JESUS HIMSELF:

THE REVELATION OF GOD'S WILL

         By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.

      “Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, to do Thy Will, O God.” (Heb.10: 7, 9); “Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself, but as My Father hath taught Me, I speak these things. “And He that sent Me is with Me; the Father hath not left Me alone; for I do always those things that please Him.” (John 8: 28, 29)    

      Moses spoke of the coming Redeemer (Deut.18: 15-22), David wrote of Him (Ps.22: 16) and Isaiah foretold His miraculous birth, sacrificial death and glorious resurrection (Is.7:14; 6: 6; 50:5; 53:1-12).

     St. Paul says: “God, Who at sundry times and in divers (various) manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, Whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by Whom also He made the worlds.” (Heb. 1: 1, 2)

       The Word of God is the Will of God! The Will of God and the Word of God are the same. No pronouncement by a Theological College or Seminary can change the Word or Will of God. Nor, will any new revelation put forth by a would-be prophet, in any way alter the Word or Will of God. God’s written Word is inspired, infallible, unalterable, eternal and authoritative!

       The Bible declares that Jesus of Nazareth is the Word of God: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God…And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-4).

      St. John declares: “That which was in the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life.” (1 John 1
                      CHRIST THE ETERNAL SON OF GOD!

      Jesus Christ declared Himself the Eternal Son of God: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” (John 14: 6); “If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also: and from henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him …He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?

     “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me… And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it. If ye love Me, keep My commandments.

     “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of Truth; Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but ye know; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

    “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love them, and will manifest myself to him. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My words: And My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.

     “He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings: and the Word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s which sent Me. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” (John 14: 7-31)

      Jesus Himself is the REVELATION of the will of God regarding every doctrine in the Bible. He came to earth to do the will of God. He lived out the will of God before men. His life was perfect and no man could condemn Him!

      He challenged His critics: “Which of you convinceth Me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me?” (John 8:46)

      “And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me. If any man will do His WILL, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself.” (John 7: 15-17)

     Even Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who finally consented to His death, declared Him faultless: “Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth: And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in Him no fault at all.” (John 18: 38; Luke 23: 4)

                    JESUS: THE WILL OF GOD IN ACTION!

       Regarding repentance and faith, forgiveness and healing, peace and joy, Jesus of Nazareth was not only an example, He was the WILL OF GOD in action. Everything He said and did showed forth the mercy, grace and kindness of our Saviour toward mankind!

      Beginning with the Healing Covenant that Almighty God made with His Chosen people at Marah following their miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, we see His declared Will to save and heal His people.

     “And he (Moses) cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree (type of the cross) which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there He made for them a statute (law) and an ordinance (an order, decree) and there He proved them,

     “And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians: For I am the Lord that healeth thee.” (Ex. 15: 25, 26)

       SEVEN HUNDRED years before the birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth in Bethlehem, the Isaiah prophesied His birth, death and resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit: “Surely He hath borne our sicknesses (heb. makob), and carried or pains (heb. nasa): yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed.” (Is.53: 4,5)

      JESUS Himself is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s Atonement Chapter and the Revelation of God’s Will in Divine Healing: “When the even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His Word and healed all that were sick: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” (Matt.8: 16, 17)
               GOD’S WILL IN FORGIVENESS & HEALING!

     Jesus revealed the will of God regarding FORGIVENESS. To the woman caught in the act of adultery, He said: “Neither do I condemn. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:11). To the thief on the cross He said: “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23: 43. The story about the Prodigal Son’s return to his Father is a classic example of God’s dealing with Mankind:

      “And he arose and came to his father, but when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. And the Father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.”(Luke 15: 20-22)

      He revealed the Will of God regarding HEALING. He healed everyone who touched Him or asked for prayer.  He commanded His Apostles and Disciples to heal the sick, cast out devils and raise the dead! That is why He gave the Great Commission to all believers to preach the Gospel and heal the sick! (Mark 16: 15-20)

     “And He said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these SIGNS shall follow them that believe,

     “In My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover. And THEY went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with SIGNS following.” (Mark 16: 15-20)

     And that is why St. James wrote: “Is any sick among you? 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 shall save the sick, and the Lord shall RAISE him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” (James 5: 14, 15)

     The REASON this gift was given to the Church, and why Jesus HEALED the multitudes and commanded His disciples to do the same, was to do His Father’s WILL, fulfill Holy Scripture and to destroy the works of the Enemy! It was to lay out the ground rules with definite instructions to His apostles, disciples and all believers on the purpose, program and work of His Church!

