AFFLICTIONS!
DO 569
25/11/76
[HomeARC note (9/98): FFing was discontinued in 1987.]
1. WE HAVE BEEN COMPARING THIS FF MINISTRY TO THE MINISTRY OF CHRIST, the sacrifices & crucifixion of Christ. We know it's effective, we know it's doing the job, but I just couldn't see how it could possibly be worth the price, especially now since some of the girls have been starting to catch things. I thought surely the Lord was going to save us from that!
2. I said, "There must be a Scripture," & I got: "HE bore OUR diseases!" That's the way I got it, the words I got: "He bore our diseases." In other words, to save us Jesus was willing to even bear our diseases!--Mt.8:17--"Himself took our infirmities & bore our sicknesses!" At some time or other, Jesus knew what it was like to be sick.
3. "We have NOT an High Priest which CANNOT be touched with the feeling of our INFIRMITIES; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Heb.4:15)--How could He possibly have been tempted in ALL points like as we are unless at sometime He suffered diseases? Just to have been hungry, thirsty, tired or even suffer pain & crucifixion is not really suffering in all points like as we are. He must have been tempted in sexual points as well, & He must have been tested by diseases! "Himself bore our sicknesses!"
4. He may have even contracted a disease from Mary Magdalene, who had been a known prostitute, & several other women who were prostitutes that followed Him, or Mary & Martha. If so, He bore it for their sakes because they needed His love!
5. If He'd never suffered their SEXUAL diseases He could never really have FULL compassion on their sufferings, could He?--To be willing to even contract their diseases!--Isa.53:4--"Surely He hath born our griefs & carried our sorrows."
6. IF WE ARE TO BE VICARIOUS WITH OTHERS THE SAME WAY HE WAS WITH US, then we sometimes have to suffer for their sins too!--We say we're willing to die for them, well, being sick & having their diseases is dying for them! "He saved others, but Himself He could not save!" God didn't protect Jesus from suffering for our sins, so if we have a ministry like Jesus, which you girls certainly do as I've said before, then just like Jesus dying on the cross, you cannot save yourselves!
7. If HE did that for US, that's what WE have to do for THEM in order to reach them, to love them, to save them! That's what He expected of Jesus, so that's what He expects of us. He bore our iniquities, sins, infirmities, diseases, sicknesses, & He says we are also partakers of His sufferings. (2Cor.1:7)
8. Jesus tasted DEATH for US!--And in a way when you suffer a disease or a sickness, you're tasting death for these men! "We see Jesus, Who by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became Him, for Whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings!" (Heb.2:9,10)
9. JESUS was made perfect through SUFFERING! He was not complete, apparently, to begin with, for it says in another place that He learned obedience through suffering. (Heb.5:8) Until Christ actually suffered for us, He still didn't really understand our sufferings & He still didn't really bear our sufferings, our sorrows, our griefs, our agonies, our pain, our infirmities, our sicknesses--until He Himself suffered them.
10. He was without SIN, but He was not yet PERFECT, in other words complete, until He'd had all these experiences & sufferings for us. 1Peter 4:1 says: "Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh," just like you girls are suffering for these men in the flesh, "arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin." When you know what it's like to suffer for someone else, that's real righteousness, that's real love, that's a real ceasing from sin!
11. So "let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp (like a leper!), bearing His reproach." (Heb.13:13) We certainly live without the camp in our work, outside the camp of the System, out amongst the despised & rejected & neglected & the publicans & sinners & the drunks & harlots & the hippies & whatnot.
12. IN LOVING THESE MEN IN ORDER TO TRY TO SAVE THEM, WE HAVE ALSO HAD TO SUFFER FOR THEM--not suffer for our sins but for their sins. We're not suffering for our sins, because we're not going to bed with these men for our own selfish sexual pleasure, but we're going to bed with them sacrificially in love to try to save them.
13. And therefore if we suffer any diseases or afflictions or infirmities as a result, we are suffering for THEIR sins, not OURS. We are suffering for their sins as Jesus did for ours, in order that we & they might be saved. Hallelujah! TYJ! Thank God for that verse--"Many are the afflictions of the righteous!"--Afflictions of whom?--Not of the wicked, but afflictions of the righteous!--"BUT the Lord delivereth him out of them all!" (Ps.34:19) PG! Thank You Lord for that!
