A couple years ago I found studies online over the various gifts put together from the Horton's book, so I copied them down, and I present the one about the gifts of healings. There could be a couple areas that I could challenge, but I present it basically untouched from what Horton copied down from Carter,...
The Gifts of The Holy Spirit in the New Testament Church.
Study based upon the teaching from the textbook: The Gifts of The Spirit, by Harold Horton (1934)
Lesson Title: The Gifts of Healings
Text: ‘...to another the gifts of healings.’ 1 Cor. 12:9.
Introduction:
The three gifts of Power: Healings, Miracles, and Faith. Healings is the most widely distributed. Healings is the least of the Gifts in its own group.
1) Plurality - it is not the gift of Healing. It is the gifts of Healings. Three times in this twelfth chapter it is mentioned (9, 28, 30) and each time in the original the two nouns are in the plural.
2) These gifts are for the supernatural healing of diseases and infirmities without natural means of any sort.
3) The Lord Jesus Himself forced it into prominence by the innumerable deliverances He wrought by it in His public ministry and,
4) In the authority He gave His disciples to accomplish the same beneficent works through the same endowment.
The command to “heal the sick " stands in the van of the royal commission He gave them, that their divine words might be confirmed as they preached by miraculous signs and wonders (Matt. 10:8).
This is the gift that more than any other lifted common fishermen and artisans into prominence in the early Christian Church while the envious professionals were wilting under the exposure of their failure, in the light of these non-professional triumphs.
1. The supernatural character of the gift.
Gifts of Healings are commonly confused with a high degree of medical or surgical or manipulative or scientific ability. These are all of the natural man. Healings through these Gifts are wrought by the power of Christ through The Spirit, by ignorant believers with no knowledge of physiology, diseases, symptoms, drugs or surgery.
Luke was the beloved physician. When Paul and Luke, and others, arrived at the island of Melita and found people desperately sick, it was not Luke the physician with his medicine chest who healed them, but Paul the tent-maker by the laying on of hands and the working of these mighty gifts.
True it is that even in human healing GOD is the source.
Story:
Last year I had the pleasure of hearing one of the world's "greatest preachers. He was expounding most profitably Psalm 103. When he came to the much cherished third verse, "Who heals all your diseases," his hearty comment was, "I believe in divine healing." At this a brother in the front (whom I judged, of course, to be Pentecostal) shouted a lusty ‘Hallelujah!’
This [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] in the dead silence of that respectable nonconformist congregation produced mild consternation, and directed all eyes, including the somewhat apprehensive speaker's, upon the inspired and perfectly scriptural "delinquent." "But then," continued the preacher with an air of assured defiance, "I believe all healing is divine!" There was of course an amused titter going round the crowded pews of even that orderly church. A titter which grew boldly into an undisguised chorus of laughter when the speaker demanded, addressing the solitary son of Jehoshaphat, "Why don't you shout Hallelujah now?"
My hearty sympathy was on the side of the good Pentecostal praiser, not only in his original outburst of praise, but in his subsequent silence as this dart from the opponent's bow whizzed noisily and flashily wide of its destined mark. For to cry Hallelujah at that statement would be to seem to approve the statement as the speaker said it, whereas it is only true in a sense that would have needed more time for explanation than courtesy permitted in the circumstances. The statement was certainly not true in the meaning of the Psalmist's verse, nor, logically, of the speaker's original comment.
No thinking person can really believe that poisonous drugs and cruel scalpels have anything to do with divine healing. Is it not just that as one disease begins to relax its mortifying hold another more terrible most relentlessly adjusts its grasp?
The Lord still has compassion on the sick. He still has a way of deliverance from the power of the enemy.
It is still the way revealed in His Word. The sick will do well to seek it out and bring their diseases to Him as the distressed their maladies of old. It is a safe way; a painless way; a free way and a holy way. Because it is HIS way.
2. The workings and purpose of Gifts of Healings as seen in the Scriptures.
(a) First of all they are to deliver the sick and destroy the works of the devil in the human body.
The Scriptures are full of examples. What a blessed relief for the incurably sick to know that like the leper of old they can come to One who will not cast them off. And if there are those who have been put off by the enemy's suggestion that though The Lord CAN heal them it may not be HIS WILL to heal them - let them read for themselves, now, the repeated " I WILL " in Matthew 8:3 and 7, and take heart as they believe that that test question and answer were put in the Word for our encouragement today.
It is THE LORD'S DECLARED WILL to heal the sick. But they must come to HIM in the way plainly indicated in the WORD.
As of old "Jesus of Nazareth .. · went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil" (Acts 10:38), so today He is going about with Spirit-filled believers continuing His ministry of healing as He promised, through these gifts.
(b) To establish Jesus' astonishing claims.
