When God Doesn't Heal - Complex Truths of God's Kingdom

1 Corinthians Chapter 12, we have previously preached on this passage. I want to put a different spin on it as you know the bible is multifaceted and you can preach from one verse 100 times and it never comes out the same. God always gives other perspectives and other things. And I want to approach this in a different way than I have approached it before. It says here:

"... I don't want, brothers, I would say about the Lion of Judah Congregation, I don't want you to be ignorant about spiritual gifts..."

God does not want us to be ignorant about spiritual gifts. You know, I'm going to resist the temptation to touch something right there from that point right now. Let me read it and then then maybe I'll remember to go back there. Says:

“…You know that when they were Gentiles they were led astray ─as in truth they were led─ to dumb idols, therefore I let you know that no one who speaks by the spirit of God calls Jesus anathema and no one can call Jesus Lord if not through the Holy Spirit. Now, there are diversities of gifts, but the spirit is the same. And there are diversity of ministries but the Lord is the same, and there are diversity of operations but God who does all things in everyone is the same.

But the manifestation of the spirit is given to each one for profit, that is, for constructive things, for benefits, because to this one the word of wisdom is given by the spirit, to another is given the word of knowledge, according to the same spirit. , and another faith by the same spirit. And to another gifts of healing by the same spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirit and to other divers kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. But all these things are done by one and the same spirit, distributing to each one in particular as to him ─ I was going to say as he pleases, as he wants, it says here. For just as the body is one and has many members but all the members of the body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and we were all given one spirit to drink..."

May the Lord bless his holy word. Do you know why I have chosen this text this morning and this theme? Because I have been thinking for many months now, and it is one of the themes of my pastorate always and of this Congregation, how to communicate to our people what the León de Judá Congregation is, and what its main pastor, this Servant, believe about topics like the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Pentecostal experience, healing, spiritual warfare, deliverance, prosperity, social justice, political involvement, so many different topics that are complex to explain and that our church It does not occupy a totally evident and defined position, although it is defined, but it is not like we are a purely red-bone Pentecostal church, as they say out there, nor are we a merely evangelical church that does not give place to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and we believe in the Pentecostal experience.

And many times that causes confusion in people because they don't know what we are. Do you understand what I mean? Many times I suffer for this because I think that over the years I have always seen people who come to Congregación León de Judá and more often than not I suffer, not so much from those who come from outside, although sometimes that is a fact. but many times even from people who have known the Lord Jesus Christ here in León de Judá, and have had their first Pentecostal experience here in León de Judá, and have begun to move in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and in supernatural power here in León Judah, and they have acquired a supernatural mentality here, and there comes a time when the disciple wants more than the teacher is willing to give him, and then they feel like the teacher is short and small and then they They feel uncomfortable within the framework that the Congregation allows or establishes, or cultivates, and then they seem to want something more but the pastor is not giving it.

They become more Pentecostal than the pastor himself, as they perceive it. And then, they are like bulls that are caged and want to break the fence and go to another level, and look at the pastor sitting like little neglected animals that are not being fed and why is there no more fire for the pastor, and why is each service not a salt outside, with everyone jumping and prophecy here, this there. And I sometimes look at them and I know what they are thinking and sometimes I feel tempted to give them what they want, but my understanding of the word and what pastoral care is and what the life of a church is, in its totality, leads me to combine the issues of the spirit in a different way from how they see it.

And then many times we see each other and cross paths in the church corridors and we know what each one is thinking, don't believe it. But we don't tell ourselves. And a lot of times these people stay there kind of restricted and they have to go to a place where there's a little more spice, they take their little getaway where the volume is a little bit louder and they come back but they feel like they're constrained because there's not enough prophecy, because there is not enough ministering time, because people do not fall as much as they would like them to fall during the ministering time, etc. So I have seen that type of development many times in people. I have been pastoring this Congregation for 27 years now and have seen all the different processes.

Sometimes, even, there are brothers who come from other Congregations, they come from abroad, and by the way I tell you, this is possibly going to be one of two or perhaps three sermons that I am going to speak about this subject, I want no one here Think I'm dropping a hint at you, okay, please relax. I promise you in the name of the Lord that I am not thinking of anyone in particular. They believe me? Because sometimes I preach and people think like I'm throwing rocks at them.

