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00:00:01 uh today's scripture reading is taken from Isaiah 38:1 to chapter 39:8 so there'll be two chapters and I'll be reading from the NIV in those days hezekia became ill and was at the point of death the prophet Isaiah son of Amos went to him and said this is what the Lord says put your house in order because you are going to die you will not recover hezekia turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord remember Lord how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in
00:00:45 your eyes and hezekia wept bitterly then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah go and tell hezekia this is what the Lord the god of your father David says I have heard your prayer and seen your tears I will add 15 years to your life and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria I will defend this city this is the Lord's sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the 10 steps it has gone down on the stairway of AAS so the sunlight went
00:01:23 back the 10 steps it had gone down a writing of ezekia king of Judah after after his illness and Recovery I said in the prime of my life must I go through the gates of death and be robbed of the rest of my years I said I will not again see the Lord himself in the land of the living no longer will I look on my fellow men all be with those who now dwell in this world like a shepherd's tent my house has been pulled down and taken from me like a weaver I have rolled up my life and he has cut me off from the loom day
00:02:01 and night you made an end of me I waited patiently Till Dawn but like a lion he broke all my bones day and night you made an end of me I cried like a swift or thrush I moaned like a morning dove my eyes grew weak as I looked to the heavens am I being threatened L come to my aid but what can I say he has spoken to me and he himself has done this I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul lord by such things people live and my spirit finds life in them too you Restort me to health and let me live
00:02:45 surely it was for my benefit that I have suffered such anguish in your love you kept me from the pit of Destruction you have put all my sins behind your back for the grave cannot Praise You death cannot sing your praise those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness the living the living they praise you as I am doing today parents tell their children about your faithfulness the Lord will save me and we will sing with strength instruments all the days of our lives in the temple of the
00:03:21 Lord Isaiah had said prepare a ptis of figs and apply it to the boil and he will recover hezekia had asked what will be the sign that I will go up to the Temple of the Lord chapter 39 at that time Marduk baladan son of baladan King of Babylon sent hezekia letters and a gift because he had heard of his illness and Recovery hezeki received the envoys gladly and showed them what was in the storehouses the silver the gold the spices the fine olive oil his entire Armory and everything found among his
00:03:59 chases there was nothing in his Palace or in all his kingdom that hezekiel did not show them then Isaiah the prophet went to King hezekia and asked what did those men say and where did they come from from a distant land hezeki replied they came to me from Babylon the prophet asked what did they see in your Palace they saw everything in my Palace hezekia said there is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them then Isaiah said to hezekia hear the word of the Lord Almighty the time will surely come when everything in your
00:04:39 Palace and all that your predecessors have stood up until this day will be carried off to Babylon nothing will be left says the Lord and some of your descendants your own flesh and blood who will be born to you will be taken away and they will become Uno in the in the Palace of the king of babyon the word of the Lord you have spoken is good Heek replied for he thought there will be peace and Security in my lifetime this is the word of the [Music] Lord thank you Adam for reading those two long chapters
00:05:24 before I start uh welcome First Baptist Church just two announcements one uh we have a Jungle Gym upstairs as you know uh next week 10:30 after the first service we will be having a um uh talk all right so as you bring your children to enjoy the jungle gym upstairs next week we will have one of our parishioners uh Dr uh CH Lee changle who is with a lecture with the IMU she will give you a talk on how to get my preschooler to eat healthy seemingly impossible task but nevertheless while they're playing you can front up there
00:06:05 listen to the talk for only 20 minutes ask her all the questions free advice um snacks will be provided as well okay good that's out of the way so next week's sermon uh our brother Elder lean will be speaking to us about the anguish uh the words my God my God why have you forsaken me that's actually taken from a very famous uh Psalms Psalm 22 very long Psalm and he has the unenviable task of dealing with that next week so and after that our brother Arnold will be continuing his journey following the
00:06:40 life of the patriarch Jacob so let's start with a word of prayer father Lord we ask this morning that you speak to us that your words resonate in our hearts that thou would just enable us to understand why suffering in pain and disease and misery still exist in this world and what hope we have for our own lives our family and the future we ask for Jesus sake amen so this morning our topic is something of great relevant to every single one of us today put up your hands any of you whove never been
00:07:25 sick yeah it's a typical Malaysian response right which is why I did it the other way if I asked you put your hands if you've been sick no nobody put them up so this is correct uh there's nobody who has not been sick as nobody else you either have a car crash and die or you have a heart attack or cancer or something and die it's very very relevant isn't it some of you don't even come to church why because it's scared to die yeah I mean look at the covid uh thing is it's come up and Hospital admissions in Europe have jumped up in
