A. A. Allen’s “God Guarantees Your Healing” School
If God still heals the sick today, why are there so many good Christians among us burdened with illness? Thousands who are sick and suffering would like to believe in healing from above, because it would mean deliverance from severe suffering and sorrow. But they do not place their illnesses in God’s hands or believe that He will heal them if they turn to Him.
There are also thousands among us who have already believed in healing from above but are troubled by this same question. They say, “Other people receive healing, so God really does heal today. But why am I not healed? Perhaps God shows partiality?” These questions cannot be ignored. God also addresses them, and answers can be found in the Bible. “For there is no partiality with God” (Romans 2:11).
If God Promises to Heal Everyone, He Promises to Heal All
“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven” (James 5:14–15).
It was stated above that healing from above is not intended for the enemies of Christ and is not promised to them or to those who continue living in sin. Our goal is to determine the reasons why good Christians fail to receive healing. If you greatly desire to recover and are not a Christian, you should first receive healing for your soul.
Put an end to your sins and open your heart fully to God. Having ended your sinful life, believe in Jesus Christ (do not merely believe what is said about Him; believe Him Himself and rely on what He says in His Word). Begin confessing Him with your mouth, and then you will be saved (see Romans 10:9–10). And when you experience new birth through the Spirit of God—birth into God’s family—you will have the right to ask in faith for any of the promised blessings.
The Christian and Healing
If you profess Christianity and still have not received healing, examine your life and worldview in the light of the Word of God. God has not shown partiality in your case, for partiality contradicts His nature. And if you are still sick, there is some reason, and the Word of God will reveal it to you if you carefully seek His face. After you discover the reason and deal with it, God’s promise of healing will certainly touch you. God gives you this guarantee, and He cannot lie.
The reason encountered most often is a lack of faith. You may say, for example: “I have faith. I know that God can heal me. But why doesn’t He do it?”
Do you believe that He will heal you right now?
You may answer: “I hope He will heal me. I know that God will heal today. I attended Brother So-and-so’s service and saw hundreds of people healed. But when he laid his hands on me, I did not receive healing.”
What you have is not faith; it is hope. You hope that you will be healed. You have certain information that gives rise to the knowledge that God can heal and that He heals. You believe in what you have seen, but you do not have faith. If you had true faith, you would believe in what you have not seen, and you would believe it solely because God says so (see Heb. 11:1). If you truly had faith, you would already have received healing.
Once, a sister who could not hear in one ear came to me. She had been ill for many years. She said: “I do not understand why I have not received healing. I believe just like everyone else. I have all the faith in the world.” I very carefully tried to explain to her that if she had true, fully living faith, she could not have remained deaf for so long. For true, or effective, faith has works: “faith without works (faith that does not produce works) is dead” (James 2:20).
Effective faith carries a guarantee of results, because God fulfills His promises. When this woman confessed her lack of faith, she respectfully asked God to forgive her for doubting and to help her unbelief. Healing came immediately: her ear opened to sound.
This is the truly biblical way to approach God, which can help in such cases. For Jesus once said to a man whose faith was weak: “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23). And the man cried out with tears: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (verse 24). Jesus did not delay in helping his unbelief, and his faith rapidly grew. He received the faith that God gives. And what he passionately desired became not merely a possibility but a reality: his son recovered, and the devil’s spirit left him.
Honestly confessing your doubts, combined with the sincerest desire to learn to believe, is far better than loudly claiming to have faith that has no works. It is very difficult to deceive yourself here, and utterly impossible to deceive God.
Effective faith is not hoping that God will heal you and not merely knowing that He can heal you. It is a joyful confidence that it will be done, because God, who cannot lie, has promised—indeed, He has guaranteed—to heal you!
The Fruit of the Spirit
Many cannot receive healing because they have been taught that through illness and physical suffering, God reveals their best qualities or develops the fruit of the Spirit in them. They believe they must be patient in their weakness and wait for the appointed time of healing from above. They suppose that God is apparently developing patience and longsuffering in them. Or, perhaps, God is punishing them for some unconscious sin.
Sin really does open the door to sickness, but God asks us to confess our sin; that will be enough to get rid of it. God does not say: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him patiently wait until God has finished punishing him.” He says: “Confess your trespasses to one another [now, today], and pray for one another, that you may be healed…” He promises: “The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven” (James 5:16, 15).
God is not glorified when Christians continue living in sickness or in the sin that caused it. He is glorified when people are freed from both sickness and sin.