        It was to demonstrate the Holy Spirit’s power over Satan through the shed blood of Jesus Christ and His glorious resurrection from the dead! And it was to liberate lost, fearful, sick and tormented human beings from the cruel and torturous onslaught of the devil in continuance until Christ’s Return! And FINALLY, it was to reveal to everyone Who Jesus is and to glorify His Father in Heaven! Amen.

      St. John was very excited and stirred about the great healing Ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. He stated that our Lord did so many miracles that if they had been all recorded, all the libraries of the world could not contain all the books!

     “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

      “And there are many other things which Jesus did the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” (John 20: 30, 31; 20:25)

     Jesus stated: “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

     He said to His disciples:  “And when they had found Him, they said unto Him, All men seek for Thee. And He said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, for therefore came I forth. And He preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and CAST OUT DEVILS.” (Mark 1:27-29)

               THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD ANOINTS!

     He came to Nazareth where He had been brought up and He stood up and he read from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath ANOINTED Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to HEAL the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the CAPTIVES, and recovering of SIGHT to the blind; to set at LIBERTY them that are bruised.”  (Luke 4:18)

      After His commentary on that Scripture, they sought to kill Jesus in His home town: “And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath He escaped out of their hands.”

      Some theologians believe that Almighty God made Jesus invisible when they brought Him to the brow of a hill planning to cast Him down headlong, but He walked away unscathed. The Jews were not allowed to kill Jesus even though they hated Him, because the Scripture stated that He must die outside the Gates of Jerusalem by crucifixion at the hands of the Romans!

      I repeat, the major reason that Jesus of Nazareth healed the sick and suffering was to do HIS FATHER’S WILL. Going back to the time of CREATION, the Word of God states: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiple, and replenish the earth…And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was VERY GOOD…” (Gen.1: 27, 28, 31)

     There was no sickness, pain or death in the Garden of Eden, until Satan came with his insidious lies through the serpent and Eve fell for it. Adam and Eve SINNED and their rebellion brought sickness, pain, death and sorrow onto the human race, which had previously been completely and totally well, free from sin, worry, fear and death!

     God the Father through His Son Jesus of Nazareth, was restoring man back to his original and giving the human race a taste of what will be the norm when Jesus reigns supreme on the earth! In His wrath against SIN and the FRUIT of sin, He was showing Satan that He would no longer be the master of planet earth and his prisoners. Jesus came down from Heaven to show us what Life in Christ could and should be. He was restoring man to what he was intended to be before the Fall of Adam!
              SICKNESS: THE DEVIL’S OPPRESSION!

  ORAL ROBERTS, a great man of God who was used greatly in bringing deliverance to the sick and suffering stated: “Jesus gave His disciples power. This is an impartation of power that is against something – against the sin in your life, against the sickness in your body, against any evil spirit or fear that torment your mind or spirit. This power is given to a man who has Christ. It is not a power we possess by ourselves or within ourselves. It is not resident within the individual. This power is in every person who has Christ, but it is in an accelerated form in a Minister of the Gospel who is fully committed to Him.

      “Sickness is torment: it is the devil's oppression. It is a frontal attack of Satan against the Kingdom of Heaven. Really, Satan isn't striking at you or me. He is striking against God. But Christ, in His power, comes to deliver us. Healing is God's counter attack against Satan.” - Commentary on Matthew

      JESUS CHRIST healed the sick and suffering because of God’s LOVE for mankind. His mercy, grace and compassion drove Him to go beyond human endurance to heal multitudes everywhere He went and to demonstrate God’s intense love for His creation! It was also, I repeat, to destroy the works of the Devil who had brought such devastation and chaos through his diabolical attack on man, who was made in the image of God!