Look, I have so many things to do that I don't have time to be throwing stones. If I throw it at you I'm going to throw it directly at you, I'm going to let you know that I'm throwing it at you. Really, I'm not thinking of anyone in particular. If I make a reference to something, and it looks like you, that's just coincidence. I'm not interested, actually, I don't have that in mind at all. Simply as a pastor I want to have a dialogue with you and if you visit us even better because that way you can understand what kind of church we aspire to be and what kind of person is leading this Congregation, at least at a doctrinal level.

So, there are people who also come from outside and come perhaps from a super Pentecostal, traditional Congregation, well defined in its traditional denominational Pentecostal position, and since that dimension of the spirit also moves here and many times the Lord visits us in extraordinary and It is known that here there is an opening for gifts as well, and there are many people here who are of that tradition, and León de Judá is also a Pentecostal church. I consider myself a Pentecostal, you know the trajectory that our church has gone through through the years and the price that we have paid so that our worship manifests that, our times of intercession, our openness to the gifts, our preaching.

I recently spent how many weeks preaching about the supernatural mindset through the book of Acts and I still haven't even finished that because I believe in the gifts. If someone asks you, is Pastor Miranda Pentecostal? Say yes please. Tell him that he believes in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, tell him that he believes in spiritual warfare. Tell him that he believes in the manifestations of the spirit in all its dimensions.

Because there are also people who come from outside, know and listen to our preaching regarding that, but they come and come with the patterns and mental models of their Pentecostal denominational background. And so they think they're going to find the same thing here with a different flavor. It is true that here the women put on shades and make up and wear pants and sometimes wear them too much, but in any case, this church is also open to gifts. But then people come along and they're like, why doesn't the pastor allow this? And why doesn't the pastor allow the other? And then it also leads to confusion.

There are also brothers who come from a more traditional background and since here there is also a certain order and also a church that is concerned with social justice, and the preaching of the word is emphasized and it is often preached exegetically, and the pastors have theological training in one way or another or whatever, so they also think that this is a more evangelical church and when the gifts are manifested, or someone is here and falls to the ground or there is some extraordinary manifestation, then they feel like, wait a minute , then this church is not for me either.

So, as the Guatemalans say, we are neither chicha nor lemonade. We are neither one thing nor the other. But no, it is not that we are not one thing or the other, it is that we are one thing and the other, we are both. And what I seek and what the León de Judá Congregation seeks, and I believe that what all the people of God should seek is what God wants His people to seek, is a spirituality, a congregational life that is taken from the model which is established by Scripture, not what is established by a denomination, not what is established by a ministry that is linked to another television program. I'm not interested in, and you shouldn't be interested in, imitating someone else's crew.

Because God distributes his gifts as he wants, to whom he wants, and God is infinitely creative. Cash Luna may be given a different gift from the one he gives to Harold Caballeros, different from the one he gives to César Castellanos, different from the one he gives to Maldonado in Florida, different from the one he gave to Billy Graham, different from the one he gave gave John Wesley or Jonathan Edwards, each of those characters if you look at them are sui generis, they are each very different from the other.

Each one has its own endowment and the spirit of God is infinitely creative and the church has given it a call, has given it an anointing and a specific endowment. I am not interested in imitating anyone's anointing. I want our church to be what God wants it to be.

And that is one of the things that I see in this passage that Paul talks about a lot and that is the diversity of manifestations that the spirit has. There are people who think that the only genuine way to pray for a Congregation is for everyone praying at the same time and with a great sound, which is beautiful, but it is not the only way. That is a style. Sometimes it can be cultural, sometimes it can be denominational, and glory to God, I love it when I hear the Congregation rise up in spontaneous adoration to the Lord, pray all together, but it is a way of worshiping.

There are other ways to worship the Lord and to pray and cry out to the Lord as well. There are churches that are quiet, they don't break a plate, not a chair moves, but they are also filled with the Holy Spirit.

And I have already learned with all the years of my life to respect the different ways in which the Holy Spirit moves and manifests itself. But the important thing is that all these different forms, styles, are made by one and the same spirit, as the Apostle Paul says here.

He says here in this passage that there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit. There are diversity of ministries but the Lord is the same. And there are diversity of operations but God who does all things in all is the same.

One of the things that I have learned is that the manifestations of the Holy Spirit are potentially infinite and that the gifts of God are potentially infinite in their various manifestations.

