Does God use bodily affliction to teach us lessons? Louise mentions stories she’s heard, especially in Sunday school classes, about letting a little boy die to teach his parents and friends a lesson.
A small boy died/drowned in a pool. Did God need a “new angel in heaven,” as some in the Sunday School class said/claimed? No! Is God teaching you things through sickness and death? No!
God does not use poverty and sickness to teach you. Both of these come from Satan.
F. F. Bosworth says if it is God’s will for us to be sick, then we should close the hospitals and cease going to see doctors and nurses.
However, when you are in disobedience to God, he will allow sin and sickness to come into your lives.
Fear is the opposite of faith. What is happening in your life has to be examined as you try to determine what’s happening to you.
Louise then told the story of her fanatical embrace of tennis which was not in the Lord’s will. We need to listen to God on what he wants us to be.
Louise teaching on healing and our relationship with God
She quoted Psalms 91 in several instances:
Psalm 91
1 “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.[a] 2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” 3 Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. 7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.
9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, 10 no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
14 “Because he[b] loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 15 He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. 16 With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”
There is lots of evil in the world today. It needs to be addressed, understood, and dealt with.
Today we don’t know how to study and settle–put our focus–on one thing. Instead, we text and move along rapidly from one thing to another.
People have lost the art of conversation, especially listening and hearing others.
You have an ability to discern good and evil. We don’t use it. And, as Christians, does what you are studying and learning line up with the words of God?
I’m challenging all of you to study about what I’m teaching. See it it lines up with the Word. See Psalms 91:2 for example. “2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
When you have a problem, who do you trust in? Other people? Or God? Is God your last resort? He should be your first you go to.
In a common metaphor, God is light, while darkness is the metaphor for evil.
See Psalms 103. It’s about David and his blessings.
1 Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits— 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: 8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. 9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; 10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. 15 The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; 16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. 17 But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— 18 with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.
19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. 21 Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. 22 Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the Lord, my soul.”
It’s all about David and his blessings. His reliance on God’s blessings, including healing. David finds the absolute truth in God, not in man’s teaching or ways.
Then Louise speaks to arrogance and pride in man’s way of thinking, rather than turning to God’s teachings and Words.
Doubt and unbelief in prayers or healing are addressed.
Louis teaching on the Atonement, Part 2 of two parts. Started with an allegory of planting the seed and the ground you plant it on. What kind of ground are you? Then a story of a Sunday School lesson years ago about a 5 year old who died. How to explain this? The general consensus–all wrong–was it was God’s will to teach us all a lesson, or lessons. Louise challenged this interpretation which usually was invoked with the phrase, “well, if it be God’s will to take this child, then so be it.” That kind of thinking will kill your faith and belief in the infinite goodness of God. God has never used illness or death to teach us anything.”
Louise teaching on the Atonement (often translated as “substitutionary” death of Jesus on the Cross who died for all our sins) and what the Atonement was for, such as receiving your healing.
Jesus went to the Cross to provide for everything, including not only healing, but also prosperity, Spiritual life, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said the “Kingdom of God has come,” not about to come, or come in the past, it it is here, now.
On healing and sickness, for example, God never intended for us to die sick. Read in Isaiah 53, verse 4 and other verses. See below for full chapter. It is one of Scripture’s greatest descriptions of the Atonement and healing. You cannot take healing out of the Atonement.
Isaiah 53 New International Version
53 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b] 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e]; by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g] and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h] because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Bible Study With Louise Clayton 