Taking Authority Over Sickness

A strange thing happened in Rochester, NY in April 2008. Many people I know came down with flu-like symptoms all on the same day. Everyone had aching muscles, sore throats, and eventually severe head colds. Those with weaker immune systems had to go on antibiotics. I didn’t get it, but the other two members of my household woke up sick the same morning. I received a phone call later that day stating that our church building and grounds manager was ill. The next day I learned that several more of our people, often whole families, had fallen ill on that day. Members of their extended families that didn’t attend our church were also sick. Why would so many people get sick on the same day? Usually sickness spreads more slowly through a family—one person gets it and a few days later someone else does. I’ve never seen so many people fall ill all at once.

Then a prophetic word came forth in our church from a proven prophetess of many years that God was going to give to those who are pressing into him authority over sicknesses. He said that beginning now, he would be giving us this new authority. Notice he was giving it to those who were truly seeking him, not to casual church attendees. He said we would have to learn to use this authority and it would develop in us as we did warfare.

So what was going on here with all this sickness? I’ll let the reader form his/her own opinions. I don’t want to make accusations because I can’t prove anything, but I know with surety that great evil is coming upon our nation and the world. Now as never before we need to grab hold of God and cling to him. Sometimes we need to empty our hands of other things in order to grasp firmly all the Lord wants to give us. It is through deep, abiding relationship with Christ that we will rise up victoriously over the attacks of the enemy.

A prophetic friend told me of her recent interesting, but alarming, dream. She said several of our church people were outside on the church property gardening and cultivating the soil. A plane flew overhead and out of the plane was dumped some sort of powdery substance. People all around the neighborhood dropped to the ground as though dead. When the church people saw the plane, they all stuck their heads into a hole in the ground where they had been digging and they were safe. Some of this dream’s interpretation is obvious. I believe that the gardening on the church property was symbolic of the safety that comes from cultivating the soil of your heart through a relationship with Jesus and his Word.

We need to be as Noah and his family—while others were partying and involving themselves in the distractions of daily living, they were quietly and continually building their ark. We must build our ark…our relationship with Christ. We must daily spend time in prayer and seek to know God through his Word. When he tells us what to do, we need to promptly obey. As we do so, our faith in God will grow and we will be able to rise, as Noah and his family did, when the waters of judgment engulf our nation and the world.

The enemy of our souls does not rest. He is intent on ruling the world and he has many of his followers prepared and anxiously anticipating their seizure of control over every nation and every individual on the planet. Where can we go to escape biological warfare, nuclear weapons, and all manner of terrorism? What do we do when our food supply runs short or available food is contaminated? How do we live when high fuel prices cause an increase in the price of everything we need for life? We must press into the Kingdom of God. Our God has a plan for those who are truly his.

The Word states in Mark 16:18 that we will “lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover,” but how often does that really happen? The promises for healing are in the Bible, but seldom do we see real miracles occur. This may be because we don’t understand how to appropriate this healing and it may be because we are not committed enough to God for his healing power to flow into us.

It has been my observation that when Christians need healing for their body, they usually ask God to heal them. They may go up front in a church service or home group meeting and ask people to pray for them. If they don’t get healed, they assume God wasn’t ready to heal them or they don’t have enough faith. How many really know how to do warfare when it comes to sickness?

I am convinced that God intends to give his people strong healthy bodies free from sickness and diseases of all kinds, but getting to this state is a process that requires learning to take authority over sickness and using our weapons of warfare.

I said earlier that I did not get sick. However, a week later when everyone else was coming out of it, I awoke with a slight sore throat. I immediately went to battle. As I stood against it, it did not leave immediately. I went through the stages as it progressed but it was all very mild. It was so mild that I often thought it was gone, but then a symptom would occur and I’d know it was still there. To look at me, no one would have known there was anything wrong with me. I used to get very sick with colds and I caught every one that came near. Now I rarely get anything and if I do, it is mild.

As I sought God about why I got it at all, I felt that I had opened the door through pride. So I began my battle with deep repentance. I spent as much time as I could visualizing being with Jesus in the healing river of his presence. (I have written about using the imagination to stand against sickness in my series of articles on divine health…also in my book entitled The Four Living Creatures – Entering God’s Kingdom in the Age of Terror.”

I got the idea of going to the healing river from Ezekiel 47 where everything in the river lives and is healed. I intentionally developed pictures in my mind of a river flowing through a beautiful landscape. I’ve been doing this for eighteen years so I have many places in the river where I go to meet with Jesus. Some places are near waterfalls, others are swirling pools near large rocks where one can sun oneself.

As I am there with Jesus, I talk with him about the healing scriptures. I might say something like this as I look into his face, “I want you to know how much I appreciate that you were willing to take my sins upon your own body on the cross, that I being dead to sin might live unto righteous. It was by your stripes I was healed” (2 Peter 2:24).

Many years ago Jesus told me he wanted me to practice looking into his face. This was very difficult because I had no idea what he looks like. Finally I chose a picture of him drawn by the artist, Richard Hook. I put that picture on the wall in my office right by my computer where I could easily see it and committed it to memory.

Isaiah said, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee…” (Isa. 26:3). The Hebrew word for “mind” used here is yetser and it  actually means “imagination.” Things people have trusted in for safety and comfort are going to be shaken and removed so we must learn to trust in Christ alone. The Bible warns that men’s hearts will fail them for fear. If we have a place in our heart where we can go and find communion with Jesus, we will have peace in the midst of chaos. My studies over many years have revealed that the imagination bridges the gap between heaven and earth. We will need this in the days ahead. Many Christians have been afraid to use their imagination because they know some people use their imaginations to connect with the evil spirit realm. The imagination is a gift from God from which creativity springs. What spirit we connect with via the imagination is determined by our motives and the condition of our heart.

