Objection: It Wasn’t God’s Time to Heal the Beggar at the Gate Beautiful in Jesus’ Ministry; He Had to Wait for Peter and John
This oft-quoted popular objection states that Jesus went past this man many times in His ministry and did not heal him, but he was healed only when Peter and John showed up.
First, you don’t have any proof that Jesus ever walked past this man. Even if you could prove He walked past this man, that would still prove nothing. Jesus healed all those who came to Him for healing. If this man never appealed to Jesus for his healing, he would not have the right to expect to get it. He would be in the same position as the many at the Pool of Bethesda who were not healed because they did not come to Jesus to be healed.
The power of the Lord was present to heal the religious bigwigs in a house, but only one man (a paralytic who was in faith along with his friends who brought him) was healed. The others were too busy complaining about Jesus to receive from the healing power that was there. They were not healed. They did not even ask to be healed, even though they needed it. (The power would not have been there to heal them if they did not need healing!) See Luke 5:17-26.
Read the stories of the multitudes who were healed and you can see that they were always “brought to Jesus” or they “came to Jesus.” Jesus did not just walk around randomly healing people. This is why you can’t just go clean out a hospital. People need to be expecting to receive something or you will be wasting your time going there. Now if the hospital will let you preach the good news about healing to everyone, perhaps you WILL get a lot of people or even all of them out of there. I still remember when my wife and I prayed over a terminal cancer patient in a hospital in another country, and the hospital was upset with us for being “too loud” and “using funny languages.” God healed that woman, but the workers were upset – that’s not an environment where you’re going to clean out the cancer ward. I saw a lot of miracles at a certain nursing home, including seeing a man get out of his wheelchair and walk (and also get healed of AIDS), but the staff was upset with me and told me so. (Some of them were denominational Christians who did not appreciate the doctrine of divine healing even though it worked! You will at some point run into some people who accuse you of using the devil’s power – after all, they said that about Jesus, and a servant is not above his master.) They accused me of breaking confidentiality by saying that the man was healed, but that man was actually out on Main Street in that city telling anyone who would listen that the Lord had just healed him of AIDS (and he had an HIV-negative test to prove it). I wasn’t repeating anything people weren’t hearing from him in public. But some people just won’t get excited about miracles, just as the Pharisees got upset that Jesus healed on the wrong day rather than rejoicing with the people who were receiving miracles.
You can get healed through a manifestation of the Spirit, but you have no guarantee of this. You can always get healed through faith in Christ’s atonement, which included provision for your physical healing. It is better to be one of those to whom Jesus can say, “Your faith has healed you,” rather than being like one of those at the Pool of Bethesda who don’t know the will of God in the matter.
Okay, so why did God see fit to heal the man then and not earlier? Actually, God was willing to heal that man all along. The man could have been brought to Jesus for his healing earlier and received it along with the other multitudes where they were ALL healed. ANYONE who went (or was brought) to where He was and touched His garment in faith would have been healed. Any person in Jesus’ ministry or after could have been healed by believing God’s promises and statements in the Old Testament relative to sickness and healing (“I am the Lord your Physician,” “I will take away all sickness,” “No plague shall come near your house,” “Who heals all your diseases,” etc. – see the Old Testament portion of this book for a lengthy list.)
If we are going to argue that the man had to wait for it to be God’s will to heal him spectacularly one day, we must also conclude that it was not God’s will for Saul of Tarsus to be saved until the day that he had a spectacular divine appointment. We know that this cannot be true, because God wills that all men be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3-4). Your salvation had nothing to do with the timing of God either. God would rather that you had grown up as a Christian rather than wasting years of your life learning how to sin and then having to unlearn your bad habits. The best testimony of all is that of someone who serves God and never strays. It may not make you a popular conference speaker, although maybe it should. People get excited that a former God-insulting atheist like me got saved, but the man who has been faithful to God all his life has a better testimony than I do.
God tells you exactly when His perfect timing is for your salvation and your healing. Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2). If you have been waiting on God to determine His timing for your healing or your salvation (which includes healing), now you know when it is. God’s perfect time for you to receive any of His promises is now. He is not making you wait; He is the One waiting for you. You can pray and receive your healing now if you want to.
Even in our day, some people are healed by a spectacular manifestation of the Spirit, and people wonder why God’s timing wasn’t earlier. His timing for the miracle was “all along,” but the person did not receive it. We don’t always know why “signs and wonders” happen when they do, how they do, and to whom they do. But one thing you DON’T have to wonder about is God’s timing – you can ALWAYS receive healing by faith, even if it requires a miracle – at any time. The fact that God “meets someone halfway” or even “all the way” through a special manifestation does NOT mean that healing wasn’t available until then. It’s been available ever since Jesus died and rose from the dead!