The Lord Our Healer

The Lord, our Healer.

You see, in every spiritual experience in which we relate to God, and we receive provision from God, we always need to look beyond the provision to the provider. The provision was the tree, but the provider was the Lord. And the Lord did not allow Israel merely to receive the revelation of the tree, but the revelation of the tree led up to the revelation of the Lord as their Healer.

I’ll read these words again in Exodus 15, verses 25 and 26:

“Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. And he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet. There He made for them a statute and regulation, and there He tested them. And He said, ‘If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians. For I, the Lord, am your Healer,’ or ‘I am the Lord your Healer.’”

You see, the ultimate revelation was not a revelation of a provision, but a revelation of the provider. And that’s a very important principle that you need to lay hold of. Every revelation of God, if we follow it through to its intended conclusion, will bring us to God Himself. “I am the Lord your Healer.”

That word that’s translated ‘Healer’ is the modern Hebrew word for a doctor. It hasn’t changed in over 3,000 years. And that’s exactly what it means. We need to understand that. The Lord desires to be His people’s doctor, our physician.

It was that revelation for which He was preparing His people when He brought them to the pool. It is a revelation. It is not something that the natural mind can receive. Normally, we have to come into some kind of a situation where we need the revelation.

Many years ago, I myself lay for one year on end in hospital with a condition that the doctors were not able to heal. And in that situation, through the Bible and through the Holy Spirit, the Lord revealed Himself to me as my doctor. “I am the Lord your Healer, your doctor, your physician.” That’s the revelation to which He’s bringing us.

You see, one thing we have to understand is that God never changes. He not merely was His people’s doctor, He is His people’s doctor. Let me just read to you two or three scriptures.

Malachi, chapter 3, verse 6, right at the end of the Old Covenant:

“I, the Lord, do not change,” or “I am the Lord, I do not change.”

He was, He is, He will be. He doesn’t change. Our Healer, our physician.

And then in the New Testament, Hebrews 13:8:

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

You know, so many times we can believe for yesterday, and we can believe for forever, but what about today? We can believe, “Oh, it happened in the Bible, and it’ll happen when we get to heaven.” But don’t forget, it’s today, too. Today, Jesus Christ is the same as He was when He was on earth. Today, God is the same as He was at the bitter pool. He is our physician, our doctor, our Healer.

There’s one verse in the New Testament that describes the ministry of Jesus on earth, which I think says it more completely in one verse than anywhere else I know. It’s Acts, chapter 10, verse 38. Peter is speaking to the household of Cornelius, and he’s describing the ministry of Jesus on earth as he himself witnessed it. And this is what he says, Acts 10:38:

“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and He went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with Him.”

See, what blesses me is we have all three persons of the eternal Godhead here. God the Father anointed Jesus the Son with the Holy Spirit. And what was the result? Healing, liberation, deliverance, wholeness for everybody that Jesus came in contact with. It seems to me, if I can say it reverently, there’s almost a jealousy between the persons of the Godhead when it comes to blessing the human race. Not one of them wants to be left out. The Father anointed the Son with the Spirit that all of them might share in this ministry of mercy and deliverance and making whole.

This is the revelation of God’s eternal nature. God allowed His people to come to a place of need there at the waters of Marah so that they might receive the revelation. Now, today, if you’re in a place of need, if you feel that you’re faced with those bitter waters, I want to suggest to you that you take the attitude, “God permitted this. God is in this. He has a program. I won’t grumble. I’ll pray. I’ll wait on God. I’ll allow Him to speak to me. I’ll let Him show me the revelation that He has for me in this situation.” I want to emphasize once more that the full purpose of God was not merely to reveal the tree, but to reveal Himself.

I think this needs to be said to multitudes of Christians today. We are never intended by God to stop short at an experience, at a doctrine, at a revelation, at a blessing. Thank God for every one of those things that we receive, but we cannot rest in them. Each one of them, in a sense, is somewhat impersonal and impermanent. What we need, in the last resort, is a person. And every true doctrine or revelation we receive will always lead us, in the end, to the person of God Himself.