Please turn your Bibles to the book of James. James chapter 5. James chapter 5, and we read from verse 13. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. He continues to ask, 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." That 14th verse is what we are considering together this evening, even as we continue to study from this practical book. And you all know that it is practical because its intention is to demonstrate at a practical level the effects of justification. And Paul's, or rather James' argument is simple. If you are justified by faith, if you truly know the Lord, you stand right before him. You will evidence that through your obedience, through practical works. And we have over the last few years, I think we began this series in 2015, seen various practical things that God expects of his people. And here is one other practical matter that needs the attention of the people of God. If you are sick, he argues, call for the elders of the church and let them pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. So we are looking at a verse that is very important but has also been a subject of much controversy in regards to how it should be interpreted. Because of course it is about the subject of healing. And this subject has stimulated great interest, especially in some sections of the Christian church. At almost every turn, there is an invitation or a claim to healing. Some people are asking questions about this. Others are puzzled and still others are excited about what they feel convinced is a replay of the early church experience. What must we think of it? Well, there is a tendency in some of our circles to completely ignore this subject, to completely look the other way when we are confronted with a subject like this. Well, James imposes this matter upon us because he believed under God that this is a matter we ought to be paying attention to. Perhaps not to the same extent that some churches and believers go in their thinking about it. Well, if there is anything James is underlining, It is the fact that this must be part of the normal Christian experience. This must be part of normal church practice. Perhaps before we give our attention to the text, I need to say a little bit about the biblical history of miracles. For healing is a miracle. Whether that miracle is happening without means or not, healing is a miracle. If you are healed without the use of medicine, that indeed is a miracle. But we also need to appreciate the fact that even healing that comes via medication, via the help of doctors and hospitals, is healing. It's a miracle. And so I want to say just a little bit about that. In biblical history, there are three notable periods of miracles recorded in the Bible. First, we come across the period of Moses, where miracles served to authenticate his office, and especially his message. You will recall that Moses was the means through which God elected to deliver his people from slavery in Egypt and to bring them safely into Canaan, a land that was termed as flowing with milk and honey. Moses didn't have courage to do that work, Moses didn't feel confident about doing that work. As a matter of fact, he was trying to excuse himself from doing the work. He was particularly unsure about whether when he goes to the children of Israel and announced that he had been called and sent to be their deliverer, that they would accept him, they would believe him, they would follow him. And so he puts the question to the Lord, if they ask me, who is it that has sent you? What shall I say to them? And you remember the Lord's answer, tell them, the I am that I am has sent you. But God didn't just reveal the name. He also suggested to him that he performs some miracles. He had a staff or a rod in his hand and he said to him, throw it to the ground. And when he did, the rod turned into a snake, a serpent. And then he encouraged him to pick it up didn't have the courage to do it, but he did do it, and it quickly turned back into a stick or a rod. And God made it clear in Exodus 4, verse 1 through to 5, that if they should see those miracles, it would be enough for them to believe that he was a servant of the Lord. He was a messenger of the Lord. So during the period of Moses, and there is much more we could say about that, miracles served to be a witness to his office as prophet and leader, to demonstrate the uniqueness of the God who had sent him and the message he bore. It needed to be said and underlined that he was from the Lord. We next come to the period of Elijah and Elisha in Kings chapter 17 and 18, a time of apostasy where miracles once again served to witness to the power of God in calling a people back to himself. At that time, idolatry was rife. Even the people of God were turning to the worship of Baal. Some demonstration needed to be made that God was not dead, that the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob was the God of heaven, the omnipotent God, the all-powerful God. And he called Elijah to be the means by which that fact would be demonstrated. And you remember how Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to erect their altars and put their sacrifices on them and call upon their gods to descend upon those sacrifices and consume them with fire. And how