Why does God allow some of His most committed people to get sick?

<p>Why does God allow some of His most committed people to get sick?</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Freedom Health Ministries

Gabriel Arruda

Sickness & Victory

We want to talk about victory over sin, victory from spiritual bondage.

Now verse 14, 2 Kings chapter 13 verse 14, it says, Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness, whereof he died.

And Joash, or Jehoash, the king of Israel, came down unto him and wept over his face and said, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." So right there, the Bible is very brief, it just says, Elisha died how?

The Spirit of Prophecy elaborates on this.

And it says that Elisha, this mighty man of God, died of what she calls a lingering illness.

We don't know how long, weeks, months, years, we don't know.

And not just that, it goes on to describe in the book, Patriarchs and Prophets.

She says, during the long hours of human weakness and suffering, his, that's Elisha's faith, laid fast hold on the promises of God.

The long hours of human weakness and suffering.

We're gonna go over 2 points that confused me, that I felt God gave me clarity on.

And the first is, why did such a mighty, spirit-filled man of God have to die such a horrible death?

He served God his whole life, and then what happened?

And yet, Elisha, who was his disciple, died this lingering illness.

And on top of that, Before Elijah was taken, Elisha asked him for something.

Because remember, Elijah said, If you see me, get taken up, you'll get it.

Now, that was fascinating to me in of itself.

I looked and I thought, just kind of a side note, okay so Elisha got twice the amount of spirit than Elijah did.

You would think his ministry would look a lot different, right?

Well, Elijah raised someone from the dead, Elisha raised someone from the dead.

Elijah made food miraculously appear, Elisha made food miraculously appear.

There's really not a difference in the greatness of the miracles that took place.

But then I thought to myself, well then how did he receive a double portion of the Spirit?

I thought, I wonder if the quantity of the miracles is different.

Do you want to guess how many Elisha had?

So literally double the amount of miracles recorded of Elisha than Elijah did.

And that actually, number 1, it tells us something.

The more filled with the Holy Spirit is, the more spiritual activity they do for Christ.

You want to know how much of the Holy Spirit you have?

Elisha had twice the amount of the Spirit than Elijah did, and did twice as much according to what scripture records.

How much do you, how can you tell how much of the spirit you have?

Or is your life all just about you and being comfortable and taking care of yourself?

And We need to take a good hard look at our lives and analyze, how much am I doing for God?

Now we have jobs, we have families, we have responsibilities, God understands that.

We need to take days off too, just to relax and do nothing, just replenish our souls.

But in the meantime, What are we doing to build the kingdom of God?

The more the Holy Spirit means more activity.

But why did someone who had double the amount of the Holy Spirit die such a terrible death?

You know, it's true that many times people suffer due to simply we're experiencing the consequences of our own actions.

You know, if you drank your whole life and you get liver disease, don't be angry with God, right?

If you smoked your whole life and you get lung cancer, don't be angry with God, right?

You're suffering for the consequences of your own actions.

But the scriptures indicate that Elisha was a very straight-laced good boy.

Ron has often referred to himself as the the golden boy.

Elisha seemed like he was 1 of those golden boys.

Never strayed, never threw parties at his house, never disobeyed his parents.

The scriptures indicate he was obedient to his parents all the way up until Elijah called him into ministry.

Why someone who was a golden boy should suffer like that?

There's a New Testament equivalent to Elisha that shed some light in this situation.

Question, who did Jesus call the greatest of all the prophets?

How did John the Baptist exit this world?

And where were his months spent before that?

In a very dark, grimy, probably damp prison.

John the Baptist, the greatest of all the prophets.

He didn't die peacefully, in a comfortable bed with all of his family around him.

He didn't die after a long successful life and after a long comfortable retirement.

And this first point that I'm going to share is for those who suffer, who are suffering physically, those who are suffering from illnesses, which at some of us, we all get our turn to have experience with this in life.

The more God favors you, the better your life should go.

That's human thinking, That's human reasoning.

Back to Menu

Sickness & Victory

Transcript

Description

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine