There are many teachings about sickness and health both within Christianity and occultism. You may even of heard of the "Health and Wealth" or "Prosperity Movement" in Christendom and of the various healing techniques offered by New Age practitioners. There are 'spiritual healers' in all religions. So is there any real difference between the healing offered by a psychic, a spiritualist, a faith healer, an occultist, a charismatic 'Christian', a shaman, or a medical doctor? What is actually going on when healing takes place in divers places? Is the nature of the healing the same? Is it all just a matter of 'faith' or of 'positive thinking'? Or are there different 'powers' involved?
First we need to acknowledge that physical healing may be accomplished by all these methods, sometimes temporary and sometimes (it would seem) permanent. My involvement in deliverance ministry has given me a unique perspective, not just because I have witnessed healing by most of these methods but because I have discovered that not all 'healing' is what it claims to be. For unless the whole person is healed, true healing has not taken place.
Our Heavenly Father, Yahweh-Elohim, has the power of healing. Indeed, He may be described as the Healer because when He heals, He does a complete job on the whole man or woman: healing of the body is invariably accompanied by healing of the mind and of the heart. His medium of healing is the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit). You will find plenty of stories of healing in the Old Testament. Not only that, but when He curses people for disobedience and rebellion (as He did when Eve, and then Adam, rebelled), people get sick. He demonstrated His power by giving Moses a sign for Pharaoh - first He made the prophet's hand leprous and then healed it. The power of life and death is in Elohim (God) because He is Life - and an absence of Life is Death.
The authority to heal is also vested in His Son, Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), whose mission is salvation - salvation of the whole soul. Yah'shua (Jesus) demonstrated the power to heal repeatedly. Moreover, He specifically linked the forgiveness of sin with His kind of healing as the following example illustrates:
"Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. When Yah'shua (Jesus) saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven you." And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but Elohim (God) alone?" But immediately, when Yah'shua (Jesus) perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, "Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Arise, take up your bed and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" -- He said to the paralytic, I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go your way to your house." Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified Elohim (God), saying, "We never saw anything like this!"" (Mark 2:3-12, NKJV).
At the time Yah'shua (Jesus) was healing people, others were doing the same - others who did not accept Yah'shua (Jesus) as the Messiah. Indeed, healers have always been around. Satan can heal too. Working as I do with SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) victims, I have heard many accounts of Satan raising the dead, healing AIDS, instantly repairing broken bones, and the like. Many Christians have, I know, problems accepting this because they have an incomplete picture of what is happening in the supernatural. But Satanic healing is very different from true healing, and much healing that is taking place in the churches is actually satanic and not truly 'Christian'. Some Christians deny that supernatural healing is for our time and was only as a sign for the New Testament Church. Indeed, they deny all supernatural activity that has to do with the physical.
When you work with the victims of Satanism as we do, you are forced to confront reality and to seek for solutions that work. Tradition, pet theories and vague hopes are no use - they are worse than useless which is why Satan makes mincemeat of those who succumb to these things. So what actually is going on when healing takes place in different religious systems?
To begin with, it is not 'faith' per se that heals. Faith is not some invisible power that we can tap into, no matter what we believe about God or theology. To be sure, Yah'shua (Jesus) said such things as "your faith has made you well" (Mt.9:22) but this was not any old faith - this faith had an object in view, and that object was Christ. The woman with an issue of blood who touched Yah'shua's (Jesus') garment was not healed by faith in faith but by faith in Yah'shua (Jesus). And likewise, when people are healed by gurus, shamans and the like it is because they are expressing faith in those gurus and shamans. They believe their words and they believe their claimed power. When we have faith in Yah'shua (Jesus) to heal, it is an acknowledgement that His words are true and that He has the power to heal. We believe in words and in power.
So the question is (and it is the critical, key question): when we express faith in a healer, what words are we believing and what power are we hoping will heal us? Are we indiscriminate, accepting any old healing without testing its source? When Peter, Paul and the other apostles healed, the words they spoke, and the power they possessed, were the words and power of Yah'shua (Jesus). And the words and power of Yah'shua (Jesus), by His own claims, were (and are today) the words and power of His (and our) Heavenly Father, Yahweh.