Long-suffering (patience) is the fruit of the Spirit (see Gal. 5:22–23), not the “fruit of sickness and suffering.” Long-suffering and patience arise as a result of obedience and produce the fruit of the Spirit of God. And if, in some people, the fruit of the Spirit seems to result from illness, it is only because weakness causes them to pay more attention to their relationship with the Spirit of God than when they were healthy. Many will agree that in most cases sickness causes a person to lose patience rather than gain it.
And if God, who never changes, uses this method to teach a person patience and long-suffering, then during His earthly ministry Jesus would have had to say to someone seeking healing: “Let everything take its course. Remain sick until you learn patience. Once you have gained patience, you may come to Me again, and perhaps I will heal you.” No one ever heard Him say such a thing. He never commanded a healthy person to become sick or a sick person to remain sick.
Sin and Sickness—Works of the Devil
There is hardly any reason to doubt whether God has given us any guidance about developing the fruit of the Spirit through the works of the devil. Of course not! Christ came precisely to destroy the works of the devil.
Someone may say: “Obviously, the time for my healing from above has not yet come. I will believe in my sickness, and better times will come; God will grant me healing if it is His will.”
The above sounds exactly like a sinner saying: “The time for my salvation has not yet come. I will believe in my sin and disobedience, and if I am someone God desires to save, He will save me when the right moment comes.”
We know that God’s will is to save everyone, for He does not desire “that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). And no one will perish if they repent, because Jesus said: “…unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5).
At the moment of repentance, the sinner receives salvation. There is no need to wait and wonder whether God will save him, for He says: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Everyone who calls themselves a fundamentalist acknowledges the above as a convincing doctrine. Many, however, forget that the same Bible says: “…I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 2). The health of God’s people is what God desires. But physical health is always conditioned by spiritual health.
The Fulfillment of God’s Promises Depends on Certain Conditions
Salvation depends on repentance. Healing depends on faith and spiritual health. But if a person knows and fulfills God’s requirements, an answer from above is guaranteed. “For all the promises of God in Him are ‘Yes,’ and in Him ‘Amen,’ to the glory of God…” (2 Cor. 1:20). “For He who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23).
Many cannot receive healing because they are unable to clearly formulate what they desire. “…You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2).
The Bible tells of two blind men sitting by the roadside. Hearing that Jesus was passing by, they began to cry out: “…Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David!” Yes, they directed their plea to the right address, but if we analyze their request, it becomes obvious that it was nonspecific. Therefore, Jesus asked them: “…What do you want Me to do for you?” They replied: “Lord, that our eyes may be opened.” And when their request became clear, “…immediately their eyes received sight…” (Matt. 20:30–34).
When turning to God for healing, clearly formulate what you need. God’s promise says: “And whatever you ask… in My name, I will do…” (John 14:13).
A man who was deaf in one ear and blind in one eye came to one of my healing services; his knees were also afflicted with rheumatism. He asked to regain the hearing that his diseased ear had been deprived of for several years. Prayer was offered, and the devil’s power retreated; the man was healed immediately. This miracle had such a positive effect on his faith that he dared to ask for healing for his eye as well.
He again received an affirmative answer to prayer, and his faith grew even more. Then he asked for healing for his diseased knees and received healing. This man needed nothing else, and God had no other desire concerning his healing. When each of his needs was stated with complete clarity, God proved faithful to His Word and did exactly what he asked in Jesus’ name.
The inability to formulate a specific request is sometimes connected with a lack of faith. For example, a beggar knocking at your door might say: “Give me something to eat.” He is not sure that he will receive anything at all. And even if he does, he cannot know what it will be. That is why he does not make his request specific. But when we go to the grocery store with money in our wallets, we do not say: “Give me something to eat.”
We say: “Give me a loaf of bread and half a kilogram of butter.” We list everything we want to buy for the seller, specifying the quantity of each product. We do not doubt that we will receive what we ask for.
In the same way, a person who turns to God and believes that he will receive whatever he asks for will ask for exactly what he needs.
Many times, when we managed to help someone seeking healing clearly determine what they needed and expected to receive, and led them to make their request for healing specific, the barrier preventing their deliverance from illness was destroyed.
If It Is Your Will
Many people quite rightly believe that their prayer will sound timid and uncertain if they end it with the phrase: “If it is Your will.” This phrase may also be an enemy’s deception preventing a person from having faith for healing. Until you become convinced that God desires to heal you, you cannot ask in faith. Never, throughout the entire practice of answering prayers, has anyone managed to persuade God to do something contrary to His will! The secret of answered prayer is that it is according to His will.