00:08:02 Italy 32% uh intensive care admissions 21% Singapore is registered what so many thousand uh uh you know couple of days ago and we're starting to panic again and if you look at what Co has done you know it's come up to number two rank in terms of the cause of death right but actually if you look in perspective uh it's really not that bad it's number seven in terms of killer diseases over the last uh known history of human mankind but not only that behind that there'll be a epidemic of antibiotic
00:08:39 resistance estimated 10 million per year by the time 2050 if and then there's all sorts of funny things coming like the Tomato flu in India what are we going to do are we going to hide at home all the time and not venture out at all because but the the fact this disease J has always been with us or or are we going to to to Wow wear one of these about 1,500 if you got plenty of spare cash to throw buy one of these and all and I got so many people coming to my clinic and they're wearing this believing that it
00:09:15 will save them from covid Monkey flu Asian flu whatever flu does it really work or perhaps some pastors will tell you no virus can come near you uh when you take God as your Jehovah Shalom this is what he says to you do not fear you will not die wow take that back to the bank take you will not die is that true so today I really want to deal with this conflict we're supposed to pray for healing and yet some of you are not healed some of you actually fall very sick and you die in fact the majority
00:09:49 aren healed actually so I want to look at this man's story because this man's story gives us a lot of clues of how we deal with illness and setback and pain and suffering in our lives and it's absolutely relevant and I'm going to tell the whole story some people just slip off the first part and that's great and they leave the second part behind that's why we read the whole two chapters it gives this perspective you want to get a closer look of hezekiah's story you need to look at four passages uh they're all
00:10:22 there when you back home you can rerun this on the YouTube and and look at the passages to give us full information all right so so there are three points as usual I'm going to put forward very simple points today that we need to pray for divine intervention but not preclude medical interventions number two which is the main focus this sermon will be lament lament allows us to process the pain and thirdly healing is not the final solution transformation is all right so let's look at the prophecy uh in those
00:10:54 days Ezekiel became sick and was at the point of death and Isaiah the prophets son of Amos came to him and said to him thus says the Lord uh set your house uh in order for you shall die you will not recover imagine the prophet comes up to you instead of saying how are you tells you you're going to die that's why people run away from prophets they turned opposite direction and not only that it was a terrible situation because right at that time the the Assyrians were right outside parked right outside Jerusalem they were going
00:11:30 take them conquer them enslave them so now when Trouble Comes it always comes all together don't you fine and in this situation his life is threatened the life of his nation is threatened uh and this is a situation where we're going to be looking in today today you're not going to have the prophet March into your room and tell you you will die you go to his room and we tell you you will die right right we flash out a CT scan you know we take a blood test we look at it and our brows will Furrow and they
00:12:08 say I say yeah I got good news and I got bad news right all right so and you always want the bad news first and like it or not most of you here one day will be sitting in a doctor's office don't Bluff unless you're going to die accident almost all of you will be sitting the doctor's office and a prophet there will flash out a CD scan and tell you you've got breast cancer you got liver cancer you got so many I spent a lifetime giving bad news and it's a terrible job if you ask me it's an absolutely terrible job and to preach
00:12:48 this sermon today is very close to my heart because I've seen pain and illness close up front I've walked with my patients I've walked with church members through suffering and and and and and today I wanted to come and bring scripture and give you a realistic view of what healing is and what why do we have disease and if anything you take home how to process this in your life it's not that simple a lot of miracle healing services and people will tell you it's all so simple you just pray the Lord he will heal you and that's fine if
00:13:22 you're not healed you to probably never confess your sin and you you walk away feeling so condemned now we look in the life of Isaiah here Hezekiah Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord and said please oh Lord remember how I walk before you in faithfulness and with whole heart and done what is good in your sight and Hezekiah wept bitterly devastated by the absolute news and then he prayed uh in verse 16 if will go right down by these things men live and and in all these is the
00:13:58 life of my spirit restore me to health and make me live he prays he he cries he ask God to make him live and then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah says go and tell Hezekiah thus says the Lord God your of your of David your father I've heard your prayer I've seen your tears behold I will add 15 years to your life I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Syria and defend this city double Miracle all right and as had said in verse 21 let them take a cake of figs apply it to the boil that
00:14:36 he may live now this gives you an idea what was this illness it was not cancer it was a boil not very much different from this on your neck this is called a carbunkle happens usually to diabetics and if it's in the wrong place it will erode into your vessels and they will burst and you will die all right so what did Isaiah God said I'm going to add 15 years to your life but he asked Isaiah to add figs in those days this is their medical treatment the chemotherapy of yesterday figs are a lot cheaper than
00:15:10 what they charge you today and all you have to do is pound it into a bit of a paste and it's called a pus and you put it on top and this is actually recognized as ancient treatment it's been practice for years and years and years and it actually works right so you actually have two things you've got God intervening when he prayed and number two medical intervention state-ofthe-art medical intervention in those days with putting a pus of figs and God gave him a sign and the sign was whether this will he be