the prophets of Baal attempted to do that, called upon their gods, and their gods were silent. To use the language of Elijah, they went to sleep. The sacrifice was still there, intact and consumed. But when Elijah's turn came, he called upon his God, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, and God came down in his power and consumed the sacrifice. And by that act, it was demonstrated that the God of Abraham was the Lord. He was the Lord. Miracles were needed to underline that fact. And then we come to the period of Christ and of the apostles, where miracles served to witness specifically to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He had been the Messiah that was long expected. False messiahs had come before he arrived. But here he was now. He didn't come in the manner that an average Jew would have imagined. They expected him to come with great glory and pomp. Nothing of the kind happened. He was born in a stable. His people did not recognize him in many places. He was disrespected. He was rejected. They esteemed him not. He needed to be recognized in some way as the Messiah, as the King that would come from heaven. How was that done? Well, Nicodemus tells us in John chapter 3, Teacher, Rabbi, we know you are a teacher from God because no one can do the miraculous signs you perform except God were with him. Nicodemus understood, didn't he? that if miracles accompany the ministry of a man who claimed to be the Messiah, that that in itself would be an indication that he was a teacher from God. In John chapter 10 and verse 25, The Jews still didn't see the point, and they continued to ask the Lord, are you the Christ, or must we look for another? How did he respond? I did tell you, but you do not believe the miracles I do in my Father's name. Speak for me, but you do not believe. And the reason you don't is because you are not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. They follow me. I know them. And no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. The miracles speak for me. Regarding the apostles who took the work of Christ forward in 2 Corinthians 12, And verse 12, we are told about them, that their identity included the ability to perform signs, wonders, and miracles. You were not an apostle if you could not perform signs, wonders, and miracles. And please, it wasn't common for people to perform signs, wonders, and miracles. Miracles were not being performed everywhere, every day, during the early church. If that was the case, it would have been difficult, perhaps even impossible, to distinguish the apostles from the rest of the people, the rest of the believers. They had to do something that everyone else was not doing for them to stand out as servants and messengers of the Lord Jesus Christ. When they performed miracles, it was known immediately that they were servants of God. Their message was authentic. Well, that's the history. Those are the periods in which there was much miraculous activity. Well, having made that comment on miracles, perhaps I should now make a comment on healing. More specifically, the gift of healing. the only reference to healing as a gift. This is the problem sometimes. We don't make a distinction between healing and the gift of healing. The gift of healing is only mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 9, verse 28, and also verse 30. And that gift could be said to have been an aspect of the gift of miracles. It was a specific application of the power of God. The gift of miracles was not always displayed in healing. Sometimes the gift of miracles brought disease upon the people. There is a case mentioned in Acts chapter 13 and verse 11 when the gift of miracles was used to bring disease, not healing. Healing had specific reference to restoring health to the body. Of course, the Bible does speak of healing under the ministry of Christ in several places in the New Testament, under the ministry of the twelve apostles, and even under the ministry of some in the apostolic band. Healing was said to be something that would characterize and authenticate the messianic ministry of Christ. In Matthew chapter 8 and verse 16, it was said that when the Messiah comes, he would heal all our diseases. Now many healers of our day take that and apply it to themselves. Now if you stick to the context, and not just the context of Matthew 8, but also of Isaiah, this was a specific, a specific characteristic that would mark the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is how the Lord would be identified. That doesn't mean that is how the modern apostles would be identified. This was a characteristic mark of the Messiah. He would be known by the fact that he would carry all our diseases. This, of course, as we have already noted, was also a mark of the apostles. And that healing, as we see it in Christ and in the apostles, was very different from present-day claims. It was conducted by revelation bearers, underline that, revelation bearers, in whom the gift of healing was resident and only went on for a time. I'm talking about the gift of healing, not healing, the gift of healing. Furthermore, while it lasted, All who came under the influence of that healing were healed. And it's important to point this out. Let me turn your attention again