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Okay. So we are now getting started on a new series, and this is called Infirmity and the Will of God. This is going to be quite interesting. It’s not what you’ve heard and it’s going to be eye opening and it’s all going to be, for the most part, from Scripture. There’ll be some connecting some dots as we go along. But for my podcast listeners, I just want to remind you to subscribe. If you haven’t and my YouTube folks, you can also hit the subscribe button. And if you’re on social media, please share what we share about and I would encourage you also to come back. The lasagna story. It’s always best the second time through. So even those of y’all that are here and just to put another plug out for my book and this is for the YouTube folks, if you can see it, it’s called Nuggets of Faith, and it’s a bunch of nuggets, 407 to be exact. Most of the teaching that I do here comes out of either this book or these subsequent book that is in process to be published. It’ll still be a while, but I encourage you to go on Amazon. Just type in my name. Beatty Carmichael. You’ll get a lot out of it. It’s like a devotional that you can use in your time with the Lord. For any of y’all here that don’t have one, I’ve got a bunch over here and two more boxes over there, so plenty to have one if you want to grab it for free.

So with that said, I want to get into our lesson for tonight and I’ve got a question for you. Is infirmity given to us by God? Or is it fate? Because of the fall, we just have fallen bodies. Or is it something that we do that causes us to get the infirmity? What do you all think? Or is it all the three? Or is it none of those? So that’s what we’re going to be talking about. And with this is also, you know, what part, if any, do we play in God healing us from our infirmities? So with that as a backdrop, I want to give you kind of what started this in the last year, maybe just over a year. Pa and I have had a number of friends close or distant that have run into some really difficult times health wise, either their daughter, their spouse themselves or just a loved one of some capacity. And the questions always come up because, you know, not just like a cough or I got a little illness that’s going to be taken care of before long, You know, it’s just going to naturally go away. But these things that you pray seriously to the Lord saying please heal. And with a couple of these folks, two of them have already died. I met another gentleman just a few weeks ago. I wouldn’t call him a friend, but he is he’s actually the third pastor out of this group and his wife is on hospice and she’s only 60 years old.

And the question is what’s going on? So what’s interesting is, as I spoke with him and as I spoken with two other pastors, I’ll call one Fred and his daughter had a disease that ended up being incurable before she died. And then another pastor, his name I’ll call Brad. His wife had incurable cancer. Well, I won’t say it’s incurable, but it was not cured before she died. So what we have is we have. People that are suffering and they’re suffering with infirmities of loved ones or themselves. And the question is what’s going on? And as I started to visit with the pastors, you know, the pastors have a pretty deep understanding of God’s word. And all three of them have come to the same conclusion. He got his picture of the impact of what’s going on. Okay. They have their congregations praying, hundreds of people. They have extended congregations praying of those where they preach and other friends that they have. And so you have upwards of thousands of people praying for each of these folks with this these infirmities. There are well-meaning, righteous Christians and God does not heal. So the question is. Is it God’s will? After hundreds of people and thousands of people praying and consistently praying. Then if God did not heal, it must be God’s will for them to be sick and ultimately die.

And I want to show you a passage. This is real interesting. So turn to first, John 514 and 15. As we get into this, because this is a passage that needs to be reckoned with. First, John, 514 and 15. And it reads like this. If we ask anything according to God’s will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him. Right. So here’s a question on this. If you pray for God’s will. And it is God’s will. And God does not do that. How do you reconcile that? Or let me let me probably rephrase it. If you pray for God to heal this person. And this passage clearly says that if we pray according to God’s will, he hears us. And if he hears us, then we will have the request we have asked from him. So if we pray for God to heal this person and I have hundreds of people praying for God to heal this person and this person does not get healed. Then does that mean it’s not God’s will? Because this passage seems to clearly say if you pray according to his will, he hears you. And if he hears you, he will give you that request. Do you all see the the challenge? Right. Okay. So another question then, is, were their pastors correct? In assessing this passage.