00:15:46 healed or not is that the sun dial will go back 10 steps which means the shadow will go backwards wake up every morning you look at the sun the sun doesn't go backwards you know that's the only time in history of mankind that goes backwards as a sign that he was healed and so therefore it tells you very clearly there is no conflict between medicine and prayer and yet I've got I remember having a 22y old young gentleman whose mother was a Christian but but he was not and he actually in desperation because he had testical
00:16:20 cancer and had gone off to his uh limb nodes here had gone off to the pastor in in one Village which you was will yet remain unnamed um and she told him very clearly if you go for surgery or chemotherapy uh it means you have no faith you should not go you either trust in the Lord or nothing at all and that's not the only Pastor I've heard say that this man today is 45 years old with a wife and two beautiful children you know why because he did not believe the Pastor all right Christian leaders are
00:17:03 not perfect they can misread the Bible all right there's no such thing is trusting God is not contradicting your faith your med trusting medicine is not contradicting your faith they are both compatible here you have God he prays god says I will heal you I'll give you 15 years and yet Isaiah puts the posters there at the same time they both work together there is no conflict more importantly is the next point the next point is that I want us to look at lament lament is very important because it helps us process pain all of us
00:17:41 whether we're healed or we're not healed but we will all have to process the pain and that has to do with faith and and you look at verse n the writing of Hezekiah king of Joda after he'd been sick and had recovered so this is after you been sick heal recover you but write a b seller right right I mean I mean the syrians 188,000 people overnight miti Sak slings home he was killed by his own Sons later on complete Victory and this life-threatening disease he's been healed most of us write a book on
00:18:17 healing Miracle of prayer or faith that move mountains or the prophetic uh and healing words that you use what words did you use Hezekiah exactly what was the formula When you pray to God we would write that right but instead I want you to see what he wrote and this is important to because when we are sick we need to pray these words he says in the middle of my days I must depart I'm consigned to the gates of shol for the rest of by years I said I shall not see the Lord the Lord is in the land of the
00:18:49 living I shall look on man no more and the inhabitants of the world my dwelling place is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd's tent like a weave I've been rolled up in my life he cuts me off from the Loom from night from day to night you bring me to an end I calm myself in the morning like a lion he breaks all my bones from day to night you bring me to an end wow what is that what is that what shall I say he has spoken to me he he himself has done it who brought the illness he himself
00:19:25 has done it I walk slowly all my years because of the the bitterness of my soul how many of you dare pray like that to God when you are in illness this is not a victory story this is a lament because this is how we are to deal with pain is he saying bad words against God does he have no faith let me give you another example when Israel was in the desert and people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes it was hot there no place to to to to to to lie down there's no food I they had some Mana but everyday Mana
00:20:09 how I mean imagine every day P how does no meat you know no chicken no no Chinese words no pork I say sure D no pork die all right so they're saying God you bring it to this God forsaken Place middle of desert no and and they were really Ang and and the Lord heard it you know and the Lord's anger was kindled the fire of the Lord burned against them and they consume some of the out in the outer parts I mean God took out a couple of them for complaining and then uh and the reason is because you have rejected the
00:20:45 Lord who is among you and have yet wept before him saying why did we come out of Egypt what's the difference between Hezekiah blaming God and them blaming God one can fire one no fire how come that's the difference we need to understand the difference there's a difference between complaint and lament that's why it's very important this morning for you to take home this message because when you are sick and you will be sick you need to learn not to complain but learn to lament complaint is an accusation against God that malign his
00:21:21 character that is the difference why that's why they were condemned lament is an appeal to God based on confidence in his character see they have maligned God's character to be evil bringing up to suffer in the Sinai desert forgetting that he had saved them from that terrible oppression of the Egyptian Lords contrast this with job's wife suffering scratching all the pules from his skin which is scratch raw lost everything except his wife which is another suffering uh and then his wife said to him do you
00:22:03 still hold fast to your integrity Curse God and die once you say I'm going to die anyway right my curse him while you are dying curse the fell will CA you right this is called complaint that is not lament see a lament is a form of Praise if you look like a Swallow at the crane I chip chip chip chip I moan like a dove my eyes eyes are weary from looking upwards oh Lord I'm oppressed be my pledge of safety who is he looking to he's actually looking to God a lament is appeal to God based on who he is you're
00:22:40 not maligning his character but you're actually going to him you know lament is also proof of a relationship remember the there's a big fight between uh the Elijah and the prophets of Baal under the reign of King ahaz they were supposed to bring fire upon the sacrifice and and all of the prophets of dancing around the sacrifice you know and they were cutting themselves and asking the idols please send Fire and Fire nothing happened right so so lament is not like that it's not for you to cry cry cry cut yourself
