Chronicles of a Watchman by Dr. James P. Norman Jr.

Jesus said all believers would lay hands on the sick and they would recover.  He said all believers would cast out demons, speak in tongues, and handle the old serpent, the devil, and all his poisons. He said all believers would minister to the sick. All believers, who are obedient to Jesus, will do all of the above things in their daily walk with God and Jesus.  However, Paul said something very positive about the gifts of the Spirit (I Corinthians 12:1-11).  All of us need to lay hands on the sick as Jesus said, but not all are necessarily qualified to operate in the gifts of the Spirit, including the Pastors and other church leaders.  The gift of healings are entirely different from laying hands on the sick.  It is a supernatural endowment of the power of God that is normally manifested in services where there are audiences. There are two gifts that w need to give input that can be invaluable in healing the sick, but can also be a dangerous tool in the h...

Disease is definitely associated with Satan as the Scriptures clearly state (Job 2:7; Acts 10:38).  Many afflictions are indirectly caused by Satan and are more accurately described as oppression which is something different from demon possession.  No evil spirit can possess the soul of the unbelieving, (believer).  Although, if he fails to claim his rights, Satan may oppress his body.  There are many cases in which Christians are oppressed by the enemy, and they need to be loosed from that bondage.  This is clearly shown in the instance in which Christ liberated a daughter of Abraham bound for 18 years (Luke 13:16).  She was the daughter of promise, but Satan had her bound. Because God gives a man an outstanding ministry of healing, this does not necessarily guarantee that his conduct is always pleasing to God .  Judas evidently had a healing ministry. Acts 1:17 says, "he obtained part of this ministry."  Yet, he sadly failed, which no one den...

Why do some oppose healing? There are different reasons.  The Sadducees who were the "modernists" of that day, committed themselves to a rationalism that denied the supernatural.  As for the Pharisees, the case was different.  They were "fundamentalists," and they opposed Christ's healing ministry because of the popular reception given to it and their own inability to duplicate it.  They reasoned among themselves saying, "What do we? For this man doeth many miracles. If we let him alone, all will believe on Him (John 11:47-48).  The truth was that the Pharisees were willing to believe in the miracles of the past but wanted none at present.  This attitude led them on a dangerous ground of actually claiming that the healing was the work of the devil.  The Lord solemnly warned them that they were guilty of blasphemy and were in fact in danger of committing the unpardonable sin (Matthew 12:31-32). The ministry of healing is one...

The potential of the healing ministry to reach the masses has been abundantly demonstrated. No apologies need be made for it, although for it to function effectively great wisdom is required.  The ministry of Christ was essentially one of healing for both soul and body.  The Lord, quoting from the prophecy of Isaiah, declared this in a sermon, which He delivered in the City of Nazareth (Luke 4:18-19). The healing ministry of Christ and His disciples was no improvisation, but was in full harmony with the Church's mission to the world.  When the Lord called His disciples, He commissioned them to preach (Matthew 10:7-8).  He gave the same commission to seventy other disciples and then to all believers (Luke 10:9). The Lord showed the potential of the ministry by declaring that if Sodom and Gomorrah had witnessed the mighty miracles that He performed in the cities about the Sea of Galilee, they would have repented (Matthew 11:23).  In His Great Commission to the C...

We have seen that all mankind are sinners, and that the transgression of our first parents, so far as respect to the human race, was the first sin.  We have still to consider the connection between Adam's sin the depravity, guilt, and condemnation of the race. Scriptures teach that the transgression of our first parents as progenitors meant that future generations or their posterity are sinners.  So that Adam's sin was charged to every member of the human race of which he was the germ and head (Romans 5:16 - the judgement came of one [offence] unto condemnation).  It is because of Adam's sin that we are born depraved and subject to God's penal inflictions.  Two questions demand answers, first, how can we be responsible for a depraved nature, which we did not personally and consciously originate, and secondly, how can God justly charge to our account the sin of the first "Daddy" of the human race?  The scriptures intimate the true answer to the problem when t...