That it was God’s will for their loved ones to be sick and ultimately die. Is there any other possible conclusion? And that’s what we’re going to talk about tonight. So one set up a scenario for you. I am gravely sick. I’m on the verge of dying. All my organs are shutting down and I’ve got hundreds of people praying for me. Lord, please heal Beatty. And I’m going, Lord, please heal me. I claim your healing right? And God doesn’t heal. Does that mean it’s not God’s will for me to be healed? No, maybe a little bit more details. For the last 20 or 25 years, my diet has consisted of cookies, cakes and colas. Exclusively. No vegetables, no fruits, no meats, no water, no milk, literally cookies, cakes and colas. Now, if I pray for God to heal me and all these other people pray for me to be healed and God doesn’t heal. Does it start to make more sense that maybe there’s something else going on, that it could be God’s will, that I be well, it could be God’s will, that I be healed. But there’s something that I am doing. That is causing this problem. I remember one of the ladies who used to work with me. And we would pray for people and God would heal a number of them. And she moved into I forget the term, but it’s a functional type of medicine, functional foods type of medicine.

And her whole whole issue is God may heal you, but if you don’t change those habits, you’re going to be sick again. Right? Or the easy example is, you know, you have really bad knee pain and everywhere you go, your knees are just crazy painful and you weigh 350 pounds. Well, God heals your knees in just another month or two. They’re going to be painful again because you got that situation. And that’s sort of the idea with this poor diet. So does God want me to be healed if I’m sick? Yes. Does he heal me? Probably not. Why? Well, if I’m got a bad diet, I’m the. I’m at fault. And if he heals me, what’s going to happen? I’m just going to get sick again. He wants something more. He wants me to sustain health, not simply be healed for a moment. Sort of like the idea of if you give a man a fish, you feed him for the day, you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. So what’s the conclusions here? The conclusions. I think if we go back to the pastures and say, were they correct? It was God’s will for their loved ones to be sick. In fact, God might have even brought the sickness on them because he’s trying to teach them something. You learn patience, you learn perseverance. You learn to suffer. You learn to seek the Lord in grief and all these things.

Is that really what God’s doing? What’s interesting is most of those pastors thought that’s what was going on. And yet I think scripture teaches something different. So let me walk you through. There are lots of things going on with this, but I think the two things that we need to look at is the opinions of those pastors or anyone else. Is is it biblically based? Right. Or is it humanly assumed? And one of the things I’ve been is a big pet peeve of mine is how do you interpret scripture? Basically, two ways to interpret it. You can interpret with man’s wisdom. Well, that’s preposterous. It must mean something different. And we start to apply intellectual prowess into what God’s Word says. Or we interpret scripture with childlike faith and childlike faith says at face value, this is what it says, unless there are some significant biblical reason to counteract that, that’s the way to interpret it. That’s what we need to interpret it as. We may not understand it, but yet we believe it nonetheless. And we seek the Lord for understanding. And the question on this whole idea of infirmity is why is it important to know? Because if you know what caused it, how you got it, then you’re likely to be able to do something about it. Assume for a moment it’s God’s will for you to be sick. It’s God’s will for you to go into that sickness and die from it.

Is there anything I can do? Anything doctors can do that can keep me from being sick and dying? No. If God sent it and He’s determined to kill me, there’s nothing I can do. But if I assume that God sent it to me and it’s actually some behavior of mine, like my poor diet. Now there’s hope. If I understand that it’s my diet and not God. I got a chance to get rid of it. So that’s where we want to go with this and why? So when we’re talking about permitting, I think there are probably three possibilities that we can look at. Three possibilities with infirmity. The first one is it is God’s will. God send it to me, right? He sent it. And why did he send it for my good benefit? Because everything God does is for the good, ultimately. Right? The second possibility is that it’s fate. It’s part of the fall. You know the fallen world. We live in a fallen world, and that’s just happens. And I think a third possibility is its consequence. And consequence is there’s something I did that caused that infirmity to come upon me. Okay. And the question is, how do we start to understand what scripture says about this? So real quickly. God’s will. Did God send the infirmity? I think a better question to ask is what is the pattern that scripture shows in terms of God and infirmity? I’m not going to cover that right now because we will talk about that in just a moment.