00:23:15 starve yourself so that God see oh so poor thing then then I think if he so poor thing then I will heal him that's not what it is lament is proof of a relationship imagine if you've got three children right and they wake up they're all very hungry oh my God I I want my McDonald's and they run next door to your neighbor and say uncle can you can we have my McDonald's how would you feel lament is going to your own parents who refuse to give you the McDonald's and tugging at their shirt and say please give me what we
00:23:54 want you see what I mean that lament means is a proof that you have a relationship for which you can impose upon your parents or God and say look this is what I want because you are my God I'm not going next door imagine your children went next door my goodness you got no face to show anywhere the men is based on his Covenant promises because you are tied to God by his Covenant promises you have a right God of My Father David why does he say that because there is a covenant and we have a covenant through the blood of
00:24:29 our Lord Jesus Christ to implore and call upon God instead sometimes we don't lament we think the picture of faith is that Holy Daniel hanging around a couple of ferocious felines you know unperturbed like John Wayne Right faith is not like this my goodness you come to this fellow a Christian leader cry cry cry you know this is no faith and so what do we do when we in trouble we become hypocrite inside crying outside very good God's going to heal me no death will come near me I I think I think this mass that we
00:25:14 actually wear is terrible I remember one of the I've told this story before a pastor's wife many years ago whom I knew was so stress because whole bunch of people came to see her to minister to her because she had lung cancer and she was terminally ill I actually saw an x-ray myself and told her and she died one year later on and the biggest problem for her was the people coming and she has to wear a mask to tell people I trust God it's going to be fine I'm going to be healed I'm going to believeing I'm still
00:25:46 believing we have to be honest we cannot suppress our true feelings now when you actually have illness pain suffering heart setback the hard events of life cancer sickness illness Financial setback whatever there is a break between our world view and the event I'm supposed to be a child of God I'm supposed to be looked after by him how come this thing can happen to me is God sleeping on the job right I'm God's child right is he sleeping on the job and and there's a big split and that is what causes
00:26:26 problems your challenge your either disbelief or not you see we've been taught we have a unidimensional idea of who God is he's the one to bless the worshippers he's the one to provide your job all your needs deliver them from Misfortune you know sometimes our picture of God is not much different from the cat you go to the the the the 7 11 the hand never go the other direction right that's our I mean God's job is to heal me God's job is to look after me our concept of God is power now Victory now you know uh uh uh change now
00:27:07 everything is now and that has infected the church to a large extent and so therefore we take verses like Isaiah 535 by his wounds we are healed so therefore we claim healing now is that correct and yet other parts of the Bible talk about job suffering everything taken from him for long time he struggled before God we don't mention job I dare not ask you how many of you have read job for a long time in my own life I dare not read job because if I read job very so it'll happen to me it's a fact I
00:27:47 mean I I honestly confess that's so I never read for a long time and later on as you grow older you no choice you're going to read it because you are going to suffer and what about the guy who was born blind for 30 40 Years of his life waiting for God to heal him I mean these are all alternate stories in the Bible for which we do not focus the preacher here does not tell you the full truth and that is wrong we need to have a full idea so what we have is a disconnect between our world view our view of God
00:28:20 and the hard events of life and what lament does is you bridge the gap you bridge the gap by making meaning working out why this happened to me important thing is why and how do we deal with it right see lament gives a framework for our feelings you see from day to day tonight you bring me to an end he he expressing frustration I calm myself until the morning which is he been anxious afraid angry like a lion he breaks all my bones he's actually blaming God is angry with God from day to night you bring me to end and and and
00:29:03 Isaiah 383 says Isaiah hezekia wept bitterly you know what it means to weep bitterly not St St cry not really angry and bitter now pain is not an intellectual exercise did you know that you can't work out oh I got illness because covid-19 virus uh got the spite protein there I didn't take vaccination say so therefore I must go and take vaccine now and I me it's not an intellectual exercise so pain cannot be dealt with intellectually it has to be experience you either express it or you suppress it
00:29:48 and sometimes cultural I remember uh uh uh story when I was working Prince Henry Hospital in Sydney where with a whole bunch of relatives from a middle eastern country which will yet remain unnamed uh and they were all waiting in the waiting room and the doctor came in and told them the bad news boy was sick and all that immediately screaming shouting one fellow jump out the window good thing is only ground floor and and on the other hand I was stitching up a British so leg and he said to me no anesthesia
00:30:33 don't you dare SSH ssh I look at his eyes never Flinch one time he's suppressing at it you see but the thing is pain is not an intellectual exercise it has to be expressed lament is the Cry of your heart crying out to God a voice to our suffering you don't have to jump out the window like the the chap did but you have to express it because if you don't express it is not healthy and the best person to express it is to God it's a language of loss look at here in the middle of my days I must depart I'm consigned to the Gates