How, then, can there be counterfeit healing by those claiming to be followers of Yah'shua (Jesus)? When ministers and healers place words and interpretations that are not those of Yah'shua (Jesus) but of religious teachers, then they are getting those who come to healing from them to believe in false words. And if they have a power in them, then it is a counterfeit power. Yes, it means that there are ministers claiming to be Christian who are operating - not out of the true Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), but by demon-mediated psychic power. Doctrine is important, not because knowledge saves us (it doesn't - that's called Gnosticism) but faith in the source of that doctrine.
Yah'shua (Jesus) warned there would be many false Christs in the last days. This does not only mean those claming to be christs (messiahs) but those claiming to we witnesses of those christs. Thus Benjamin Creme, who claims to be the messenger of New Age guru 'Maitrea', proclaims his master as 'the christ', the one whom Christians, Muslims, Hindus and indeed all religionists have been awaiting. But he is a liar. The the powers that Maitrea possesses (and they are real - he has transmaterialised into a Christian meeting in Kenya, healed people, and convinced the people he was Christ) are demonic in origin. He is not 'the christ' - he is an imposter, a deceiver. The big question is: how were those Christians so easily fooled?
Supernatural healing is real and it is obtainable today, as it always has been, from one of two sources: (1) Through Yahweh-Elohim exclusively through the True Messiah, Yah'shua (Jesus); and (2) Through Satan under thousands of fronts, including raw devil-worship and counterfeit Christianity using the name of 'Christ' or 'Jesus'.
Just because someone is 'healed' in the Name of 'Jesus' does not mean it is the real thing. Indeed, the 'healing' - if it is not through the true Yah'shua (Jesus) - comes with a terrible price tag: it solidifies belief in false teachings and gives worship to Satan. Knowing who the real Yah'shua (Jesus) is, is therefore vital.
I have made a journey through the churches and experienced healing myself. When I once briefly belonged to a cult, I laid my hands on a woman who had back problem and she was healed by the power of a bogus priesthood. But it was not true healing. That woman remained in spiritual bondage to a false religious system.
A friend of mine was a New Age practitioner. Her son one day had a terrible ear ache, she placed her hands between his ears, and 'transferred psychic energy' to him, and he was healed. Yet as a person she was about as unstable as a person could be. I have seen faith healers heal cripples in the name of 'Jesus' and then seen those people get ill again (and I don't mean those fakes who use people pretending to be ill and then 'heal' them in public). I have seen Hindus mutilate themselves with knives and then be completely healed, without traces of scars, by their religious devotions. This kind of healing is demonic - it utilises psychic energy, usually plundered by demons from others (in the case of overt religious healing like satanic, Hindu, etc.). Demons have no life of their own. They steal energy from people who break the commandments and then distribute it in order to gain faith or to reward obedience to their evil demands.
So what is true faith in the true Yah'shua (Jesus)? That really is the bottom line, isn't it? You see, there are two sources of healing: one from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (The Tree of Death) and one from the Tree of Life. The Tree of Death is Satan and the Tree of Life is Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). So how does one gain true healing from the Tree of Life?
"Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city [New Jerusalem]" (Rev.22:14-15, NKJV).
Please note that true Christians have faith in Yah'shua (Jesus) and obey Yahweh's commandments:
"Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God [Yahweh] and the faith of Yah'shua (Jesus)" (Rev.14:12, NKJV; also see 12:17).
Those who do not are described as "dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie" (Rev.22:15, NKJV). Any lie - even if it is in the realm of twisted 'Christian' doctrine and theology - disqualifies you from partaking of the Tree of Life. And if you are a religious person (which I firmly believe everybody is), then you will partake of the only other available tree - the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - the Tree of Death ... Satan's Tree (the one the serpent was coiled around when he tempted Eve). When we worship wrongly we become sorcerers manipulating a power that is not godly. We become idolaters, worshipping a false god. We worship the god of the Tree of Death who says obeying Yahweh is not important and that we won't 'die' if we do because now everything is just by 'faith' ... in what you 'feel'. The bulk of Christendom has been lured by this false, Luciferic, cheap salvation.