This will be our main topic here. But here’s interesting. There is zero evidence in scripture. That God’s pattern is to sin infirmity upon righteous people. Zero evidence. Okay. There is one example. We’re going to cover this with Jobe, but that’s the only example. But we have to look at Jobe in light of what is it doing? The second thing is fate. Okay? As a part of the fallen world. And there is only inferred evidence here. Okay. Nothing I recall seeing anywhere in the Bible where it talks about, hey, because we’re in a fallen world, we have sickness and disease. That’s more of a modern day terminology, I believe. But then when you look at the consequence of things that we might do, there’s somewhere between 15 and 30, if not more specific incidences in the Bible that points to man and our own actions as being the cause of the infirmities that we deal with. So we’re going to cover that. We’re going to cover all three of these. But right now we’re going to take a look at God’s will. And now we’re going to get into some really deep stuff and some fun stuff. Okay. So the best way to describe this session is the blood covenant. Who knows what a blood covenant is? Y’all can speak up. Anyone know what a blood covenant is?

A promise that by blood.

A promise that sealed by blood. Good. Anyone ever heard of a blood covenant? Okay. Just a few. Okay. More than a few. Great. So I want to show you what’s going on, because to understand God’s will as it relates to infirmity, we have to understand what we’re under in this thing called a new covenant. So turn real quickly to mark 14. We’re going to read verses 22 through 24. Mark 1422 through 24. This is the Last Supper in Mark 14 and starting in 22, it says while they were eating, Jesus took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take it. This is my body. Verse 23. And then he took a cup. And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them and they all drank from it. This is my blood of the Covenant, which is poured out for many, he said to them. So this is my blood of the Covenant. This is the new covenant that Jesus makes. And it’s called a blood covenant. And basically a blood covenant says all that is mine is yours, and all that is yours is mine. So the basic idea behind it is if you go back even thousands of years ago, people have been doing blood covenants for forever essentially. And a blood covenant is the strongest covenant you can make between two men or between two tribes or two nations or or whatever the two entities are. And the general idea is this they would make a promise, a covenant with each other. So let’s say I’ve got two tribes, okay? And we got the leader of the tribe and they make a covenant and then they’re going to slit their wrist a little bit or their hand.

They’re going to drip some drops of blood and maybe some wine, and then they’re going to drink it. And now they’re drinking each other’s blood. They’re putting their blood in them. And what the blood covenant says essentially is. Everything of mine is yours. Everything of yours is mine. And at any time, either one of us need any part of what the other person has. It’s as if it already belongs to you. And so an idea may be. Let’s say we have two Indian tribes off in the jungle. One is a agrarian tribe. They grow food. One is a warrior tribe. They go fight battles. The warrior tribe probably is also out there hunting meat. Well, the warrior tribe, all their meat run goes away. All the animals are gone. Now they’re getting hungry. So because of the blood covenant, they can freely come into the agrarian tribe’s premise and take whatever food they need and the agrarian tribe gives it freely. On the other hand, if a warring tribe comes and starts attacking the agrarian tribe, they reach over to their blood brothers. The warrior tribe, and say, Hey, come defend us. And so those guys come over and defend them. It’s as if they’re one. A covenant unites two people or two groups together. This is the marriage covenant. You know, the two become one. And in the marriage covenant, there’s all mine is yours and all yours is mine.