00:31:09 of Hell a sh which is the place of dead for the rest of my years are you I it's like I'm doing something God interrupted me so a language of loss so therefore what he is doing is he's expressing loss he's expressing regret I sh I said I shall not see the Lord the Lord in the land of the living right so I'm I'm not going to experience him by faith I shall look upon man no more among the inhabitants of the world right it's like looking back at your family your grandfather grandmother all your children you will not see them
00:31:46 anymore remember this chap William Shatner Star Trek and his tagline for Star Trek was To Boldly go where no man has gone before go out into space recently he got his wish 90 something years old I think and Elon Musk took him up to space and what did he see I saw death I saw death why because he 90 I saw a cold dark black emptiness it was unlike any Blackness you can see or feel on Earth it was deep enveloping all encompassing I turned back to the light of the home I could see the curvature of the Earth the beige of the desert the
00:32:26 white of the clouds and the blue of the sky it was nurturing nurturing sustaining life but the Earth G I was leaving her that's what Hezekiah was feeling looking back looking forward there's Darkness looking back that's life a language of disorientation in the middle of my days you know how old was Hezekiah 39 years old 39 years old and his life would be cut short I must depart for the rest of my years my dwelling is plucked up and removed like a shepherd's tent so temporary like a weaver I rolled up my
00:33:06 life he cuts me off at the loom so this is the language of disorientation you see he imagined his life just like you imagine your life I will grow old I'll marry I'll have children I'll be a grandparent and I'll grow and die older than Queen Elizabeth I'll be the one where my birth certificate says old age it won't say cancer it won't say accident it will say old age in my mind I'm not I'm sure all of you have the same idea and when this happens it's it's terrible and I got a list of good I don't smoke I don't drink I don't
00:33:46 womanize I go regular checkup I drive properly I diet everyday intermittent fasting and when this happens see there's a where this orientated completely and and here what look at what hezek says oh Lord please remember how I walk before you in faithfulness and in whole heart and I've done what is good in your sight and that's correct Hezekiah was a good King if you look at all the kings of Judah 1 2 3 four brought re Revival and Hezekiah one of them four of them were good the rest were monsters including his father he's a
00:34:27 good guy bad things don't happen to good guys right so that's the problem how can you live in a world where bad things happen to good guys right here is one of the most famous people in the world who've actually suffered bad things good guy Joanie Ericson at the age of 17 jumped off into a shallow pool of water and broke her neck but she recovered she actually uh learned to draw with a mouth Etc but she describes a situation where she was before that this a picture of her before the accident where she was
00:35:05 really in a family full of vibrancy health and Sport she played hockey she was at the prime of her life and three weeks before this happened she you know what she did she rededicated her life to our Lord Jesus Christ and she says this is what you get for rededicating yourself so better not rededicate right because you rededicate good boy a good girl right and still Canal like that forgetting she's the one to jump off the cliff it wasn't God who told her to jump off the cliff right so so I think there
00:35:37 is a disorientation Bad Thing should happen to me and and she went to this miracle ladies uh uh service called Katherine kouman and she was Lady famous for touching and healing people and she went there expecting to be healed there's a whole line of people in wheelchair most of them including her were never healed it doesn't make sense isn't it job says why did I not die at Birth and come out from the womb and then so Die Why did the knees receive me why did the breast or why did the breast that I
00:36:14 should nurse from then I would have laid down and been quiet I would have slept and then I would have been at rest better not to be born that's just saying because sickness doesn't make sense right so here we have expressions of extreme sadness Ness exhaustion he cry cry cry until like a swallow the crane cannot cry just chip chip chip and moan like a dove my eyes are weary from looking down uh looking upwards oh Lord I'm oppressed be my pledge of safety and what shall I say he has spoken to me he
00:36:43 himself has done it and I walk slowly because all the years because of theit bitterness of my soul and actual realization in his heart that if God is Sovereign and he's in control who did this to you can't escape it's God and how do you deal with it if God is the one who have brought allowed this illness to come to your life and you can see the conflict in this Psalm his anger because he has cut me off you bring me to an end two times he said it he himself has done it on the other hand he's begging his hope
00:37:18 be my pledge of safety oh restore me to health and make me live He's conflicted so he's dealing with these feelings in his prayer so when we are in prayer we need to be honest with God God you're the one who cause it you could have stopped the covid-19 virus you know or maybe you shouldn't have gone to the shop but that's it and on the same time you recognize only he can give you healing so but the important thing is this lament is not behind God's back it directed towards God so when we're ill that's what we
00:37:55 need to do we need to be completely honest with the anger with the frustration with the loss with the regret and yet directed towards God imagine if you went to McDonald's today and suddenly you saw some flies snuggled in your Big Mac you they say extra topping would you say okay you know Anana this Big Mac you know that's what you pay for right no most of you will Bank table go up there and say this is McDonald's you know a multi-billion dollar Corporation I don't expect maggots or FES snuggle in