to Matthew chapter 8 and verse 16. When evening had come, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed, and he cast out the spirits with a word. healed. Note, all, all who were sick. No one came away pretending to be healed. Those with bent legs had their legs strengthened. Those with heart problems had their heart problems healed. All were healed. And that's very, very important to underline. In Luke chapter 6 and verse 19, we read, let me read from 17, and he came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon who came to hear him. And he healed and beheeled of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits, and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him, for power went out from him, and, we read in verse 19, healed them all. They were all healed. They were healed instantaneously, there were no failures, and it did not depend on faith. Now that doesn't mean faith was not considered, but it didn't depend on that. Today, if a man of God fails to heal you, he blames it on your lack of faith. Now he is the one with the gift. You are not the one with the gift. He is the one who claims to be able to heal. You are not the one who claims that you can be healed. He must heal. If we are to be honest, we would have to say that much of the present day phenomena the complete opposite of what the Bible represents. And if it's the complete opposite of that, we do need to ask, where do they get the inspiration to be healing if it's not from the Bible, if it's not from the God of the Bible? Well, having made those comments on the gift of healing, I now want to turn our attention to the book of James and to chapter 5, because there is a healing spoken about here. 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, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." Now, this is probably the only passage in the New Testament which addresses clear and binding instructions about how healing to ordinarily Christian people works, how it worked for ordinary people in the time of James, and how it must work for ordinary people in our time today. James 5 and verse 14, I believe, is God's blueprint for an ordinary situation like us. The gift of healing as we see it operating in the Old and New Testament was miraculous or supernatural, supernatural situations. But what does it look like in ordinary situations like us? Well, there are a number of points we must consider together as we think through this matter. First of all, we must answer the question, who qualifies for healing? Who qualifies for healing? Well, it's the sick. Because the question being posed here is, is anyone among you sick? Now some say, Christians can't fall sick. They can only be afflicted. Now that's trying to be clever. Affliction and sickness can be one and the same thing. And they believe Christians can't fall sick because Christ has carried our diseases. Now that is true. Christ has carried our diseases. But it doesn't mean we won't forsake. Christ has died for us. Christ has brought salvation for us. That doesn't mean we won't be tempted to sin. That doesn't mean we won't fall into temptation. Christ has died for us. That doesn't mean we won't die. Well, it does mean that there will come a time when the Lord Jesus Christ appears in the skies and when He will change these lowly bodies, these weak bodies, these bodies that are proning to falling sick and to dying, there will come a time when Christ will change these bodies so that they would be unable to fall sick or to die. So it's true Christ has done the work. It's not true to say that he has applied that work in such a way that we can't fall sick now or die now. Death will be removed, sickness will be removed, no doubt, but it needs time. Of course, Christians can fall sick. Job was a Christian and he fell sick. We read about a man in 1 Timothy called Trophimus and another man called Epaphras and the apostle Paul himself. who lived with a thorn in the flesh. We don't know exactly what it was, but it was an affliction upon his body. Timothy was encouraged to take a little wine for his stomach. Wine there was serving as medication. Take a little wine for your stomach. Yes, of course, Christians do forsake. It is the sick who qualify for healing. We need to say more about that word, sick, because it has a deeper meaning than meets the eye. It's the hopelessly sick, those who are weak and can't walk. In other words, they can't take themselves to the elders. This, of course, is suggested in verse 15. The prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up, suggesting that he was down, weak, unable to walk, perhaps. The hopelessly sick. Those are the ones who qualify. Secondly, what must they do when they are sick? What James says, they must call the elders. He doesn't say call the itinerant healing prophets. He doesn't say call the gifted healers in the church. He doesn't say, convene a special public meeting and invite this special prophet or healer from Nigeria. He doesn't say that. Call the elders, the elders of your local church, ordinary men. Their qualifications are clearly stated in 1 Timothy chapter 3. Qualified in their home life. Qualified in their moral lives. Qualified in their doctrinal orthodoxy. Ordinary men. Qualified as teachers. Those are the only