Before developing this point, and I hope I do not forget, what I always look for, brothers, or pastor in my preaching, in my sermon repertoires and in style is that I want to extract from the Scriptures the tone that they themselves establish . I want to play in the same key that Scripture plays, in other words. I want to put my ear very close to the voice that comes out of the pages of the Bible and try to sing at that same tone, at that same speed, with that same feeling.

To me, as I say, my point, I do learn from models of course, who does not need mentors and teaching and model. Clear. But nowadays where there are so many failed, false models that seem good and that even produce numerous and financially prosperous churches, with great temples and great television ministries and all that. But I say, Lord, I am not going to be impressed by any of that, what I want to see, does that match what I see in your word? It is understood?

And if it is not according to the endowment that God has given me, my temperament, character, experiences, study of the word, cultural and intellectual studies, all that is stuffed in my bag, I shake it off and from there it is the who I am and what I can convey to you. I am never going to sing in the style of another singer, sorry that Omar is here, because I am thinking... you sing with his voice, you sing with his style, you touch the message that God has placed in your life and Lion of Judah You have to play according to the key that God has given you to play.

And what happens in the evangelical people today is that we are not looking enough at the Scripture and what we are doing is being lazy and trying to imitate the models of another person, of another ministry, of another denomination, and we are Like the parrot we repeat a number of things but we don't even understand what we are saying, much less understand the grammar of the language we are using. We are imitators.

One of the things that you have to understand about me is that. I will always do everything possible to continue in my message in my pastoral style and in my life, I hope, as much as possible according to what I see in Scripture. And what I see in Scripture is always complexity and balance.

Scripture is a more complex universe than the largest galaxy you have ever seen in the universe or know exists in the universe. The word of God is for me a dynamic universe, much more dynamic than the atomic universe, which is a terribly dynamic thing. It is incomprehensibly complex, multifaceted, of many different layers and I always try to give the people of God all the advice of the word of God and that is why many times people cannot understand why they say, well, what is he? Is it this, is it that? Do you believe in healing or do you not believe in healing?

For example, look at the topic of healing. I absolutely, passionately believe in the God of healing, I believe in the God of health, I believe in the God of miracles. If there is something, and I believe that I will still see greater things than what we have seen in the world, I believe that what we are seeing is simply a straw compared to everything that God wants to give his people in terms of healing. And our church will believe in healing, we will pray for the sick.

Just yesterday I was in a precious cell meeting in Jamaica Plain, and these brothers... it was a Pentecostal meeting and these brothers testified several of them, new people in the Gospel, they are converting, a whole family, a whole tribe and others they were there too. A thing that was taken from the book of Acts.

A sister was talking about how God had healed her from the depression that she had had all her life, a terrible depression and when she knew Christ she was healed. A whole family with demonic manifestations and with all the amulets and all the things that the Dominicans use around their ankles and all these things, keeping them imprisoned, and when the Lord entered their lives, they met the Lord here in the León de Judah, and how God has freed them and has been healing them from demonic manifestations among young people and adults, noises and things in the house, and how that is already a matter of the past.

Others spoke of physical healing they received. That occurs in our church continually there is physical healing in this church. Many times they are talked about publicly and other times not, but in the cells they pray for healing. On Mondays there is a body of brothers and sisters here who come to pray. On Wednesdays we pray for healing. We have vigils, we pray for the sick. We see demonstrations and we believe in healing but you know what? That I also see in the Bible that healing is a tremendously complex issue and that if a pastor wants to do good to his church and if a church wants to be purely Biblical Pentecostal, it has to see all the dimensions of healing. And all of them need to be discussed in order for a church to have proper wisdom regarding the subject of sickness and healing.

That is why I say, this is a very broad topic and it is good that these things are discussed. Why do I say this? Because I believe that one of the dirty secrets of the Pentecostal world that believes in healing is disease. The fact that there are people who are not healed and that there are people who pray a lot for them, fast for them and they themselves pray and fast, and for some reason they are not healed. Whether God actively decides not to be healed or God allows not to be healed, really, to me those are questions of semantics. But the fact is that they are not healed and that the number of people who are not supernaturally healed is possibly greater than those who are healed, perhaps much greater.