00:38:39 my Big Mac because you expect a higher standard right and some of you who don't lament if you don't lament means to accept the dysfunction of life as it is misery abuse social indjustice it's all normal flies inside that Big Mac is normal M right doesn't say much for your confidence in big in McDonald's right so when you lament what you are saying is that God this is your world it shouldn't be like that and you bring the injustices of the world and your own pain and you align yourself with God to affirm he's a
00:39:23 sovereign God you see in the restaurant you will complain to the manager in this world who do you complain to the manager right yeah and it's not the Prime Minister it's our God you align yourself you express frustration with God you know and and nothing is off limits because of the closeness of your relationship it's authentic faith is struggling to understand a sovereign I'm God I know you're a sovereign God but why you do this to me what have I ever done to you that's okay to express that it reminds God why he should act and Who
00:39:57 We Are and you Proclaim his plan to establish order in this chaos wrd World it shouldn't be like that and you pray and you're able to do this because of your relationship with him is so strong that through this illness through this pain intimacy grows as you lament before him and and God answers in a beautiful way I've heard your prayer I've seen your tears don't think for a moment that when you're suffering and you got your pet scan result and it shows a lump in your thigh that God didn't see that lump he
00:40:38 also saw that lump he has seen your tears Hebrews says we don't have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness but one who is in every respect been tempted as we are yet without sin let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find Grace at the time of need we have a savior who suffered pain and loss and we need to approach him now lament also allows us to reconceptualize our suffering behold it was for my welfare I had great bitterness but in
00:41:14 love you delivered my life from the pit of Destruction you have cast all my sins behind your back he found forgiveness he found a way to reconceptualize his suffering you see our perspective is always the street view all right we look at the painful events of life and not asking us to ignore them they're not diminished okay by we don't minimize them or we don't deny the existence but what we're doing when we lament is we're looking at God's perspective the 3,000 foot perspective on life that that we see our constant
00:41:51 suffering in the light of that background and and Corinthians says for the light and momentary reflection is preparing us for Eternal weight of Glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen But of the things that are unseen for the things that are seen are Transit things are unseen are Eternal so what Paul is doing here is is not only looking at the street eye view he's looking at the God's perspective View and in that light of Eternity everything else pales in con comparison so what he's doing is
00:42:21 reconceptualizing his suffering you're angry before God why are you tell me if you're angry God because you illness why would you be angry whose illness is it yours isn't it who who went and smoke two cigarettes a day or Packers who who smoke you smoke right but when you when you got the lung cancer who are you angry with God isn't it why because you believe God is powerful enough despite you smoke three packets of cigarette a day for 30 years God can still prevent it right yeah that's why you're angry
00:42:53 otherwise you won't be angry with but do you not understand that if that God is so powerful to have prevented it he's also powerful enough to have a reason to have prevented to to to allow the event to happen right just like job you see so as we are working this through even our anger needs to be reconceptualized and that helps us deal with the problem we all go through denial anger you bargain with God you dep and then finally the acceptance that's the process that we are actually reconceptualizing our pain this is a
00:43:26 picture you know Johnny Ericson draws the best be most beautiful pictures with her mouth because it's quadr plgic this is a picture she drew a few weeks into her accident that describes her pain she's actually looking at her pain but after struggling with God she says after months and years of struggling she says oh God I can't really live this way please if I'm not going to die show me how to live now that's a big thing isn't it if you're not going to heal me then you better show me how to live that is a moment that you come to
00:44:04 change 52 years later sitting on a stupid wheelchair with chronic pain since 1998 everyday pain depression you know what she got breast cancer chemotherapy I mean it never ends right she has touched so many people's life and one day she goes up as most breast cancer patients will say all clear pet scan clear after that recurrence cancer surgery and someone asked her if the accident had never happened what would have happened to you you know what she said she said I would have drifted through life like a typical American
00:44:48 young teenager I would have gotten married early probably divorced dissatisfied disillusioned always acting selfishly in school never built build my life on any longlasting value and they ask you are you happy you know she she said I would wouldn't change my life for anything I would really I'm really thankful he did something to get my attention and actually transform me or change me and don't and she and don't look down on people who are in wheelchairs or quadriplegics why because if God's glory
00:45:22 shines brightest through our weakness which it does then our inabilities become the best platform for God's highest Glory that that makes for a great quality of life that makes for a great quality of life recently I saw a YouTube interview when Nick vuch Australian accountant born without arms and legs and only one foot and he was sitting next to joonie Ericson and and and he and he actually was so touched by J Ericson's life he says if if God has a plan for the life of Joy 52 years in the wheelchair then he
00:46:00 could have plan for me too and Nick V took that and has preached the gospel to thousands and thousands of people the alternative to this is to be broken and bitter that's only two ways in which you can live hope is renewed and praise is reestablished if you look in the rest of his Psalm we're running out of time so I can't really go into that lastly is that healing is not the final solution now now if you just end in chapter 32 you missed the main point of today's sermon the main point comes in 39