      Christ’s intense desire to heal the SICK and to cast out devils was a foretaste for Satan of his total DEMISE when Jesus would CRUSH his head on Golgotha’s Cross! The Bible says: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her SEED; It (the seed of the woman) shall bruise (crush) thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.” (Gen. 3: 15)

     God foreordained the enmity between snakes and humans and between Satan’s followers and Christ the SEED of the woman, and finally Christ would crush Satan’s head at the cross. The bruising of His heel was His death which would only be a bruise because He would rise from the dead, victorious over death, Hell and the grave!

                   THE SERPENT’S HEAD IS CRUSHED!

      As a young minister, I used to preach that Satan and his demons were joyful around the cross thinking they had achieved a victory, but after studying the power of Jesus’ blood for more than fifty years, I preach a different message now!

     There were not many demons around the CROSS when the spikes were driven into Christ’s hands and feet (Greek word for hand includes wrist). Most of them left when Jesus was brutally scourged by Roman soldiers wielding razor-sharp cat-of-nine-tails whips in Pilate’s Judgment Hall. I believe that when those demons saw the life-giving and death-dealing BLOOD of Jesus Christ being shed, they screamed in terror and fled.

     And finally, if Satan was still near the cross, when he heard Christ shout ‘It is finished’, he trembled in fear and he shook with delirium tremens as he slouched his way to a cave somewhere to lick his chops!

      Satan knew the Holy Scriptures: “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission.” (Heb.9:22); “It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul.” (Lev.17:11): “When I see the Blood I will pass over you,” (Ex.12: 13). He had no doubt heard John the Baptist declare: “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” (John 1: 29).

       Just before Jesus died on the cross, He cried out, “It is finished.” (John 19:30). Jesus spoke in Greek, using the word ‘tetelestai’! The word tetelestai is taken from the Greek verb teleo which has three essential meanings: to finish something and bring something to an end; to fulfill something; and to pay that which is owed. He had finished His work and completed His mission. He had brought to an end Satan's domination over the human race for those who would trust in Christ. He had fulfilled every O.T. prophetic Scripture about the coming Messiah.  And He had paid for our Eternal Salvation, which includes forgiving all our sins and healing all our infirmities!

       Divine Healing was God’s Will during Old Testament times. It was God’s will during Christ’s earthly Ministry. It was God’s will in the Early Church. It is God’s will today and until the end of time! If it isn’t, then Jesus must have disappointed His Father in Heaven, yet He said that He did all things to please Him and on two occasions our Heavenly spoke publicly: “This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”

      Some Evangelicals are worse than the Pharisees, whom they criticize! The Bible states: “Jesus asked: Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? And He took him and he healed him and let him go.” (Luke 14:3, 4).

      The Pharisees believed in healing, but not on the Sabbath: “And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath Day, and said unto the people. There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” (Luke 13: 14)

      Some Evangelicals and Jehovah’s Witnesses say: “No, we don’t believe in healing. We won’t come to Jesus and don’t want to be anointed with oil in His name!

                 ONE AND ONLY ONE TRUE GOD!

      The Athanasius Creed states: “The Father is made of none, neither created or begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created but begotten – the Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding!

       There is only One True God, eternally existing in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit! In the Divine Economy of God there is no room for counterfeits or manufactured, man-made-gods! The very first of the Ten Commandments, written by the Finger of God in two tables of stone, says: “Thou shalt have no other gods beside Me.” (Exodus 20: 3)

         St. Paul stated: “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; BUT UNTO US which are saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:17, 18)

        “…We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but One. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or earth, (as there be gods many and lords many) BUT TO US (Christians) there is but ONE GOD, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in Him; and One Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things, and we by Him.”  (1 Cor.8: 4-6)

      The Word of God states that if the pagan want to believe in their man-made, pretend gods, that is their business. We cannot partake of their folly. We, who are believers in Christ have only one God, the True God, Who is our Lord, Creator, Father and God!  

      We do not, cannot and will not embrace the demonic, false teachings of pagan religions! We embrace only the Word of God, the Holy Bible and Jesus Christ God’s Son, Who was incarnated (God in human flesh), suffered bled and died for our sins and rose again, victorious over death, hell and the grave!

       “Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the Only Wise God our Saviour, be glory and Majesty Dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.” (Jude 24, 25)

      Jesus said: “Be ye healed” and St. Peter stated: “Jesus Christ maketh thee whole.” My dear friend, I say to you: “Receive ye the gift of the Holy Ghost and be well. In Jesus’ name!” Amen.