Objection: ALL Who Come to Christ for the New Birth Receive It, but Not All Who Come for Healing Receive It

I would turn this around and say that ALL who come to Christ in faith for the new birth receive it, and ALL who come to Christ in faith for healing receive it.

We should be glad that in our day, the doctrine of the new birth is preached far and wide.  It has become normal and accepted teaching.  We are used to the idea that you can answer an altar call, or even call on Jesus in your bathroom, and be saved on the spot.  We recognize that you don’t have to beg God to save you when you call on Jesus.  On the other hand, our right to divine healing is seldom preached anywhere.  Many churches that “believe in divine healing” or state that “divine healing is active today” do not really preach a message that anyone could act on and be healed.  Most of the time, the matter is left up to the “sovereignty of God” and when it is, nothing happens.  (God, in His sovereignty, has provided healing for everyone, but He requires that those who come for it must do so in unwavering faith.)  I am convinced that if we presented divine healing as well as we present the new birth, people would receive healing as a matter of course as they did in Jesus’ day.  It would be as easy for people to receive healing as it would be for them to receive the new birth.

We’ve done a little better with the baptism with the Holy Spirit.  All four gospels affirm that Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit.  More people today are coming to realize that receiving the Holy Spirit is a faith transaction that is no more complicated than the new birth and that they can receive this invaluable gift instantly when they come in faith.  But it wasn’t always that way.  Many churches taught that you had to “tarry” for the Holy Spirit as they did in Acts.  (If so, follow the whole instruction and do it in Jerusalem!)  Once He was given, there was no longer a need to tarry.  Some still teach “tarrying.”  But the truth is that the Holy Spirit was GIVEN in Acts 2 and now He only has to be RECEIVED.  You don’t need to tarry in Jerusalem or tarry in Tarrytown or anywhere else.  When people understand this, it’s easy for them to be baptized with the Holy Spirit.  But if you’re convinced that you’re going to have to wait and beg and struggle and twist God’s arm or get your life to some man-determined holiness standard before you can receive, it’s going to be very hard for you.  What I want you to see is that GOD did not make it hard – MAN and his traditions have made it hard.  Likewise, GOD did not make receiving healing hard – MAN and his traditions have made it hard.

In Jesus’ earthly ministry, it was IMPOSSIBLE to receive the new birth or the Holy Spirit yet, but the multitudes received healing without a big struggle.  The irony today is that healing objectors complain about how much harder it is to receive healing than the new birth, yet it is their very objections that poison people’s minds and make it almost impossible for many of them to receive healing by faith.  If there were so many objections to the new birth, I wonder how many people would come to Jesus in faith to be saved.

Not ALL who appeal to Jesus for relief from bad habits get free.  Does that mean that Jesus has NOT redeemed us out of Satan’s kingdom and that He did NOT come to destroy the devil’s works?  Not ALL who appeal to Jesus for financial relief receive it.  Does that mean that we cannot receive our needs met based on God’s riches in glory by Christ Jesus?  Not all are enlightened to what the Word says about these matters.  There can be no faith without this enlightenment.

It is not that healing isn’t AVAILABLE – it is.  But you must come in faith to receive it.  You will not receive healing if you pray in unbelief any more than you would receive the new birth if you were not really convinced that God raised Jesus from the dead.  I am doing what I can to help people realize that it actually IS easy to receive healing when you know what God says about it.