Jesus the Healer

We've dealt with a lot of sickness, death, and demonic attacks in our 23 year history, but November was a busy month. FCOP Cambodia is committed to Jesus' command to 'Heal the sick… raise the dead and cast out demons'. Jesus only did what the Father told him to do and we hear the same instructions from Him through the Holy Spirit. Why doesn't everyone we pray for get healed? We can't explain that. Our only defense is: 1) The devil is the killer and he'd like to kill us all. 2) We may have missed the call or 3) God may have had a reason: Isaiah 57:1 "The righteous perishes, And no man takes it to heart; Merciful men are taken away, While no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil." How do we view this reality in the whole scope of the Gospel? Since the same devil comes to steal, kill and destroy, and since sickness is, 'death looking for a place to happen', everyone is appointed once to die and demonic possession is an infection of the soul. We need to do what Jesus did. He told His disciples to go tell Herod "Tell that fox, 'Behold I cast out demons and perform cures…'" Jesus didn't always play fair with the devil and understanding the dynamics of the spirit world is important for victory. Though this may not be pure scripture, it rings true in our spirits. This may help you understand us: we are in a war under a victorious general who already won the last battle.

Traditionally, Matthew is considered the first book written in the New Testament, as early as 38 AD. Certainly, Jesus demonstrated triumph over death on Easter Sunday, but His victory over death was actually accomplished on the cross. Through death, He defeated death. Two interesting verses in Matthew 27:52-53 attest to something very unusual. "Many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised…" This is not mentioned in the other gospels and apparently those raised didn't stick around long: 1) Because after being in paradise I'm sure they didn't want to stay on earth and 2) their mission was to glorify the power of the Risen Christ. The only other explanation of this event is in the Apocryphal book of Nicodemus, chapter 1, where Satan is bragging about killing 'the Son of God', and is brought to ruin in verse 6 when Jesus crashed his party: "Immediately Hades cried out: 'We have been conquered: woe to us! But who art thou, that hast such power and might? and what art thou, who comest here without sin who art seen to be small and yet of great power, lowly and exalted, the slave and the master, the soldier and the king, who hast power over the dead and the living? Thou wast nailed on the cross, and placed in the tomb; and now thou art free, and hast destroyed all our power. Art thou then the Jesus about whom the chief satrap Satan told us, that through cross and death thou art to inherit the whole world?'" (vs 1:6). We are His body on this earth.

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