How can men really be convinced that Jesus has power to forgive sinners' sins?
Here at His feet is a dreadful case--paralysed in body and sick in soul.
Which would be the “easier" task: to heal his paralysis or forgive his sins?
Surely power to work the one miracle involves power to work the other!
That all may know for ever that Jesus has power to forgive sins He says to the palsied one, Arise, and he immediately arises.
“Priest" in your "confessional," when you can in public say to the hopelessly paralytic, Arise!--and he arises whole--we may be willing to consider your claim to remit men's sins according to the Lord's declaration. Not before. One is as "easy " as the other. But talk is neither healing nor remission.
“Say ye ... Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God~ If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works" (John 10:36-38). Transcendent mystery of the divine Sonship of Jesus confirmed by transcendent works of healing! Ought not such claims to be attested by similar signs today?
(c) To authorize the gospel message as preached by God's servants.
"And now Lord, behold their threatenings," prayed Peter when preaching the pare gospel (as it always will do) had brought the religious formalists' anger upon his head, " and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thy hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus" (Acts 4:29, 30). How swift was the divine response! "With great power gave the apostles witness. ... And by the hand of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people" (Acts 4:33; 5:12).
And later in Philip's ministry "the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits ...came out ... and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed " (Acts 8:6, 7). Is there less need for miracles to confirm the gospel message in the ungodly unbelieving world today? Less need than in Capernaum or Corinth or Samaria or Sarepta?
(d) To establish the Resurrection of Jesus.
"Ye ... killed the Prince of Life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong ... given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all" (Acts iii, 15, 16). There is nothing like a mighty miracle of healing today for arresting the rotting confidence of the churches concerning even this fundamental of Christ's resurrection. When lifelong cripples suddenly leap into fullness of vigorous life, and blind eyes are suddenly opened in response to prayer, surely the most sceptical, present knows that Jesus is ALIVE!
(e) To draw people within the sound of the gospel.
"And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased" (John 6:2). Let the reader trace out in the gospels this connection between crowds and healings. Is it not still, even apart from the chief aim of these Gifts in delivering the sick, a good thing to have crowds come within sound of the saving Word? Those who have been fortunate enough to see multitudes waiting for hours and hours outside great city halls, attracted by the grand news of sicknesses suddenly banished and infirmities miraculously cured--waiting to hear the simple evangelist proclaim the way of salvation --waiting eagerly for their turn to be healed of their diseases--these will have no doubt about the purpose of these Gifts in our day as well as in the Lord's! There is nothing so powerfully recommends Jesus the Saviour as Jesus the Healer! That is why in these awful days of increasing iniquity and satanic power every evangelist and missionary positively needs these Gifts of supernatural Healings to authenticate his heavenly message.
(f) To turn people to God.
This is even better than bringing them within sound of the gospel! It is the end of all true preaching and service. When Peter said to Aeneas, the eight-year-bedridden paralytic of Lydda, “Christ Jesus maketh thee whole!" and when Aeneas immediately arose by the dynamic of that mightiest Name, "all that dwelt in Lydda and Saron saw him, and turned to the Lord." The inhabitants of a good town and its "county" saved en masse as the result of one gracious work of the Lord! Can such Gifts be lightly neglected in the face of the needs of today?
(g) To convince unbelievers of the truth of God's Word, mysterious though it may be.
"Believe ;me... or else believe me for the very works' sake," said Jesus, striving with all His gracious strength and argument to get men to believe for their temporal and eternal good. Present-day healings authenticate the Bible for those who have been taught to doubt it by modernistic blind guides. There are no miracles in modernism!
(h) To bring glory to God. Hallelujah!
"They were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion." "And all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him" (Mark 2:12; Luke 13:17). Can the loudest critics of divine healing deny that the rejoicing of those who are suddenly loosed from palsy and spinal curvature and other hopeless diseases brings glory to our blessed Lord? And is there anywhere a people who praise God so continuously as those who believe in the Gifts of the Splrit? Or those who have been healed by the Lord?
(i) To inspire faith and courage in God's people.
As in their day the former servants of the Lord were enheartened in spite of surrounding scepticism, beholding the glorious triumph of their miracle-commission as the risen Lord worked continually with them still; so may His servants shout for joy today as they behold the working of the self-same commission under the Spirit's might, through these potent Gifts of Healings. JESUS IS ALIVE! is the trumpet voice of every miracle in our assemblies!
3. A few closing observations.
The plural title of the Gifts of Healings has been emphasized.
They are many, not one, as is generally supposed.
A believer possessing one or more of them will be used of God in certain cases of sickness, but not necessarily in others.
Some have great success in cases of blindness; some in deafness; some in cancer cases; some in internal disorders; some in fractures or distorted bones.