But that secret is often kept quiet in Pentecostal churches. Because? Because it feels like if you talk about people not getting healed, the faith of the people is going to be affected and the pastor himself is going to sound like he's a spiritual tadpole because he's saying that people might not get healed. And then what are they going to think? Ah, well then you don't have faith. So everything is positive, positive, positive. There is no talk that God many times for one reason or another, decides not to heal because people do not heal.

But then what is done many times, and also on other occasions you pray for so-and-so, oh, so-and-so was healed. And then a month later we go to so-and-so's funeral because he wasn't healed after all, but we kept quiet. It is not said go and glory to God. He entered the Kingdom of God with victory. And we kind of make up the dead person a little over there and we move on and we don't talk.

We don't see cases in the Bible where tremendously anointed people get sick and die. Listen to me, someone has to die of something one day. At some point someone is going to die and it will probably be from a disease. You have to talk about the disease, you have to talk about the moments in which you pray and pray and pray and God does not intervene for a healing. And that of so many families that are people of God who have congenital problems, take pills, that is something else. In the Pentecostal church many times there is no mention that so-and-so is taking medicine and that this pastor, the great preacher, the great evangelist, the great healer also takes his pill from time to time, but nobody knows, it is a secret that must be kept as a military secret from another world, because if that is known then people will not have faith.

So, brothers, a superficial people is created, an immature people, a childish people in things of the spirit that are not talking about the complex universe that is the subject of gifts and manifestations of the gift of God and how God moves, because is that the Bible talks about everything, it talks about the God of healing power, and provider, and prosperor, but it also talks about the God who sends his almighty Son and turns him into a man so that he can die on a cross crucified and ashamed to save to humanity.

And what of the cross? Many Pentecostals do not like the theme of the cross except when they perfume it a lot and put on a lot of makeup. But the cross is something that is fulfilled in the life of every believer, it manifests itself in some way. It manifests in illness at times, it manifests in failure at times, it manifests in times of difficulty, it manifests in a rebellious child, it may manifest in a difficult marriage, it may manifest in the loss of a job or a home, and in all those things God may also be working and doing his best work in your life precisely through those things.

But we don't talk about these things because they are not convenient, because they complicate our preaching. And what we pastors like is for people to say, glory to God, Hallelujah! And that at the end of the service they tell you, pastor, it's the best sermon I've ever heard in my life. And we are willing to sell our soul to the devil and take our people with us too so that people are happy. Give them what they want to hear.

And we create childish people, immature people, unbalanced people, people who don't know all of God's word. And what I want to provide is a church, or facilitate, it is a church of people who are learned and skilled in the management of all the word of God, that when speaking of healing, the different aspects of healing are understood. When talking about prosperity, learn from the different texts and themes.

That is precisely the study of theology, do you understand what the study of theology is? The study of theology is the systematization of the diversity of themes that exist in Scripture, taking them and seeing them in their interrelation with each other, what the different pages of the Bible say about a particular theme, seeing it in its totality, instead of see them isolated from each other.

And unless one has some training in that way of seeing life and the word of God, systematically what Genesis says and what Revelation says, what Paul says and what Peter says. Look at something so complex for example, works and faith. That is a theme that is found in a number of passages throughout all of Scripture.

Santiago says one thing, Pablo says another, both say the same thing but it seems that they contradict each other. You have to take these things and put them together and study them in their relationship to each other. But there are churches that go all after grace, grace, grace. Others go through works, works, holiness, holiness, holiness, and don't see the complexity of Scripture about grace, works, God's justice, God's mercy, love, truth.

And one has to create complex people, my desire is to give birth through our ministry to a Congregation of mature people, people deep in the word of God. And there is a price to pay, the price is that many times you will not be understood and the people who want mangú will leave upset because you gave them something more complex than that.

People who want to have a warm milk to fall asleep on the bench and leave happy because God loves them and has good things for them, they are not going to like that type of preaching. But God calls us not to simply give us a bottle, a pacifier as they say out there, no, God wants to create strong men and women for the work of the Gospel, and people who also know how to handle the sometimes difficult waters of life because they taste like where to go in Scripture with a passage that applies to what they are going through.

