternity. He is immutable, which means that He never changes.
Today we are going to take look at another one of YHWH’s attributes which is often called Jehovah-Rapha and we find the meaning of that name in
Exodus 15:26 where Moses says …
“If you listen carefully to YHWH your God and do what is right in His eyes, if you pay attention to His commands and keep all His decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I AM YHWH, who heals you.”
YHWH-Rapha or Jehovah-Rapha = the God Who Heals You
There is a lot of talk today about divine healing and there is a lot in the Bible about divine healing. Some of it seems pretty unusual and other instances seem perfectly normal.
Let’s read about one of the more unusual healings …
But, before we read we see in 2 Kings 19 that Hezekiah has become the King of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel after their civil war.
The Kingdom under Hezekiah is strong because he is following after YHWH.
Hezekiah is destroying all of the pagan idols and their worship sites throughout his kingdom.
Eventually, King Sennacherib king of Assyria attacks and conquers many of the cities of Judah and is poised to overwhelm Jerusalem the city of God.
Sennacherib has overwhelming forces and he has destroyed many armies and cities and he believes that YHWH of Israel will be no different.
But Hezekiah trusts in YHWH and the Angel of YHWH defeats the army of Assyria in the night.
Sometime later Hezekiah becomes deathly ill and that is where pickup the account …
Read: 2 Kings 20:1-11
(Prayer for help …)
This is REALLY odd, right?
Isaiah tells Hezekiah, “You are going to die from this illness.”
Hezekiah turns his fact to the wall, reminds YHWY of how he has been a faithful servant and weeps.
YHWH-Rapha, the God who heals, heals him and gives him 15 more years.
But … these would NOT be the best years of Hezekiah’s life.
That’s what immediately comes to mind when we think about healing, right?
Physical healing …
But, what about Hezekiah? He was dying from some type of boil.
Is that what we need to do if we have a fatal boil; turn our face to the wall, tell YHWH what a great job we have done for Him and weep bitterly?
And, we see physical healing everywhere in the Bible.
In Exodus 21 we see that the Israelites in the wilderness are being punished with the bites of poisonous snakes because of their disobedience and YHWH instructs Moses to place a bronze snake on a pole and every snake-bitten person who looks at the bronze serpent will be healed.
What do we see here? We see YHWH-Rapha, the God who heals.
Is that what we should do if we are bitten by poisonous snake; put up a bronze serpent on a pole and look at it?