That’s where we start to see this imagery. The other thing about the blood covenant is because it is a blood covenant and it is to death. Okay? If you were to violate the blood covenant and refuse to meet the needs of your covenant partner, then it means that you broke that covenant between you and the other person. And the penalty is not only horrible death to you because that other person now has a right to come and kill you, but also your entire family. I mean, it’s a very, very strong thing. And when Jesus says, this is my blood of the covenant, what he’s doing is he’s making this type of declaration. It’s a declaration of an unbreakable covenant except by death. And he doesn’t die. And all his is ours. All ours is his. Now, I want to show you an example of this type of covenant in the Old Testament. This is Jonathan and David. If you turn to first Samuel, this is first Samuel 18. So just a little quick backstory. Jonathan is the son of King Saul. King Saul is the first king of Israel. And David is a young, very young man at this point. So this is going to be first Samuel 18. And we’ll read verses one through four. And when David and Jonathan met, they instantly fell in love with each other. Brotherly love. And so that’s where we’re going to pick up in first. Samuel 18, verse one. And as soon as he finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

Verse three. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the rope he was wearing and gave it to David along with his tunic and even his sword, his bow and his belt. So look at this. It says that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. So they were knit together. This is like a marriage. This is a covenant picture. It’s a joining together. We have the expression in marriage that we tie the knot. Tying the knot means that we’re now tied together in an unbreakable knot. That’s what. That’s what this is talking about. And then notice also that this covenant that Jonathan makes with David is a shadow of the covenant that Christ makes with us and the church. We’ll see this in just a moment. The other thing we see is if you look at the names Jonathan, the name Jonathan means Yahweh Gives. And then if you look at David, the name for David, David means the beloved. Okay. So what you have is you have Yahweh gives to the beloved. And we see this pattern. And then you see where it says, Jonathan made a covenant. Okay. Notice that David did not make the Covenant. This is actually a one way covenant. Notice. Also in The Last Supper, man did not make a covenant with Jesus. There was no agreement. There was no blood that man gave. It was only the blood that Jesus gave. Anyone know why? And this was my 21 year old son when I learned this.

Was it not back tapering? No. I mean.

So blood is life, right? The life of the animal is in the blood. Blood represents life. Jesus had life Was man live or dead? Dead Had no blood to give. And so what we see here is Jonathan makes a covenant with David, but it doesn’t say that David made a covenant with Jonathan. And we see something else here as well. Once Jonathan made a covenant, a transaction occurred. Okay. He gave David everything he had. That’s what the blood covenant is about. He gave him his robe and his armor, his sword, his bow and belt. And eventually he gave him the throne because Jonathan was the heir to the throne. Because he was a son of a king. And David took the throne instead of Jonathan. So we start to see these things happen. It’s challenging because we look at the natural cause and effect events and we say, Well, you know, that’s not really what happened. It’s something else. God did something different. But yet what we’re seeing is this pattern. We’re seeing a pattern of a covenant. All mine becomes yours and we’re going to see a little bit more. I want to show you a little bit more parallels here. But what’s happening is everything that happens is a foreshadow of what happens with us in Christ. So the robe of righteousness. Y’all ever heard of the robe of righteousness? Right? So David Jonathan gives David Yahweh gives to the beloved, the robe robe of righteousness Yahweh gives to the beloved.

Yes. The belt, the sword, You know, the shield, Right. All of the weapons we have the spiritual armor that Paul references, the armor of God. So we start to see this. But I want to draw out a little bit more some of the parallels here. So I’ve got Jonathan here. And Jonathan is Yahweh Gives, and I want to draw some parallels between Jonathan and Jesus because they both make a covenant with the beloved. So Jonathan was a son, the son of a king, and Jesus was and is the son of a king, right? Jonathan means Yahweh gives. And Jesus is the one that Yahweh gave. Right. Then you have Jonathan is hitched to David the beloved, and Jesus is hitched to his beloved, the church. You also see that Jonathan makes a covenant with David, a covenant with the beloved, and Jesus makes a covenant with a beloved. We also see that Jonathan gave David all he had and Jesus gives the church his beloved all that he has. So we start to see this parallel coming down through Scripture. And what is the impact? Of all of this. I think the impact as we start to go through this further.