But those who nevertheless pray using this phrase follow the example of Jesus praying in Gethsemane, who cried out in anguish: “If You were willing, take this cup from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). Although He was not praying for something promised by God or asking for a change in circumstances. And despite the fact that the prayer was offered by the Son of God Himself, it did not bring about what He asked for. Yet this prayer can be viewed not as an ordinary request for something, but as the anguished cry of a struggling soul.
The prayer of rejoicing at Lazarus’s tomb was of an entirely different nature: “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me… Lazarus, come forth!” (John 11:41–43).
When praying for healing, we are praying for what God has already revealed to us as His will. Why, then, should we say, “If it is Your will”?
It is wiser to discover the will of God and pray according to His will. James testifies: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, trade, and make a profit,’” Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will and we are alive, we will do this or that” (James 4:13, 15). In this case, God had made no promises; He does not reveal His will here.
But God has promised and revealed His will concerning the healing of His people. Therefore, there is no need for us to say, “If it is Your will.” Let us say instead: “Thank You, Father, for revealing Your will on this matter in Your Word. Now I know that I am asking according to Your will.” “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:14–15).
The words “if” and “when,” often spoken in prayers, are not only direct evidence of doubt but also an attempt to avoid being accused of unbelief or unintentional sin. Therefore, if healing does not come, the person asking can always use this explanation: “My healing simply was not God’s will. He heals others; and although I am blameless, God shows partiality and does not want to heal me.”
In light of God Himself stating unequivocally that He shows no partiality (see Romans 2:11), the reasoning above can be viewed as nothing other than slander against God or an accusation against Him.
Understand How God Works
Many continue to suffer because they do not understand what God is doing so that they may receive healing. Such people have already formed a certain idea of God’s actions. And if they receive an answer that does not correspond to this idea, they lose confidence in God or assume that their prayer was not heard and that they will not receive an answer. Healing can be received only by faith. Therefore, so that their faith will not be shaken, it is necessary to understand how God works and what steps He takes to heal His people.
People often think that if God heals, He does so immediately and completely. This is a common human misconception. Jesus does not always heal in this way. Although He can heal immediately and completely and can do so right now, this is not the only model of healing, since other models also occurred during Christ’s ministry.
Once, a certain nobleman, a royal official whose son was ill, came to Jesus and said to Him: “…Come before my son dies.”
Jesus answered him, “Go; your son will live.” Jesus’ words make it clear that the boy had been healed—the matter was settled. Jesus had done everything that depended on Him. On the road, the royal official was met by his servants with the joyful news: “Your son will live.” The father asked them when his son had begun to improve, and the servants said, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” Then the father remembered that this was exactly the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live” (see John 4:49–51).
Pay attention to the phrase “he became better” (verse 52). It may seem that, although the boy was truly healed, the healing was neither immediate nor complete. His health and strength were not restored in that same hour to the level they had been before the illness. Most likely, this is what happened: the fever left him, beginning a period of recovery needed for the boy to fully regain his health.
The same thing happens today. In many cases, the course of an illness is changed. Usually, time is needed for normal processes of growth and healing to lay the foundation for restoring complete health to its normal state. Here, you may encounter two dangers intended to prevent you from taking hold of this truth.
First, you may lose your boldness in the healing power of God because you are disappointed that your health has not reached the expected perfection. Such a loss of boldness opens the door to the devil, and he may return and reclaim what had been released from his bondage (see Matthew 12:43–45). Then a person loses what he had gained. This also applies to those who testify of “partial healing.” It should be noted that when the devil returns, the person is in an even worse condition than when the evil spirit first came.
The second danger is that a person agrees that partial recovery is all God intends to do in his case. By acknowledging this possibility, the person stops resisting the devil. And the devil erects a barrier so that God cannot fulfill everything He has promised this person. But God’s plan is for you to receive complete healing, which may come immediately or may require a period of recovery.
Do not give up hope even when you have not received immediate healing. Continue, in faith, to give praise to God, for what you have already done is not directly intended to improve your condition. Through your actions, you are only beginning to heal the wounds Jesus received at the entrance to Jerusalem as payment for your healing. Continue to keep your eyes on Jesus until you feel that the healing process has been fully completed.
One day, near a village, Jesus met a group of ten lepers who stood at a distance “and lifted up their voices, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! When He saw them, He said to them, Go, show yourselves to the priests” (Luke 17:13–14).
Jesus did not tell them that they would be healed immediately. Instead, He told them to go to the priests. They had no right to do this unless they had been healed. Obeying in faith, they went to the priests. These men did what they could not have done unless they had been healed. Yet they did it without feeling any manifestations of healing at that moment. “And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed” (verse 14).