00:46:39 because you see when you're healed what happens to you years later on nobody know one you know and what happens to you in eternity nobody knows 39 gives you a little glimpse so at that time Merc baladan son of baladan King of Babylon sent envoys with letters and the present to Hezekiah for he heard that he been sick and recovered here we have an Envoy from from uh far country Hezekiah Isaiah the prophet came to Hezekiah and said to him what did this men say and from where did they come to you Hezekiah
00:47:11 said they come to me from Far country from Babylon so babyon is here their struggling empire being defeated many times by Assyria they by their ascendant and they wanted to ask all about Hezekiah because he's so powerful this one one man now kill 188,000 Assyrian soldiers outside Jerusalem and he got healed from a terminal illness so he wants to see him and ask for his testimony isn't it so what did he do Hezekiah welcome them gladly he showed them his Treasure House the silver the gold the spices the precious
00:47:52 oil his whole Armory all that was in the storehouse there was nothing in his house or all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them did he tell them about how God saved his life no see my bank account see my CDs that I bought see my soldiers see how Changi I am how sad isn't it Chronicles 32 tells us in those days Hezekiah became sick and was on the point of death and he prayed to the Lord and he answered him and gave him a sign but hezeki did not make return according to the benefit done to him and his heart
00:48:31 is proud therefore wrath Came Upon him and the Judah and Jerusalem the healing was supposed to make return that means god makes looking for return on investment isn't it he gave you healing right healing has a demand for return on your investment and instead to the rest of the world he said this is my spice my bank account my stocks how great I am his heart was proud that is the difference and Isaiah said to Isiah but the word here the word of the lord of the host behold the days are coming when all that is in your
00:49:15 house and that which your fathers has stored up until this day shall be carried to Babylon all the things that you're proud of that you hold in great esteem I'm going to take it away nothing shall be left said the Lord nothing and some of your own sons who will come from you whom you will father shall be taken away and they be Uno in the place of the king of Babylon my God they're going to take your children and you know what he said well he said well the lot that you have spoken is good it's not my balls they're taking
00:49:54 off right it's my children there will be peace and SEC Security in my days imagine your father said that to you huh you take gun and shoot him this is Hezekiah a good King and he said that you see the story would not have been complete if we didn't read 39 isn't it and Chronicles Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit due to him you know when we get healed I've seen people it doesn't change the trajectory of your life you ask a lot of people go to Miracle service some he it doesn't
00:50:36 change the trajectory of Life sickness is like a speed bump done that and then they move on with life let's get back to things that matter the real lesson is how to avoid suffering diet screening see doctor every other day make M of a time or maybe you think oh I've seen some who've been in the middle chemotherapy no more tuor Wow Let's Party the de are not raised let us eat drink and for tomorrow you die that's so they enjoy their life after all many of my patients they say oh I cannot take it with me but and I
00:51:14 don't want to give them to my children so I might have take it and go first class travel everywhere go round and round you know you can go round and round but it's a marry ground you always wind up at the same place you Le need to understand when you go around around you need to jump off to the bridge to go across to some other part of life you know there's um uh Thomas Merton is a famous Catholic author and he wrote these words that it will affect some of you the more you try to avoid suffering the more you will
00:51:47 suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt the one who does most to avoid suffering in the end is the one who suffers most so instead I've seen illness instill a sense of paranoia they got the prostate cancer and now they're worried about the lung cancer they worried about everything else and they're always coming I've got a gentleman who keeps coming to me three months every time you know every 3 months and I don't want him to come
00:52:14 there's nothing really wrong with him but he keeps coming because once you're hit with something then you're worried about something else coming let me end there was a miracle of the healing of of Lazarus when God the Lord Jesus Christ heard that Lazarus was very sick to the point dying instead of coming very quickly because he loved Martha and her sister he stayed extra two days why to make sure he Cowa dead it'll be four days there's no dispute is that love and if you were marry Mar you waiting every day oh you
00:52:52 waiting waiting you know the brain is deprived oxygen 3 minutes finished you know and waiting 4 days for him to come but God didn't come he waited he delayed and then he came and he actually raised him from the dead and Jesus said to her did you not not tell you that if you believe God you would see the glory of God the whole point is of the healing of Lazarus and illness and healing is for us to see the glory of God the whole point of this gentleman who's been born blind was that the works of God might be
00:53:27 displayed in his life that is the whole point I've got this famous patient of mine who allowed me to take a p picture and I'm allowed to show it to you because I got his permission although I own the blank off his face okay uh he was a gentleman who was hit 18 years ago with cancer of the kidney and he was seen at GH and and they rightly told him you should operate and take out the kidney but he was afraid of going to kidney failure so he said no I'm not going to have any surgery I'm not going to have anything
