Surely all of you have heard of divine healing of various diseases. Probably some of you doubt that it has really occurred: you think that it was just the imaginary healing of an imaginary disease. But I can assure you that I personally know of many cases of very real diseases which were healed far more quickly than the best physicians could accom­plish it. One who never saw the City of Chicago might doubt that it exists; but one who has been there knows that it is real. So it is with divine healing: we who have seen sicknesses healed by God know that this is real.

Possibly some of you have hoped for divine healing of your own sicknesses, but have not received it; and you have wondered, Why can't I have it? I shall try both to answer that question, and to show you how you can be healed. You know that God CAN heal; you know that he DOES heal; but you still don't know HOW or WHY.

First, let us find out WHY THERE IS SICKNESS IN THIS WORLD? God gave us a code of laws, set out in the first five books of the Bible. These laws covered all phases of life and civilization. They were not concerned only with your morality --- though, of course, God always has required that you try to live a good life. They covered every phase of life that can affect our well-being: they were POLITICAL laws to keep us free; ECONOMIC laws, to keep us prosperous: AGRICULTURAL laws, to keep our land productive and our crops nourishing; DIETARY laws, to keep us strong and healthy; and RELIGIOUS laws, to keep us true to the one God, Who has given us all good things, even our very lives; and, of course, the shortest part of all, the MORAL laws, to keep our personal conduct such that our God could stand to associate with us. He promised that, if we would obey all of His laws, we would have peace, prosperity, good government, long life --- and GOOD HEALTH.

We have been taught to see many of our troubles as a punishment sent upon us by God for some of our sins; but this hasn't given us a true picture of it. We visualize it in terms of the parent of a small child running after it, catching It, and giving it a spanking --- a punishment which would not have come If the parent had not actively inflicted it. But this is a mistaken view: all of God's laws are natural laws, and the consequences of disobedience occur automatically. Indeed, in one sense, you can't disobey one of these laws: you either obey it the easy way, and reap the blessing or you obey it the hard way and pay the penalty, For example, you can't disobey the law of gravity: you ride down in the elevator from the 10th. story, obeying the law of gravity the easy, voluntary way; but if you jump out of the 10th. story window, you still obey the law of gravity, but this time it is the hard way, with the penalty. Similarly , God's laws stated in the Bible are the great truths which reveal that there is only one way to get peace prosperity, good health, etc.---and a refusal to do these things must necessarily and automatically lose what you can't gain in any but the right way.

Many of you were taught that, since you are now Christians, "You are not under law, any more, but under Grace." That has been greatly misunderstood. The laws of God were given to us, here in this life on earth, and to govern our conduct here on earth, not in heaven. They are the means by which we can have the good things of this life. Take, for example, the Dietary Laws: one of these forbids us to eat the meat of animals which have died of disease. I don't care how good a Christian you may be, If you were the Archbishop of Canterbury himself it would still be true that, if you found the carcass of a cow that had died of hoof-and-mouth disease, and you took some of the meat and ate it, you'd get sick. Yes, I know, you wouldn't lose your eternal salvation: but you certainly would lose your present health by violating this Law of God. God wouldn't run after you and beat you with a stick: the penalty would be automatic, the same as in the case of other violations of God's laws.

God told us how to receive all the benefits this life can give; and He promised us, among these benefits, good health if we obeyed Him. In Deuteronomy 7:12,15, it says: "Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye haarken to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which He sware unto thy fathers: And the Lord thy God will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon those that hate thee." Again, in Exodus 23:25, it says, "And ye shall serve the lord thy God, and He shalt bless thy bread and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. "The blessing comes as the automatic consequence of obedience to God.

On the other hand, He warned that, if we scorned His commandments, we would suffer many penalties, among them being sickness. Deuteronomy 28:58-61 warns us: If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest reverence this glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH, thy God; then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues and of long continuance, and sore sickness and of long continuance. Moreover, He will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee. Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, them will the Lord bring upon thee." This will come, as I said, by the automatic process by which wrong produces its own consequences.

Someone may say, "But this is from the Old Testament; that was all done away with." No, it wasn't: Jesus Christ said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:17) And I John 3:4 reminds us, "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin Is the transgression of the law." You recognize that it is a sin to violate the Seventh Commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery;" but it is also a sin to violate the Agricultural and Dietary Laws and thereby give the people food which has lost much of the wholesome qualities which God intended it should have. Indeed, if you kept all of the law, what sin could you commit? We often say, "The wages of sin is death"---but forget that the wages of sin Is also the intermediate step of sickness. Psalm 107:17-20 states both the problem and its remedy: "Fools, because of their transgression and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saveth them out of their distresses. He sent His Word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction." Again, Psalm 30:2 says, "Yahweh my God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou hast healed me.

The most serious diseases are healed in this way. II Kings 20:1-6 tells us, "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him and said unto him, 'Thus saith the Lord: Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.' And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, saying, 'I beseech Thee, 0 Lord, remember now how I have walked before Thee In truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in Thy sight.' And Hezekiah wept sore. And it came to pass, before Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the word of the Lord came unto Him, saying, 'Turn again and tell Hezekiah, the captain of My people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father' 'I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I WILL HEAL THEE: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the House of the Lord. And I will add unto thy days 15 years.

Remember, the power of God is limitless: many people in our own day have been brought back from the brink of death by the power of God, just as Hezekiah was healed.

If some of you are wondering, What are we doing in the Old Testament all this time? Does this mean that Christianity is not the answer, and that we must seek our righteousness under the law?  No, I don't mean that at all. We have just been looking for the cause of sickness, In the first place; and we have seen that it is one of the consequences of sin. Sin brings it; and we shall have it until we find the remedy, not for the result, but for the cause, sin. You have already discovered that you aren't able to keep all the law perfectly; therefore, we must look for another answer.