qualifications we read about. in regard to elders. No healing gifts. Ordinary men. Those are the ones you must call. And in this church, may not be known, from time to time we do get such calls as elders. We've never turned down any call. We respond to every call. We go. We respond to the call. We minister to the person. We pray for them. And we are ordinary men. Call the elders of the church. What can the elders do? What are they expected to do when they are called by one who is hopelessly sick? Well, verse 14 tells us, 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. Now it must be said that the elders cannot effect healing. They do not effect healing. They have no personal gift to do this. They cannot command the disease to leave. They cannot command the Holy Spirit to come down with healing. The Holy Spirit is God. They are under God. They are under the Holy Spirit. They take instructions from the Holy Spirit. They don't command Him. He is not a charm in their hands that they can distribute at will. Holy Spirit is God who must be worshipped. and reverenced and obeyed. What can they do? Well, they can pray. Let them pray over Him. They will pray over Him. Now this is a prayer that is utterly dependent on God to heal. Utterly dependent on God to heal. God is the healer. Healing has never stopped, even miraculous healing. When we say The gift of healing is not to be found. That is not the same as saying God cannot heal miraculously. God is the healer and he heals in his sovereign prerogative and power. He decides who he will heal, when he will heal them, how he will heal them. He is God. He has that prerogative. He decides our duty, our call as elders is to pray to him, to lay our requests before him. and to pray in faith. We'll talk about this some more later on, perhaps not in this sermon. In verse 15, a mention has been made of the prayer of faith. The prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. And the prayer of faith is not about positive thinking. In Bemba we use the word ukumanikila. What we normally do when we are trying to control whirlwinds with our little fingers. Nothing of the kind. Faith is knowing that God can do it. Faith is believing that God is able to do it, and faith is trusting or casting ourselves upon God, pleading with Him to bring His power to bear upon the sick. He does it, and He determines when He does it. they can pray. Another thing, they can anoint with oil. This is a popular practice today. In fact, in our day, it's not just about oil, it's about water. I've probably told you about a student of ours in Indola at the Copper Belt Ministerial College, Pentecostal charismatic student, who began to realize slowly that he was losing members to some other church. And as this went on, he decided he needed to do about this, something about it. He needed to stop this. And so he decided to pay a visit to this church to which some of his members were flocking. And he attended a service and decided to speak to the leaders of the church at the end of that service. He wanted to know what the secret of their magnet was. Why were his members flocking to them? What is it that they were doing which he was not doing? They poured out some water. Guess where it was from? Nigeria. That's what they were using. People who were coming for healing, they were sprinkling that water on them. They also had some oil which they were anointing these people with. And they were all experiencing healings. It was true, it was real. That's why. He began to feel that he needed some of that oil. and some of that water. The oil is made to look like it had an efficacy within itself, a power within itself, not only to heal but to protect you from demons. Now in our kind of church, we are called traditional church, there are people who think we all have demons. If you greet them, they will quickly run to anoint themselves with the oil in order to free themselves of those demons or to protect themselves against demons. The oil can protect you from anything evil. If you have demons haunting you, haunting your home, just sprinkle the oil around your house and it will be well. If you want to protect yourself from a disease being transmitted from one hand to your hand, just sprinkle yourself with a bit of that oil and it will be well. If we want to protect our church against demonic intrusions, we just need to sprinkle it with oil and it will be well. That is not what James is talking about. If I had the time, I could go into some detail about this. Perhaps I should speak on this next time around and open up this matter more carefully. But oil was used in the Old Testament as well as the New for medicinal purposes. Very common at the time the Bible was being written. You know the example of the good Samaritan, who upon finding a man who had been attacked by robbers, attended to him and among other things, he cleaned his wounds and applied oil upon the wounds. That was common. That was normal. But that is unlikely to be the meaning here. There was another purpose oil served. When a king or a prophet or a priest was called to office, they were anointed with oil. The anointing was symbolic of the fact that the Spirit had pointed to that man as the person he wished to occupy office. The Spirit revealed that to the