Is that this new Covenant. Is a blood covenant. And because it’s a blood covenant, it has some specific things that it means to us. It means that everything that belongs to Jesus belongs to us. Everything that belongs to us. Belongs to him. Jesus is the bridegroom who marries the bride. We had this whole picture of marriage. And marriage is where two become one. And anything you do to my wife, you do to me. Right. I’ve been helping some folks through some relationship issues where you have husband and wife either married and fighting or already divorced and still fighting. And what the the dad’s never really understood is when you attack the wife, you’re attacking your kids because they love their mama. And an attack against mama is an attack against them. And it pushes the kids away because there’s that oneness, Right? And so that’s what we’re starting to see with this blood covenant is there’s a oneness if we look at the old covenant. Okay, so you have the old Covenant just to give you a further perspective. Old Covenant is all about us giving. We give sacrifices to the Lord. We follow the rules. We have to do all these things. When you look at the New Covenant. It’s all about us receiving, right? It’s not us giving.

It’s now us receiving. There’s nothing that we give in return. He gives it all to us. And when we start to see this even more, when we look at the sequence of the gospel. Okay, So if you will just do this thing called sequence of the Gospel, this is a very simple sequence. Number one is a covenant is made with us. Then after the covenant, keep in mind, after the covenant comes the cross, the covenant is made before the cross. So then you have the cross and then you have the resurrection, Which significant with this is on the cross. That’s where we’re forgiven of our sins because Jesus takes our sins, all of ours becomes his. At the resurrection. Is where we’re born again. And this is where Jesus gives all of his. And that is both eternal and and abundant life, eternal and abundant life. So we start to see this blood covenant starting to play out. We make a he makes a covenant with us, then he goes to the cross and because of the cross, he takes all that is ours. And then at the resurrection we receive all that is his. This is why at the resurrection is the first time that Jesus calls his disciples brothers. The resurrection is the key. This is why Paul says if there is no resurrection, Christ wasn’t raised and everything we are doing is for nothing.

We’re just wasting our time. And we’re the most to be pitied. It was after We’ll cover this maybe another time. But if you think about Hebrews, one says, God says to his son today, I have begotten you. There is an essence of Jesus being born again when he’s resurrected. He was born first by Mary, right? And then God says Today at the Resurrection, I have begotten you, which is a picture of birth. So you have a born again the first born among many brothers. He has to be born again in that picture, right? For us to then be born again as his brothers, He’s first. We’re subsequent. This is where Hebrews two tells us that because we have a common origin, both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified have a common origin. He’s not afraid to call us brothers. So that’s what we’re seeing here. This is where he gives all of his to us. Everything he has now becomes ours. So in essence, Jesus swapped places with us. So with this as the backdrop, I want to go a little bit deeper. Is this interesting? Any questions? Okay. Let’s take it a little bit deeper. Jesus is one with the Father. Jesus is one. With the father. Okay.

Look in Hebrews.

1320. We’re going to look at what’s called the Eternal covenant. And it’s important to understand the eternal covenant. There’s not much. Biblical material about it. But there’s a lot that you start to see. And then with Revelation, you start to understand more. But Hebrews 1320. And it goes like this. Now, may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the Eternal Covenant. Eternal means it’s always existed. What else has always existed? God. God. Okay, So God is eternal. And it says that this covenant is eternal. What is the eternal covenant? The eternal covenant is between the father, son and Spirit. It’s a law of love, right? For God to be righteous. He’s claimed as righteous. But you have to have a law to be righteous unto. This is where this eternal covenant comes from, plays a part, and it’s also a blood covenant. Notice that it says by the blood of the eternal Covenant. What that means is for all three of the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They all are one. All of each other’s becomes all of the others. It’s a blood covenant. This is how. Because a covenant makes you one with each other. This is why we can pray to God who’s one, but yet all three separate. My wife and I are one, but yet we’re two separate. Is this making sense? So we see this throughout Scripture.

And.