Because you tell people only, no, God heals and God's only desire is that you be healed. I believe, up to a certain point, but the truth is that if that is the only thing I have that truth, when I spend years of illness begging God to heal me and it does not heal me, then I am going to believe that God hates me me or that he doesn't have something for me that he has for everyone else. If he didn't heal me, it's because I did something, I've sinned, or he's not as faithful as he said. Instead of me giving that person also a scripture text to help them navigate that water that is going through at that moment.

The pastor's calling is to nurture his people and enable them to navigate all the different areas of life and provide them with the full counsel of God's word. and unfortunately what I see today in many evangelists who have become pastors, they do not really know the Bible in its entirety and those are the ones who often dominate the television screens and the crowds, and people fall in love of that. And what they are eating is bits, little bits here and there, and they are not seeing the whole, the grammar of Scripture. What they know are sentences, phrases that have been learned and they recite them but they don't know the process behind it.

And my wish is rather that you can go directly to the word, grapple with its complexity, exemplify from up here a way of looking at Scripture so that you in your own life can do the same.

A you do not need me. Come here just to celebrate with me, but you already ate before coming here to church. Many people depend on food here in the church. If you depend on the food served here alone, you are lost, let me tell you. You have to learn the word of God in your life and know how to handle it in its entirety, turn it upside down, upside down, open the guts and put it back together like it was at the beginning, like the mechanic who knows his car well and knows what that each little tube, each cable does and that is why if something breaks he knows how to fix it again.

That is what a good church should do, a good pulpit teaches God's people all the counsel of God and how to handle the different complexities of life. That's why, by the way, Paul says here in Chapter 12, in the first verse, "they don't want brothers who don't know about spiritual gifts."

Do you know that translation of spiritual gifts is incorrect? Or not exact at least. Paul does not say I do not want you to be ignorant about spiritual gifts, the word that translates into Spanish spiritual gifts is pneumaticon, which means pneumatic spirit. What he is saying, I do not want brothers, to be ignorant about things, matters of the spirit, spiritual matters, matters of the spirit, I do not want them to be children, childish in things of the spirit. So he goes into the subject of the gifts as an illustration of that, but what he says is that God does not want you or me or anyone from the Lion of Judah Congregation to be childish in the way you handle the subject of the gifts. and spiritual things. Rather, God wants mature people to be given all the tools to be…

Today, I believe that there are many Pentecostals, there are many churches, and there are also in the non-Pentecostal evangelical world, children's churches. Some are like the disciples of Ephesus that when Paul asks you, were you baptized by the Holy Spirit? They say, we don't even know what you eat that with. What is the holy spirit? We know only of John's baptism.

There are many churches in this world that know the Holy Spirit as something generic but they don't know about the gifts, they don't know about spiritual warfare, they don't know about fervent worship, they don't know about the supernatural mentality. If a demon is found along the way, they don't even know how to recognize it, let alone get it out. And they are childish children in the gifts of the spirit.

But there are other people who believe that they are handling the gifts of the spirit and they are childish too. there are many churches that have invented a show, an act and everyone already knows the parts of that act. And when they come they know how to talk, they know the tone to adopt, they know what to do when they come forward, they know how to nod when the Holy Spirit is supposed to be moving within them, the pastor does certain things. There is a whole ritual that is supposed to be what it is when God moves, but it is a ritual like any other. It's a pantomime.

Many times God moves in them, certainly. Understand well, I think we have a lot to learn from that world, but don't get carried away, don't let yourself be sold a pig in a poke. You have to be mature, you have to be complex. God has given us a brain and a theological capacity to judge spirits, says the word, to measure. When you're in a meeting, don't be intimidated or intimidated or impressed by all the moves and everything.

No, stay... one question, I feel the presence of God here, does this manifest the word of God? Does this express the tone of God? Do I see the fruit of the spirit manifested in the environment of this Congregation? Or do I feel positivity in the spirit from the person who is preaching? Does it reflect what that person is saying, my understanding of the word of the Lord?

None of those questions are illegitimate. You have a right to ask them because God wants mature and complex people who know all the different strands and nuances of the different themes that are in Scripture.

Let me return for a moment to the subject of healing, I am isolating that. There are two passages that have always impressed me about Scripture, and about the subject of healing. I am going to tell you one of them is in Second Kings, Chapter 13, verse 14. How many have heard of Elisha? Elisha is one of the most powerful prophets in all of history, with the Elijah anointing. Great miracles were done through Elisha, great healings. There are not many people in the world that have walked the earth that have had the anointing of Elisha and had the faith of Elisha.