This healing was neither immediate nor obvious. But it was true healing by the power of God. These people took God at His word, and His Word does not fail. They acted according to their faith even when they still felt no manifestations of healing. As a result, they soon saw what they had believed.
Act in Faith
If you do in faith what you could not do before, God will fulfill your desire. Jesus often said to those confined to their beds, “...Rise, take up your bed and walk” (John 5:8). And when they did so, they received healing. At the entrance to the temple, Peter said to a man who had been lame from birth, “...In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And taking him by the right hand, he lifted him up; immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked, and entered the temple with them—walking, leaping...” (Acts 3:6–8). Many people still receive healing in the same way today.
Once, a young woman who had walked on crutches for four years joined the line for healing. When she entered, the reflection of faith shone brightly on her face. Before the pastor could say the first words of prayer to her, she handed him her crutches. Her faith was based on the firm conviction that she would no longer need them, so she left without them.
God always rewards genuine, active faith. There was another woman who also once joined the line for healing. She listened to the prayer while sitting in a wheelchair. And when she was told to stand up and walk, she did not even try to get up.
Looking at the pastor, she said, “You know, I cannot do this.” And she could not get up because she did not believe. Two days after receiving additional instruction on acting on God's promise, she finally rose from her wheelchair. She began to walk, run, and climb stairs. This pattern of healing was also seen during Jesus’ ministry. It is still at work today.
Follow God’s Instructions
Faith in God is more than faith in His promises. It is also faith in His instructions. They are usually not merely a test of faith, as in all the cases described, but also a test of obedience.
Jesus once met a man who had been blind from birth. He made mud and anointed the blind man’s eyes with it. “And He said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.’” The blind man did what he was told. “So he went and washed, and came back seeing” (John 9:7).
The blind man’s eyes were opened! When did this happen? When the man obeyed Jesus’ command and did what he was told to do. Thus, we learn that healing can be received only by walking the path of obedience. Jesus can heal you in the same way right now. It is important to understand that healing also affects your soul.
I know many examples of God dealing with people who obediently fulfilled His will and were miraculously healed the very moment they heard His voice. This gives me reason to be confident in the healing of all who have active faith for healing and follow God’s instructions. I only doubt whether those who stubbornly refuse to obey God have any faith at all. It is unlikely that He has prepared healing for them as well.
God gives those who desire healing this instruction: “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed...” (James 5:16). This leads to the conclusion that if someone is unwilling to confess their trespasses, hidden sins may harm their health and hinder their healing.
My experience as a pastor and evangelist testifies that some people for whom prayers are offered for healing do not recover until they repent of their trespasses. Many people harm others but are unwilling to admit it. It is hardly surprising that, with such a rebellious spirit, they cannot have active faith for healing. But God promises that when a person acknowledges their trespasses, they are delivered from both sin and sickness.
Once, Jesus cursed a fig tree that bore no fruit. No one noticed any change in it after His words. The next day, when Jesus and His disciples passed by the tree, Peter exclaimed in amazement, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree You cursed has withered.” In such a short time, it had “withered from the roots” and dried up (see Mark 11:12–21).
Healing Sometimes Comes Gradually
Many diseases are healed according to the same pattern. In the name of Jesus, a curse is sent to the “root” of the disease. If a person has cancer, a malignant tumor, an enlarged thyroid gland, or any other growth, it must be rejected by the body or break apart and leave the body through the bloodstream.
Clearly, a person can truly receive healing and begin restoring their health while experiencing some discomfort during the recovery process. For a time, the suffering may even become more intense as the body rejects and expels a growth that is foreign to it.
Many people are unable to understand what is happening during such periods, and consequently they give up their boldness. They openly testify that they have not received healing, that they feel much worse, and that they are afraid of dying. Fear, loss of faith, and accepting the devil’s instructions open the door to the devil, who again takes possession in their bodies of what had previously been freed from him by the power of God. That is why healing dies before a person can experience its benefit.
In most cases, cancer is healed only according to this pattern, although I have encountered cases where malignant tumors disappeared immediately after prayer.
God does not have just one single method of healing. Those who need healing must receive it in the way God gives it to them. As a rule, God heals when His name is glorified. Receive healing in the way God gives it to you. If you receive immediate healing, give praise to God, go on your way, and rejoice.
If healing comes to you gradually, thank God for it in the same way and rejoice as you await complete recovery. For God may have cursed only the root of your disease, as happened with the fig tree. Do not allow your faith to waver. Remain steadfast, realizing that faith is the foundation of your recovery.