That’s where this eternal covenant plays a part. So whenever Jesus says, I and the Father are one. He’s referencing this covenant when he says, I come in the name of my father. We see that same thing. I want to show you this being played out. This is all covenant talk. I want to show this to you in John. If you look in John ten, we’re going to start with verse 24. We’re going to go John 1024 through 38. And I’ll start verse 24 and John ten. The Jews who were there gathered around him saying, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you’re the Messiah, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them. I did tell you. But you do not believe. The works I do in my father’s name. That’s a covenant talk, right? Those works testify about me. But you do not believe because you are not my sheep. Skip over to verse 30. I and the father are one. That’s covenant terminology. That’s from the eternal covenant. The eternal covenant makes them one. That’s how you can claim I and the father are one. Skip down to verse 37. Do not believe me unless I do the works of my father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that. Watch this. The father is in me. And I In the father. What’s happening is this covenant makes them one. That’s how Jesus is in the Father. And the father is in him.

Move over to John 14 nine. John. 14 nine. So Philip says, Show us the father. It is enough for us. And now Jesus answers in John 14 nine, Jesus answered, Don’t you know me, Philip, Even after I have been among you for such a long time. Anyone who has seen me has seen the father. Again, this is this covenant, this eternal covenant that he’s that’s making all this happen. So any time you see I come in the name of the father, I come in the name of so and so. Anything like that. This is covenant talk. Why is this important? Because we are one with Christ. Okay. So let’s talk about us being one with Christ. Again, we’re getting to the question, if someone is sick, did God send them the sickness? But it’s a little bit deeper question to understand biblically to really get to the right answer. So the New Covenant makes us one with Christ. We are in marriage with Christ, right? We’re the bride of Christ. Okay. Oh, by the way, this is why the bride takes the husband’s name. They become one, right? They’re in covenant and look in Acts three two through six. So I want to show you just this covenant terminology that we start to see in Scripture. Acts three verses two through six. And I’ll start. Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.

When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, Look at us. The man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, Silver or gold I do not have. But what I do have, I give you in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s covenant. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth Walk. Peter is saying I come in the name. There’s a covenant that has united us. Turn over real quickly to Acts 16. We’re going to read 16 through 18. Acts 1616 through 18. We see this again. And it says. Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us shouting, These men are servants of the most high God who are telling you the way to be saved. And Paul hated it. Can’t you imagine evangelist hating this person proclaiming the truth? She kept this up for many days. Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, In the name of Jesus Christ, covenant terminology, I command you to come out of her. And at that moment, the spirit left her. Why did Paul have the authority of Christ? Why did Peter have the authority of Christ? Because of the blood covenant.

All that is his. All the authority that is his is all ours. So then we take this a step further. Not only is Jesus one with the Father, not only are we one with Christ, but Jesus is the mediator between whom God and man. Exactly. So let’s look at this real quickly. This also has significance. To answer our question, John 14, verse six. So we turn to John 14 six. I hear fear of pages. People are tired of turning their Bibles back and forth all the time. All right, so I’ll start here. John, 14 six says, Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. There’s only one way to the Father, and that’s through Jesus. And then first, Timothy two five. We’re going to see this. Slightly different. First. Timothy two five. And it says, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. So Jesus stands between us and the Father. There is no way to the Father except through Jesus. And Jesus is the mediator. That stands between God and man. Do you see this picture being formed? Okay. So a mediator stands between two parties. Let’s see. I’m going to open up some space here. See if this makes sense. I have three parties and the parties are connected through the mediator in the middle. Think about a legal situation.