But look at what it says here in Second Kings, Chapter 13, verse 14, it says here:

“…Elisha was sick with the disease of which he died…”

How many have ever thought and stopped on that sentence? To break it down theologically, biblically, spiritually and supernaturally. It says here that "... Elisha was sick with the disease of which he died..."

The poor man had to die somehow, and I imagine he prayed to the Lord, Father, I want to be healed. I still have a lot to do in this world, I have a lot of good, and they are going to kill me, if I am going to die, please do not put that verse in the Bible because I do not want it to be remembered that I died of an illness.

There is. Elisha was sick with the disease from which he died. I don't see that as a scandal. His time has come. God had other things, he had other people to work and he already fulfilled his task, and he took him to heaven. And at some point you and I have to die. Actually, look, right now with everything that I love, my family, my ministry, life, if God wants to call me today, I am happy, amen. I graduate and I'm off to something much better.

But Elisha died of something. I tell you a secret here, there is another one of those topics about these men. Someday I would like to write a book with this title, perhaps you will laugh, "Elías was bald." Do you know that Elijah, some young people who laughed at him because he was bald? And if Elijah was such a great man why didn't he say, Lord, give me a head of hair that is absolutely lush, yet he was bald. And he was a great servant of God.

That makes me think of a time when I saw a great African American preacher, very well known, evangelist, healer and all this, and for reasons that I knew, she wears reading glasses, has near sight or whatever her name is, reading glasses. I needed reading glasses. But, look, perhaps I am too malicious in these things, but she had her servant, she knows that today many of the preachers are a guille, they have someone who carries their briefcase, and does their manual tasks and all that, that is part of being a great Apostle. A lot of us feel like we need that to give us a little more of…forgive me if I'm cynical.

But the fact is that this lady developed that I had not seen it before in her repertoire, but that when she had to read the Bible, she had this sister read the Bible to her. She told her to read, so she read aloud to her and look, forgive me, but I'm pretty sure she didn't do it so she wouldn't have to put on her glasses in front of people. Supposedly this great healer, why did she have to wear glasses to read the Bible? And he didn't want to confuse his people or create limitations on their understanding.

And I tell you, I don't want to dwell too long, it was a mere illustration. There are reasons why I believe this even more. It's not just because I'm being unkind in my acting. But there is this fear that the person who serves God or that to be this super Apostle, this super prophet you have to be absolutely inviolable and perfect, and have one hundred percent healing.

God can use you paralyzed in a wheelchair to heal someone, because the manifestations of God's spirit are totally limitless and mysterious. Amen.

Where was the most powerful work done in the entire history of the universe? Where was the greatest manifestation of power and release of energy that was in all of history and will be in the history of the universe? Where was? On the cross, with a man, God, with nails in his hands and with nails in his feet, bleeding, possibly almost completely naked, and there Christ, totally unable to move and apparently defeated, defeated principalities and powers and annulled the act of decrees that was contrary to us. On the cross.

The greatest manifestation of the power, the mercy, the grace, the faithfulness of God was given through an act of terrible limitation and suffering and shame and failure. So much so that those who knew Jesus said, here we already melt. All this time spent on him and he was the presidential candidate who was going to win, because they didn't understand. Because it is that the childish person, spiritually cannot understand the complexity of the things of the spirit.

When the Lord offered to wash Peter's feet, Peter, who was still in a carnal, rational, human, masculine mind, said, Lord, never, I will never allow you to wash my feet. Because he couldn't understand how absolute power could wash absolute ugliness out of an absolutely small man. And how God could be the servant of a mere man. And the Lord told him, well, look, if you don't let me carry out this act that exemplifies all the mystery of my relationship with humanity, you don't deserve to be my disciple because it is the very essence of my ministry.

Who knows that the greatest manifestation of God's power will be at the moment of your greatest humiliation or depth of darkness in your life. Maybe that's where God is going to be doing something that will enable you then to enjoy the blessings he has for you later.

God is infinitely mysterious. One last passage, I'm going to finish, because this, as I say, this is such a big topic that one can get lost in it. Look for another mysterious verse about healing, it's in Chapter 5, verse 23 of First Timothy.