And if God tells you to get up and walk, do something, or speak, do not rely only on time as the best healer. Obey God, do what He says, and victory will come.
Perhaps you have already prayed for your healing. You may even have prayed several times, but were unable to believe God for your healing. Now you think that coming for prayer again might be regarded as unbelief.
Consider the passage from the Bible that tells how Jesus took a blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. After spitting on his eyes, He laid His hands on him and asked whether he could see. The man looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees walking around.” After Jesus laid His hands on him a second time, his sight was completely restored. “And he saw everything clearly” (Mark 8:23–25).
If you have prayed and have not received healing, do not lose hope. Simply start all over again. Begin reading the New Testament as though you were reading a new book. Read and study it as if you had never heard about healing from above. You have missed something important, so read everything again from the beginning. Pay close attention when it comes to God’s instructions and carefully examine each one. Having done all this, you will be assured of an answer from above.
Death Is Still Undefeated
The Bible teaches us that our physical health should improve as our spiritual well-being prospers. However, this does not mean that healing from above can provide a person with eternal physical life. Nor will you find evidence of this in Holy Scripture. On the contrary, it says: “People are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Heb. 9:27).
Some preachers, pastors, and Christians filled with their convictions, who enthusiastically defend the doctrine of healing, conclude that if a person has sufficient faith, they will never die a physical death. But the Word of God speaks utterly unambiguously of death as an undefeated enemy. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26).
A careful study of this verse and its context will help you understand that even if it proves possible to defeat death, it will have to wait for another time. Sin is the weapon of death. Through sin, death stings a person. Therefore, for one saved from sin, death loses its sting. But death itself has not yet been defeated. Until Jesus returns and takes everything into His hands, death remains the natural end of every person.
In seeking confirmation that a person can attain physical health, which may be viewed as victory over death at least in the physical sense, people usually turn to the Epistle to the Romans (see Rom. 5:12–14). A person can be alive in the physical sense of the word and spiritually dead. “But the woman who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives” (1 Tim. 5:6).
A careful study of chapter 5 of the Epistle to the Romans, especially verses 17–19, will help you understand Paul, who is speaking here of spiritual death, not physical death. “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (verse 19). And if the death mentioned in verses 12 and 14 is physical death, then verse 19 should be read as follows: “…and through the obedience of the one man many will be made free from death.”
We can agree that physical health is given to us as redemption during the period of life appointed for us. But Scripture contains no evidence that a person can have such strong faith that they will never die a physical death. Only those who live until Jesus returns will escape death. “Then we who are still alive, who are left… will be caught up together with them… to meet the Lord in the air…” (1 Thess. 4:17).
“The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away” (Ps. 90:10).
After acquainting us with this general rule governing human life, God continues: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). This verse indicates that even the most spiritually mature Christians must live out their days to the end. This may explain why, in old age, many people are unable to get out of bed. Their God-appointed hour to depart has come.
Here, however, it should be noted that even when a person’s life has come to an end, the Word of God gives no indication that their death must be accompanied by suffering and agony. It pleases God for His servant to depart in peace (see Luke 2:29). Illness does not always end in death. God’s formula is this: “…when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust” (Ps. 104:29).
But if death has nevertheless come, there is another biblical principle: those with exceptional faith may be granted an additional, limited period of life. Thus, Hezekiah learned that the Lord had told him to set his house in order, because he was destined to die soon and would not recover.
But in response to his prayer, Hezekiah received an additional 15 years of life. Hezekiah received healing, and his life was extended, but after those years had passed, death still overtook him. Healing from above does not cancel the operation of the law of death. Effective faith is based on the Word of the One in whom we believe. We can have faith for healing because healing is promised by God. But He has not promised that physical life will continue forever.
Receive Your Healing as God Gives It
Build your faith on the Word of God. Study the Word to discover why you have not been able to receive healing. Once you find the reason, remove it and joyfully receive your healing, regardless of how God gives it to you.
God may choose immediate or gradual healing. It may come unexpectedly some time after prayer. It can also happen that a person whose time to depart has come may be delivered from pain and suffering when granted eternal rest.
Let go of your own ideas about exactly how God intends to heal you. Receive God’s healing as it is. Trust God and rely on His Word. God says that you will receive healing. God, who cannot lie, instructs us to believe; and through faith we will receive it and recover.
Do not give up your boldness if healing does not come immediately. Hold firmly to the faith that comes from the Word of God. Rely on the promise, and God will give you His guarantee, and you will receive healing!