Getting back to my battle against the cold—over the years I have committed several scriptures to memory related to healing. When I am in the healing river with Jesus, I talk with him about them. I imagine him healing me as he healed the multitudes who came to him 2000 years ago. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.

This time as I battled the cold, I added a new dimension—deliverance warfare. I visualized the bacteria or viruses as being demons from hell. I took authority over them and commanded them to leave my body. I visualized angels from heaven doing battle against the invaders.

I spoke to the cold in the same way I speak to demons when in deliverance ministry with satanically ritually abused people. I quoted scriptures related to authority. I have often thought that there is intelligence related to the activity of bacteria and viruses…the way they mutate for example…the way they become resistant to antibiotics. We are in serious trouble because one by one the effectiveness of antibiotics is diminishing (just one of many things we’ve trusted in that is being shaken).

As I spoke to the cold telling it to leave my body (I did this for several minutes), I experienced evidence that something was leaving my body in that I yawned profusely for about five or ten minutes (a common evidence of demons leaving a person). Then I felt the warmth of the Holy Spirit flood my body. I sensed the Lord saying that the strongman was gone. I would still experience some symptoms but they would be mild…and that is exactly what happened. I want to get to the place where I don’t catch anything at all. I have an attitude of zero tolerance when it comes to anything wrong with my body!

How many times is sickness or pain in the body actually because of a curse—even voodoo? I’ve seen it many times in SRA people, but never thought it could happen to me since I have never been abused. I’ve learned differently.

A few months ago I was experiencing pain in my right foot such that I had to limp. I’m not one to go to a doctor unless I’m really desperate, so I limped around for a few days figuring Jesus knew all about it and would take care of it. I didn’t feel led to do any warfare over it. One day as I was working around my house, I suddenly thought of a small object in my possession given to me by a “Christian” friend whom I later learned was actually a Satanist. God had told me to get rid of it when I was on a trip several days previously. I had forgotten to do it upon my return home. I found the object, limped down our long driveway to the trash can out by the street awaiting pickup, and tossed it in.

As soon as I dropped the object in the trash and turned to walk away, the pain was totally gone from my foot! That pain had been a curse, and curses, of course, are carried out by demons. There was a demon attached to my foot causing the pain. We are going to learn in days ahead that demons have far more to do with sickness than anyone ever thought.

The Lord has told me not to keep any gifts or anything at all from people I discover are cult. (This has happened to me more times than I want to count!) The object is a point of contact for them to send curses (demons) into my home.

I had always thought that I could just pray and the curse on the object would be broken. This is true, but it is broken only until they send another curse! They don’t stop sending curses so there is no use keeping the object. When Jesus told me about this, I spent many days clearing out my house. A lot of really nice stuff went out into the dumpster! I have way too much stuff anyway—I’m a typical American consumer! God is teaching us about the principle of simplicity. I’m trying to scale down on my possessions. (Do I really need five pairs of jeans?)

I want to add to the end of this article a list of scriptures I use for healing and warfare, but before I do, I want to add one more healing story. A dozen years ago we had a much beloved little dog named Nikki. One day I noticed Nikki’s eyes looked cloudy—like they were covered with a film. We took her to the vet and he said she was going blind and he could do nothing for her. We took her to another vet who said she was going blind, but said she had seen this condition once before and had sent the dog’s owners to a research facility at Ohio State University where they prescribed a certain medicine. She was doubtful it would work for our dog, but we could try it.

I put that salve in Nikki’s eyes morning, noon and night for several months, but each time I did so, I prayed for her. One day my husband and I heard Nikki barking excitedly in the back yard. We went outside to see what was going on but couldn’t see anything around to have caused such a stir. Eventually we looked up at the sky, and in the distance, quite far away, was a hot air balloon! It was just a speck in the sky, but Nikki had spotted it. She was healed!

Do we think to pray when we take medicine, or do we just trust the medicine to do the job? If I take any medicine, I pray over it asking the healing presence of God to go with it into every part of my body and annihilate the enemy.

I hope you have been inspired by this article and that you will take very seriously the things written here. We must be prepared for biological warfare, plagues and epidemics of all kinds. Even now the news media is telling us there is “poop” in our drinking water along with second-time-around prescription medicines. Whoever thought of putting sewage in our rivers and streams in the first place? Too bad they didn’t read the Bible and find out what God said to do with human waste.

God has made provision in his Word for any and all situations we will face in these turbulent times. We are not to fear because our God is able to care for his own and he is very near to us.

Healing Scriptures

Exo 15:26  And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.

Deu 7:15  And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.

Psalm 103  Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

1 Pet 2:24  Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Luke 4:40  Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.

Isa 58:6-8  Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward.

Rom 8:1, 2  There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Rom 8:11  But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Prov 17:22  A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

Isa 53:4, 5  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Rom 8:26  Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. (“Infirmities” in Greek means “feebleness of body, disease, sickness.” Praying in a prayer language can add to the healthfulness of our body.)

Prov 3:7, 8  Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.

Prov 4:20-22  My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.

Hosea 6:1-3  Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

Mat 10:1  And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

Eph 3:20, 21  Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

These are just a few of the scriptures one can use for battle against sickness. Memorize them, visualize them and pray them. As you seek the Lord, he will lead you to many others. May God bless you as you seek to know him more and more!