Okay. As in a legal situation. I have an attorney. And I go through my attorney to contact my opponent. My opponent’s attorney contacts my attorney to contact me. So the attorney is the mediator between the two? Any time you have a mediator, the mediator always mediates. That the parties always go to the mediator. Why is this important? If we start to put some names on this. God is Father. Mediator is son. And we are bride. Okay. So now what we have is we have an eternal covenant. Through which the father and the son operate all of the fathers as the sons. All of the sons as the fathers. And they are one. Then there is also a new covenant. Between the son and the bride. All of the sons is the bride’s. All of the brides is the sons. And we are. Y’all ever heard this expression? One in Christ? This is where it’s coming from. So then look at one more passage in John. John 16 verses 13 through 15. I’ll show you where both of these covenants are referenced. John 1613 through 15. And it says, When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority. But whatever he hears, he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. Now watch this. All that the father has is mine.

That’s the eternal covenant. Therefore, I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. That’s the New Covenant. To for anything to transfer to us from the father has to go to the son. All that the father has is mine and all that I have. Is declared to you. Are you all seeing this? The big takeaway with all this is because Jesus is the mediator, God sees us through Jesus, right? So if God wants to look at us, he actually looks through the lens of Jesus first and what he sees as he sees Jesus. He doesn’t go around Jesus and see us because Jesus is the mediator. The only way we come to the Father is through Jesus. The only way he sees us is through Jesus. And since we’re in Covenant with the Sun. Everything the father sends us must pass through the Son to get to us. Is this making sense? Okay, So here’s the question. Can the father give us anything without it passing through the son? No, because. By covenant. It has to pass through the sun. The sun is the mediator. If God, the Father, cannot pass anything to us except through the Son, can he send us sickness and disease? No. Why not? Because. He cannot give sickness and disease to the son. Not only is there no sickness or disease in heaven from which to initiate it, but he and the Son are one. He can’t even give himself this sickness.

Because the son of man is holy.

The son of man is holy and pure. There you go. Right. So do you start to see this problem when we start to look at the question? Does God give man infirmity? When we look at it from the New Covenant standpoint as a blood covenant, the answer is it is impossible because everything flows through the son and all of the son is ours. Is there any sickness with the son? No. There’s no way we can receive sickness from the son. And there’s no way that father can give the son any sickness. Or any disease or anything bad. Everything the father has is the sons. And everything the sons has is declared to us. So now for the big elephant sometimes. What about job? Because all these pastors reference job.

The old Covenant.

Actually, it’s before the old Covenant. But you’re dead on. Watch this. So let’s turn there. I want to show this to you. Job one, six through 12. Joe one six through 12. If you don’t know where Jobe is, it’s in the first part of your Bible. Okay, I’ll start reading. One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan, answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. Well, does job fear God for nothing? Satan replied. Have you not put a hedge around him in his household, in everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But watch this. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has. And he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, Very well then. Everything he has is in your power. But on the man himself. Do not lay a finger. Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. So here we see God authorizing an evil spirit. In this case, Satan to attack a righteous man. Do you all see this pattern? Okay, let’s look at the next pattern.

Next part of it. Job two, verse 37. Excuse me. Verse three through seven. Job two starting in verse three. And then it says, On another day, the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil, and he still maintains his integrity. Watch this though. You incited me against him to ruin him without any reason. God is now taking full credit and responsibility for destroying job. God saying I did it. And then verse four. Skin for skin. Satan replied, A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, Very well then, he is in your hands. But you must spare his life. So God authorizes an evil spirit to attack even harder, but not to death. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Job has infirmity, right? So here’s a question. Why did God give Satan authority to attack job? Was he trying to teach job a lesson, trying to work patience and perseverance out of him, help him manage grief?

No.

Why did he? To test him. Yeah. Look at job one, 11 through 12. Let me read this part. Joe 111 through 12. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, Very well then. Everything he has is in your power. But on the man himself. Do not lay a finger. And then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. It was a test to prove Job’s righteousness. But more than that, it was a test of faith for job. What does he believe? We talked about this in our last series that a test of faith is to test what you believe, what you believe to be true about the Lord. And we see this in James. So turn real quickly to James. One, two, three, four. I’ve only got two more verses for you. Okay? We’re going to go back to Joe, so keep your hand there. James. One verses two through four says My brethren, count it all, Joy. When you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing.