14. The Lord is letting us know what it's really like to suffer like the sinner himself by laying on us the diseases of his sin, that we might suffer with him & for him, yet without sin. You're doing it in love to save them, so it's not your fault, just as it wasn't Jesus' fault--right? He was willing to share our sufferings & our diseases & our sins that we might be saved!
15. That is as close to martyrdom as you can come without dying or being tortured or something. That is really laying down your life, that is real crucifixion! I remember the times when David's enemies said, "Aha, he hath an evil disease, a loathsome evil disease has been laid upon him!" They accused him that God was judging him for his sins, when actually he was vicariously suffering the same diseases & afflictions symbolic of the sufferings of Christ in the future, as was so much of what David suffered. (Psalms 38 & 41)
16. SO WHAT GOD WAS DOING WAS REBUKING ME. I was saying, "It's not worth it, it's too high a price, the cost is too great!"--And He was telling me, "Well, I was willing to do it for you, I was willing to suffer your diseases." So if we are to be like Christ, partakers of His sufferings, then we are going to have to risk their diseases to save them. "No greater love hath any man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends." (Jn.15:13) "We therefore should be willing to lay down our lives for the brethren." (1Jn.3:16)
17. DOCTORS do it, right?--To try to merely save people's BODIES! And missionaries have done it lots of times, missionaries who went & worked in the leper colonies & so on & got leprosy & whatnot. Well, what's the difference? You're working with "lepers," & to try to save them you're apt to catch it too!
18. You think of disease as a curse, as a punishment. Well it is, but we are not to blame. It's not because of our sins, it is because of their sins. We are sharing, partaking of & bearing their punishment like Jesus did, in order that they might be saved!
19. "Himself took our infirmities & bare our sicknesses," our diseases! The Lord made it so specific when He translated it for me. Just sicknesses could have been a lot of other things, but disease sounds so much worse! Disease! Disease! Venereal disease! Oooh! Gives you the shivers when you hear those words!--Well, they can be bad, but I don't think the Lord's going to let us suffer more than we're able to bear.
20. But if you have any unusual symptoms, an extraordinary variation in your period, any kind of bleeding or discharge that's not normal, any vaginal itch or irritation or blisters or sores or soreness, anything which is not normal & comfortable, if you have anything at all that is at all questionable whatsoever, stop all love-making immediately & go straight to the doctor as fast as you can & get diagnosed & treated--& pray!--Amen?
21. We PRAY immediately of course, but we also go to the DOCTOR to get him to do whatever he can to help clear it up. Some of you girls who go on & on & on without even telling us, & continue to make love with a lot of different men--God knows how many you could contaminate because of your negligence & your lack of concern!
22. That's not LOVE!--That's LACK of love!--To go on giving other people the diseases that you've caught from others because you don't want to confess you have anything or you don't want to stop making love!--That's selfishness! That's not unselfishness, that's not love when you don't report it & you don't go for treatment & you're not willing to hold off until you're cured.
23. AND KEEP ON PRAYING, BECAUSE ONLY GOD CAN REALLY HEAL YOU! The doctor's pills, suppositories & so on are almost like an internal washing, an internal purification, an internal bath. But only the Lord can really heal you, so you have to take both. In Jesus' name, amen.
24. Keep on LOVING for the LORD, but if you have to do any SUFFERING for it, please REPORT it! Christ didn't suffer forever! "Many are the afflictions of the righteous"--a disease is an affliction--"but the Lord delivereth him out of them all!" (Ps.34:19)
25. So we need to ask the Lord to help us to be faithful & not ashamed. Why should we be ashamed we've caught something? We didn't do it for our sakes, we did it for their sakes! That's the risk we're running to save them. It almost ought to be an honour to report, "Well, I've caught something--I'm suffering for love!" So God bless & keep us all--& continue to make us a blessing to many!--Even at the risk of afflictions!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family