prophet, whoever was anointing, and the Spirit came upon the man who had been so appointed, and he was anointed to indicate, to symbolize that he had been set apart for that work by God himself. The symbol was important. The symbol served to strengthen faith. The symbol served to indicate to the person being anointed that God was able to heal them. The oil didn't heal them. The oil symbolized the anointing power of the Spirit who alone can heal. They can pray, they can anoint with oil. We don't normally do that in our practice here, not because we have anything against those who do it, believing they have a proper understanding of what it means biblically. I know of a Reformed Baptist church in the US Some of the elders there, you would know them because they have written books, they are well known all over the world. When they are called, they take oil with them and they anoint the sick. Not because they believe the oil will heal anybody, but because of the symbol because of what the oil symbolizes in regard to the power of God in bringing about that healing. This is what the elders can do. And I want to end on this note. When the elders have done that, this is what we read, and 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. The prayer of faith will save the sick. And look at who will raise him up, the Lord himself. The Lord responds to the prayer of faith. Faith is a casting of ourselves upon the one who heals. And where there is faith, the Lord responds. Because without faith, it is impossible for us to please him. And sometimes we don't see much in the way of results because even as we pray, we don't really believe that the Lord can do it. I probably told you the story about a woman who lived on the side of a mountain, close to a mountain. She didn't like the mountain. She wished the mountain could be removed. And every day she had the hopes that somehow that mountain would be removed. But one day she decided that she would pray and ask God to remove the mountain. So before she went to bed, she prayed. And she prayed earnestly that the Lord would remove the mountain. Early in the morning, the first thing she did was to draw the curtains to check if the mountain had been removed. And lo and behold, the mountain was still there. Her response? I knew. I knew. And sometimes, that's how we pray, without faith. Even as we are praying, we don't believe in our own hearts that God can do this. And so God doesn't honor the prayers. In our ministry as elders, as we have gone to pray for people, sometimes we have seen God touching those people and bringing healing upon them. Sometimes he doesn't bring healing upon them. It doesn't mean he has failed. It means it is not his purpose for them to receive healing. Sometimes God's purpose is for us to live with the sickness the thorn that was in Paul's flesh. How many times did Paul plead with the Lord to remove the thorn? Three times. And this is an apostle. Three times he prayed, he asked the Lord, he pleaded with the Lord. And the Lord did answer. And his answer was, my grace is sufficient for you. It was really another way of saying, it is my will that you go through this illness, and I'll give you grace to bear the illness. And there could be someone here who may be carrying such a burden. And it may be the Lord's will for you to bear the illness, but it doesn't leave you alone. Sometimes the ministry of the elders is all about encouraging you to bear the Lord, to bear the burden. It's all about inspiring you, urging you on to fight to be strong, to glorify the Lord through that illness. Even that honors the Lord. So let me conclude by saying then that, first of all, you must understand, we must understand the elders' call. They are not just called to preach and to counsel. They are also called to pray, and we do pray. But they are also specifically called to pray for the sick who call, who call them to minister to them in this way. So let us make use of our elders in this way. Perhaps that is the means God has chosen to bring the healing you need and to glorify him and honor him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your presence among us and the blessing it brings to our hearts and lives. We thank you for your word. Your word that is spirit, your word that is life, your word that brings healing to our souls, your word that speaks encouragement to our hearts, even encouragement respecting our conditions of illness, and of other forms of affliction. We ask you, Lord, to help us especially to take to heart this message before us, this call, this encouragement for us when we are laid low to call the elders and to benefit from their ministry of prayer and their ministry of comforting. And we ask that you would help the elders, for they are ordinary men, weak men. And yet men, you choose to use to demonstrate, to perfect your power. Won't you enlarge their faith and encourage them in this ministry of healing? And, O God, as we continue over the next several minutes to reflect upon our Savior through the aid of the emblems before us, that it would be our experience to know this Saviour and to feed on Him by faith in the manner that these emblems are intended to help us. These things we ask through the name of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.