What this is saying is when you encounter trials, trials are allowed by God, either authorized, directed or simply allowed, which is a form of authorization for one purpose the testing of your faith. Because it’s the testing of your faith proving it strong. It starts to create perseverance and endurance, and that then makes you perfect and complete. Perfect and complete for what you were designed to do. The role that the Lord has. We did a series not long ago called Zealous for Good Works, and it’s all about what is the role the Lord has for you and being zealous for it to be perfect in that role. And that’s what this is talking about. So back to Job. How do we know that what was happening with Job was a test? Because he passed it. God restored everything and he even doubled it. God said, Good job. You passed the test and it stopped. It wasn’t unto death. Tests are not unto death. Test or personal to you for a period of time until by faith you finish the test and then the test is finished.

You said before the test is so he can promote you.

That’s right. The test is so he can promote you.

He wants you to promote you. Yeah.

So last verse just to show this to you. Job 42, verse ten. This is at the end of Jobe’s infirmity. Job 42, verse ten. After Job had prayed for his friends. The Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. So what? The Lord allowed to be destroyed? The Lord replaced twofold. Not a bad deal. Right. So what are our conclusions? Okay. Back to the question, does God send infirmity for our good pleasure? For teaching us something to discipline. Does he do anything in sending us infirmity? And what are our conclusions from all this? I think the first conclusion we have to look at is with job. Jobe had no covenant that we know of. Jobe predated the Old Covenant. The old Covenant was given through Moses. And Jobe is the oldest book in the Bible. Long before Moses. Okay. So we can’t say that we can’t use Jobe.

As well.

We say God did it to Jobe. And so we see this because this is the only pattern. This is the only time we ever see God bring infirmity and disaster upon a righteous man. The other thing that because he had no covenant, God could send infirmity, right? He could send it and he did send it there. But it’s not a pattern. We see no other examples of God doing this. So for us to go back and say, Well, God did it to Joe, that must be what’s happening with my loved one. We can’t quite do that. And number two, conclusion is we are under a new covenant. And with our new Covenant, God cannot.

Send us.

Infirmity. It violates the Covenant. He cannot send infirmity to the sun. And therefore we cannot receive it ourselves from God. So out of the three possibilities, it’s either God’s will that I’m sick. God sent it or it’s fate. Just the because of the fall or something I might have done. We can rule out number one. It’s not God’s will. I can prove. God’s will. And I’m going to prove it in our later sessions where we see in Scripture that. It’s not his will that we be sick. And therefore it cannot be as well that we have infirmity.

I was just thinking about one thing, too, is you see the love of God by him putting a hedge around him when he didn’t have to do that. But you see, the love of God you do displayed so beautifully that he would hedge around and try to protect him.

Well, let’s talk on that real quickly before we wrap up, because this is good. I didn’t want to you bring this good point up. Why did first off, you all ever heard about a hedge of protection? Heard the term you all ever say, I’m going to pray ahead to protection around someone? Is that biblical? No. You never see in the Bible anyone praying ahead to protection. We see a hedge of protection one time. It’s mentioned in job one. Let’s look at it. I want to show you something. And we’re going to start with verse four. Job one, verse four His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of the feast had run, their course job would send and consecrate them and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all for Job said It may be that my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus Job did continually not only for them but for him. What a job is doing is he’s repenting of their sins. Why could Satan not attack job? Because he was a righteous man. There were no sins in which he could attack. And that’s why Satan was upset. You protected Jobe. You put a hedge around him. Why have I put a hedge? Because he’s a righteous man. There’s no open doors. It took God authorizing Satan with no open doors before Satan could even attack. And it was a test. And so that hedge of protection.

To repair the breach. That’s right.

So you cannot pray a hedge of protection. Now, I know what you mean. You can petition it, but it’s just not biblical. God can still answer petitions, but if you want a hedge of protection. Close all the doors.

Right?

It’s this fascinating. All right. You all have a very blessed night.

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