Hath God Said?
Bere'shiyt (Genesis) 3:1
by Preston McNutt
Health and Healing MUST begin with FAITH. Irrespective of the obvious religious connotations of the word, faith is a vital part of human existence, secular or otherwise. One expects fully that a chair is going to support a person when sat upon. One believes fully that with the drawing of every breath, oxygen is going to be distributed throughout the body and bring life to every cell. And one has faith, albeit sometimes with trepidation, that a visit to the doctor is going to bring a cure to what ails you. These are indisputable facts. What is the subject of much debate in various persuasions of the Christian belief systems, is the nature and effect of faith as used in the Biblical sense. One system teaches that healing by faith was strictly a dispensational tool, no longer to be practiced by believers. Another teaches that the power of faith can be tapped into by simply quoting the right Bible verses and just "believing" hard enough. For an in-depth teaching on what we at T4H believe God intended when he first spoke of the concept of faith, see Wildbranch Ministry's teaching on faith. In a nutshell, real faith is not simply giving intellectual assent to a set of propositions. It is believing something to the extent that corresponding action is produced.
You control a debate by being able to frame the topics of the debate. That is, by controlling what questions can be asked. In the same way, when Christians debate the issue of "clean food v. unclean food", it becomes an exercise in futility. Biblically speaking, if it's food, it's clean. If it's unclean, it's not food. So to debate whether or not pork is now a clean food is to confuse what God says about the clean and unclean. Pork is unclean, therefore, it cannot be food.
It is a troubling fact that Christians in both camps fall victim to the same crippling diseases the world suffers with. The statistics for Christians suffering with chronic degenerative illnesses are no different than for non-Christians. Having spent many years ministering in charismatic groups, praying for healing week after week, oftentimes for the same people, and seeing so little fruit became a source of real frustration and concern. It was certainly not for lack of faith on the part of the leadership. I had to ask myself, why is the church, the spotless bride, the one who is supposed to be blessed of God, called to walk in the manifold gifts of the Spirit, the vessel of faith, the full expression of God's manifest glory, why is she so sick? dying in record numbers? lined up in healing lines as far as the eye can see? flocking to Benny Hinn and Rod Parsley crusades by the millions? The answer became painfully obvious. I am embarrassed to admit.... When the prevailing doctrine teaches one to throw out the law, the consequences are swift and pervasive. I don't care if you are Charismatic, Baptist, Methodist, Anglican, Pentecostal or chandelier-swinging snake-handling poison-drinking Appalachian powerhouse man o' God, ...God's Laws are immutable. They cannot be broken. Yahshua said "The scripture cannot be broken." Oh, you may disobey them, reject them, ignore them. But just like the law of gravity- fall off a building and YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE-breaking God's laws will bring its own sure consequence. The church is paying the price for rejecting God's dietary laws. When you throw out obedience to Torah, the door is opened. As Don Francisco sang so many years ago:
I don't care how many buses you own or the size of your sanctuary
It doesn't matter how steep your steeple is if you're sittin' on a cemetery
I don't care if you know your Bible if it's all up in your head
The thing I need to ask you is have you done the things I said?
"I am the same yesterday, today and forever". Christians claim with their lips to believe that. But in order to accept the premise that the dietary laws are no longer applicable to the church, one must accept the belief that God changed His mind. How can you say in one breath "I believe God is unchangeable - I am the LORD; I CHANGE NOT." and in the same breath say that God no longer requires obedience to certain of His commandments? When did God change His mind about dietary laws?
The proof texts used to justify an "all you can eat" diet are:
Acts 10 | Of People and Pigs1 Timothy 4:4 |
Romans 14 | Nothing Unclean?
The question today is the same as in the Garden of Eden on that fateful day
Hath God Said?
Christians are still asking the same thing today. Did God really say we can't eat pork? Surely He didn't mean US. We're different. We're Christians. We're covered by the blood. And on and on ad infinitum ad nauseum.
And the consequences are the same now as they were to our first parents. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die".
Until next time, I am...
Your Friend and Fellow Sojourner,
Preston aka PastorP