There are even 'Christian' deliverance ministers who use sorcery to heal and drive out demons (even if they will strenuously deny it), not realising that you can use one set of demons to drive out another. I have known deliverance ministers powerfully operating in the spirit of Hecate (the chief demon of Catholisicm and much charismatic Christianity) without knowing it. Indeed, there are many demonic powers operative in the churches because Christians will not obey the commandments.
Please remember that these commandments aren't 'any old commandments' but "the commandments of Elohim (God)" (Rev.14:12), better known as the Torah. These are not, moreover, the 'Jewish commandments' (as some are wont to accuse) which is the Talmud but the commandments of Yahweh which Yah'shus (Jesus) said are binding on us (minus the ceremonial law which was fulfilled in Him) until heaven and earth pass away (Mt.5:17-20).
If you have been healed supernaturally then you must - for the sake of the eternal welfare of your soul - find out by what power you were healed. True healing leads to a forgiveness of sin. What sin? Our disobedience to Torah! In other words, if you have been healed by the true Yah'shua (Jesus) and been forgiven of your sins you will be walking in obedience to all the commandments - to Torah. If you are not walking in the commandments and a 'spirit' within you is telling you not to, then you are walking by the rule of demons who like Satan are lawless (Rom.4:7; 2 Thes.2:8-9; 1 Tim.1:9; Tit.2:14; Heb.8:12; 10:17; 2 Pet.2:8), and are in bondage.
Genuine deliverance and healing is rooted in pure, undiluted Truth. Only the truth can set you free of spiritual bondage and sickness (Jn.8:32).
This article has been prompted by a personal experience. In the latter half of December 2004 my whole family went down with 'flu as many other around us did too. For some reason, however, my wife and I escaped the full force of it, never developping all the symptoms like sore throat, runny nose, bronchial cough, high temperature, headache, and so on. We were weak and drained - the first signs of the illness - but went no further. Then, suddenly, three weeks later my wife started manifesting the other symptoms when we started addressing a sin issue. Part of her wanted to defeat the sin area but there was a carnal part which did not believe. It was then the symptoms manifested. That was quite a revelation for us and tied, as it were, the last loose end we had on our doctrinal beliefs about illness and health. It was then my turn to discover why we had both manifested the first symptoms (weakness) and discovered some sin areas that were not fully resolved. What were these issues? In my case, it was allowing the spiritual defences of my home to be lowered out of fear - fear to confront someone with their sin issues, itself based on a fear to cause conflict and the usual stresses that causes. In short, I was compromising the commandment to speak the truth to a friend for fear of causing a spiritual conflict. The moment I resolved the right this and take whatever consequences of being truthful, the pressure of my three week-long battle to have enough energy to see through the day began to slowly lift. I had opened a demonic door to my health for fear of being true to the Word. I was being, in short, a liar to myself (not loving myself or my friend per pro the Second Great Commandment of Yah'shua/Jesus).
The key to genuinely good health (which embraces mind, heart and spirit as well) is total honesty and total obedience to Torah in love. I have witnessed this often enough. And as is so often the case, one small issue (such as mine) can reveal a whole set of other underlying issues that need to be dealt with, and which I shall now be dealing with.
The key to genuine health is adherance to the Truth:
"For I proclaim the name of Yahweh:
Ascribe greatness to our Elohim (God).
He is the Rock, His work is perfect;
For all His ways are justice,
An Elohim (God) of truth and without injustice;
Righteous and upright is He.
(Deut.32:3-4, NKJV).
When you hate Torah - His commandments, His Law - you hate Yahweh; and if you hate Yahweh, you hate the true Yah'shua (Jesus). It is that simple. Most Christianity is a lawless watered-down Gospel, and most Christians are spiritual schizophrenics, hating the God of the Old Testament with one side of their hearts and loving an imaginary one of the New with the other, when there is only One God, and He is the God of the Old and New Testaments.
Spiritual and physical health are intimately tied to a proper perspective of the Scriptures. The Old Tesament makes many promises about health:
"Trust in Yahweh with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear Yahweh and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh,
And strength to your bones.
(Prov.3:5-8, NKJV; see 4:22; 12:18; 13:17; ).
"For I will restore health to you
And heal you of your wounds,' says YahwehD,
'Because they called you an outcast saying:
"This is Zion;
No one seeks her."'
(Jer.30:17, NKJV)
