Healing for All

“When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.’” (Matthew 8:16–17)

Matthew used two words for physical problems: “infirmities” and “sicknesses.” To distinguish between them, we could define infirmities as weaknesses—the things we are liable to, such as allergic reactions and bee stings; sicknesses we could define as actual diseases, such as cholera or influenza.

Matthew wrote that the healing ministry of Jesus was the fulfillment of Isaiah 53, emphasizing that Jesus “healed all.” Why? Because in the eternal counsel of God, He had already taken our sicknesses and borne our pains. That is good news! If the church really believed that, evangelism would be pretty simple.

Going to Pakistan was a revealing experience for me because the population is 98 percent Muslim. We had as many as 16,000 people in our meetings without much advertising. Why? Because we prayed for the sick—and they were healed. Not all of them, more like just a few of them. The blind saw, the deaf heard, the lame walked. Believe me, there is no problem getting a crowd when healings occur. It is the number one method in the New Testament to attract people.