The principle in all the Gifts is " as the Lord will."
The Gifts may operate by a touch or a word: in the latter case distance is no object (Psalm 107:20; Matt. 8:8).
In exceptional cases healings may result from the operation of the Gifts without a word or a touch, by the very presence of the one possessed of them, as Peter, whose very shadow streamed forth like a mighty overflow of divine unction, sweeping all diseases before it (Acts 5:15); or from fabrics or garments which have been in contact with those possessed of the Gifts, as Paul: at Ephesus (Acts 19:12).
Healing by anointing with oil. (James 5:14) is not through the operation of these Gifts, but in response to obedience and in answer to believing prayer. In James it is the elders who are to anoint. In Mark 6:15, Jesus' disciples also healed through anointing with oil. There is no authority for promiscuous anointing by men and women generally. But elders will not forget that their pastor is not only an elder with them, but that he is the presiding elder. This simple fact seems sometimes to be overlooked.
The laying on of hands as in Mark 16:18, is not limited to those possessing the Gifts of Healings. It is an act of faith for any "believer" as the context shows; for on the promise contained in it the Lord will graciously heal in response to living faith. The only condition here is " believing" (verse 17). While anointing with oil is for sick believers only, hands may be laid on the saved or the unsaved, providing the unsaved make request for prayer or are willing to be prayed for (John 5:6; 6:37). The only question is "Wilt thou be made whole?" Indeed experience reveals the marvellous circumstance that sinners are more readily healed than saints! Which enforces what has been said under (e) above.
The power Jesus gave to the apostles and the seventy (Matt. 10:1; Luke 10:1) was not permanent (Matt. 17:16).
It began to wane as Jesus was about to leave this world. I have discussed this in the early chapters of this hook. But the Gifts of the Spirit are "without repentance." Even so they operate only as the Spirit wills, and there must be a response of active faith on the part of the sick one (Matt. 9:22; 13:58).
Faith is positively necessary in the operation of these-or indeed any of the Gifts. It may be (1) substitutionary faith where the sick one is too feeble to believe for himself (Mark 2:5); or (2) the faith of the sufferer alone (Matt. 9:22); or (3) the faith of the minister alone in special circumstances such as coma or unconsciousness (Matt. 9:25); or (4) the combined faith of sufferer and minister (Matt. 9:28, 29). This last seems to be the most usual. But those who claim to possess the Gifts of Healings must personally shoulder the burden of faith and blame themselves, not the sufferer, for failure or only partial success. It is of course different with anointing and prayer and laying on of hands. Faith is the indispensable requisite in healings.
And from what has already been said it is clear that the Gifts do not work indiscriminately at the will of the possessor.
1) Not every blind man or deaf man or sick man can be healed at will by the Gifts. Bethesda's porches were filled with sick folk, all believers in divine healing, for they were all waiting for a heavenly miracle. And the Minister on this occasion was One supremely gifted with the power of the Spirit. Yet only one was actually healed--the one who actually got into touch with Jesus' living power.
2) All who really got into vital touch with the Lord, however, were healed, not only on this occasion, but on every other occasion. It is not possible to state dogmatically why, among those who are prayed for today, some are healed and some are not. And certainly here is no room to discuss so large a problem.
3) But here is a man who, it is quite certain, will never be healed, though he travel round all the assemblies and seek the ministrations of those most mightily endowed with divine power. He is desperately sick, and no doubt he has a Bible and believes. Ask him his name. It is Gehazi! His sickness shall cling to him so long as there is breath in his mortal body. For the Lord has decreed it. For we must remember that on the obverse side of divine healing is divine sickness (2 Kings 5:27).
But here are many others, all sick of a deadly sickness under God's corrective hand. Not one of them will ever be healed by all the expert physicians the ages could muster. Yet EVERY ONE MIGHT BE HEALED--in God's appointed way, a supernatural way; by the world called a foolish way. The way of the uplifted serpent of brass! The way of the Word of God (Num. 21). There is healing by way of the Cross, brother--sister. Bring your sicknesses to Jesus!
We will not too greatly distress ourselves by asking how many stricken "Israelites " are today "seeking unto the physicians' instead of unto the Lord (2 Chron. 16:12), nor how many "Gehazis" walk into our meetings unrecognized.
Neither will we make the mistake of Job's friends in supposing our sicknesses and others' are connected with personal sin.
Neither let us, as those at Nazareth, and thousands today, prevent the operation of authentic Gifts by a heavy insulation of personal unbelief (Matt. 13:58).
Rather let us seek the face of the Lord for Gifts and mightier Gifts and use them as He instructs, to make straight crooked little children, to set at ease tortured men and women and to turn the awful groans of the constant sufferer into shouts of joy and praise to our lovely delivering Jesus!