00:53:58 done at all I'm going to go for prayer so he went for prayer and he actually went for as a pastor prayed for him he felt tingling sensation over his kidney and that was it he lived till about 3 years ago he saw me he started having blood in the urine and the another tumor was in his bladder I fixed that and I investigated do you know the tumor and the kidney is still there sitting big bad and ugers before but he'd been going around testifying the Lord has healed him and he has because you can't live with
00:54:34 kidney cancer for 18 years of your life he's healed from his kidney cancer in say that it stayed stable but yet he went into kidney failure 5 years ago he started having dialysis so you can understand that complete healing is not the final solution and even if he was heal kidney cancer didn't go for dialis all that 90s he's now 87 he's going to die anyway right that's not the point whether you're healed or not healed that is not the point the point is you must give return on how God has done for you you need to
00:55:08 glorify his name this is a vivacious young lady called Katherine wolf and husband Jay beautiful young lady studying multimedia uh in California going to make it big in the world and her husband was I think a lawyer or something and then when she was pregn pregnant she had a massive stroke because in her brain the part of brain called cerebellum there was a huge arterial venous malformation it's like a time bomb waiting to explode as she was having pregnancy giving birth it exploded and she wound up with 16-hour surgery they
00:55:45 removed part of her brain and she described I had 11 surgeries and had many more in the future I still don't walk well or use my right hand well I don't eat speak see hear normally either I found myself wondering has God made a mistake should I have died I'm caught between life and death a lot of people see this quality of life useless I'd rather die isn't it and yet through her life she says I've learned to do many things well to wait well to Suffer Well to cope well to persevere well even to lose well our culture tells us to succe
00:56:26 seed to be beautiful avoid pain and be happy but what if everything important in our lives is actually the opposite maybe it takes life to be undeniably terrible before we can truly recognize it's an undeniable Splendor and the undeniable Splendor is the love of God who comes into our life at the darkest moment of our lives and he touches us and he sustains us he gives us hope he listens and holds your tears in his hands that's the beauty she saw and she's dedicated her life to to ministering to people who are sick going
00:57:07 around the country confident even though she has her disabilities Thomas Burton says it's the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they're good not because they have meaning but because the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has has robbed them of their meaning Paul says death is swallowed up in Victory or death where is your Victory or death where is your sting we unlike Hezekiah have seen with our eyes of Faith the Risen Lord so whether we healed or not healed Our
00:57:50 lives our suffering our healing has a purpose and that is what we should hang on as we struggle in our walk of Faith let's pray father Lord we we're saddened because Hezekiah was a good King he walked Faithfully in his life but he wasn't perfect and like many of us even given a blessing he fell back into sin and pride and what would have turned out to be fantastic success story 15 years of Glory for God turned out to be a disaster because of his pride the disasters for his country a disaster for
00:58:47 his children I pray for all of us here today when we're sick when we healed or when we're well our lives must have meaning and our lives must bring a return a return that brings glory to our Lord so Lord hear our praise As we sing together and declare your name and your name is Holy and we live whether healing or non-healing and suffering and pain and glory and joy we live to honor you you we praise you for Jesus sake Amen Let us our rise which of God this [Music] a thousand Generations Falling Down and
01:00:09 Worship to sing the song of Fes to the land and all who've gone before us and all who will believe will sing the song of faith to the land your name is the highest your name is the greatest your name stands above them all all and Dominion all powers and position your name stands above them all and the angels holy oh creation Christ holy you are lifted High holy holy forever been forgiv if you been redeemed sing the song forever to the land if you walk in Freedom if you bear his name sing the allong forever to the
01:01:51 land save all forever and in and the angels Christ holy oh creation Christ holy you are lifted High holy holy forever your people sing [Music] [Applause] holy to the King of [Applause] Kings you will always be holy holy forever your name is the highest your name is the greatest your name stands above them all and dominions all powers and positions your name stands above the your name is the highest your name is the greatest your name stands above the all G and Dominion all powers and POS your name stands above the
01:03:39 all Angels Christ holy oh creation Christ Hoy you are lifted High holy holy [Applause] forever your people sing Holy to the King of Kings holy you will always [Music] be holy for forever you s holy to the king of [Music] Kingsly you will always be holy holy forever [Laughter] [Music] here hear the words of the Lord James 5 is anyone among you suffering let him pray is anyone cheerful let him see praise is anyone among you who sick let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over you that
01:05:30 today the Elders of the church are here in front they are only a walk away and there's no shame there's no point suppressing feelings of unhappiness because pain is not an intellectual matter it's a emotional matter it needs to be dealt with we can lament together come forward let me end the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law but thanks to be God be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ therefore my beloved brothers be steadfast immovable always abounding in
01:06:14 the work of the Lord knowing that in the Lord your n your labor is not in vain it's never in vain may you go with the blessing oh Lord amen you may be seated after a few minutes you are dismissed