Do you know why I love Paul so much and why God gave Paul…? Paul was an honest man. Pablo was not interested in displaying, he was not interested in perpetuating his image for eternity or before the public that was going to read it. What's more, I don't think I even knew that so many people were going to read it. But Pablo is a very complex man. Pablo is a man whose shadow sometimes healed people. Paul was a man whose demons fled at his voice of rebuke. Paul was a man who began to sing one day when he was in jail, beaten and bleeding, and nevertheless decided to recognize the goodness and mercy of God and began to sing, and when he began to sing with his friend Silas, the place trembled and the chains of all the incarcerated fell out and the jailer ended up being baptized by him. That is the power of this man. A man who had so much wisdom and so much revelation from God that many of the revelations he received were not even allowed to share them on a human level, because the revelation that God had given him was so great.

However, this man who did great things and who was used by God in so many ways, has a moment of extreme daily humility and is revealed in his pastoral role. That's what people don't understand. The role of the pastor is very different from the role of the prophet, the role of the evangelist, the role of the Apostle or whatever, the pastoral care of souls, the congregational ecclesiastical context imposes limitations on the manifestations of gifts that is not what The same if it occurs in a house, in a cell meeting or when you are alone in your prayer room or when you are with 4 or 5 spiritual frosted allies, with close friends of yours. There, take off your clothes, jump, stand on your head, whatever you want, but when we are in the context of the church, of pastoral care, I have to take care of the elderly, the children, the new ones, the old , to the Central Americans, and to the Dominicans and Caribbeans, the church has to take care of everyone and provide space for everyone. That means you have to pick yourself up a bit. You can't manifest all the things you want, because the idea is…, here this is a space for everyone to find a place.

Now, then make all the mess you want and party however you want on Wednesday, or at a vigil, whatever. There are different times for different things. God is not going to break into 20 thousand pieces because in a moment you decide to be calm for the blessing of the whole Congregation and bite your tongue because you want to say something but it is not the moment. On the contrary, God blesses him for that. It is the complexity of pastoral care. Look how Paul, that great Apostle, anointed man of God in a moment of honesty says to Timothy, 5:23, First Timothy:

"...Timoteo, do not drink water anymore but use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses..."

Because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses. Why didn't Pablito send him a handkerchief anointed with oil and send it by Federal Express to Timoteo so that he could touch it and be healed and all diseases disappear? Instead choose this: Timoteo, look, have a little bit of chardonnais or whatever, buy yourself a bottle of brandy, little one, but buy it and from time to time have a sip because of your stomach. It was what it was at that time, there was no Wallgreens to go to or a CDS to buy [inaudible] or whatever, I mean, have a little wine because of your frequent illnesses. Even the great Timothy and the great Paul, his tutor, had to hold on to the reality of life.

And that is one thing that I see through the New Testament, there is a development from Matthew to Revelation and I kind of see the mind of Paul, the man, through the years weaving about what is the complexity of the spirit and of the gifts and supernatural manifestations of God and of the pastorate, and the assembly of a church that is being assembled over the years and that is becoming institutionalized and that has to do institutional things to perpetuate itself and to conquer the world.

And then that raw and wild and innocent energy of the spirit has to get into some wiring to put together the church system. And there then you have to recognize that not everyone is healed and that if they are healed sometimes it is not immediately that you pray. And that some die and that God partially heals others and does not fully heal them and that others have to be prayed for 4 times so that they are finally healed, or that God will illuminate others to a doctor to tell him what have and give him the medicine he needs. Or it will give wisdom to a medical experimenter to invent a formula that heals.

The manifestations of the spirit are many and in different ways and we have to learn to navigate those waters, brothers. And that is what I want to leave you. When asked what Pastor Miranda believes, Pastor believes in the whole enchilada. I believe in everything the Bible says. I believe in all the gifts and in everything, but I also believe in all the other things that complicate my life. I have to recognize them.

To make my life easy I am not going to put a black curtain. That is another passage of Scripture, neither to the reality of life, nor to the limitations of my pastoral experience, nor yours. Do not do it. Stay tied to Scripture always.

And that is what we want. What does the Lion of Judah believe? We want to be a complex church, an eminently biblical church, a balanced church, a church of extremes that try to meet and maintain a living organism that is how living organisms are, they are contradictions that are maintained by some miraculous way and allow life.

God wants a wise, mature people. Not children, nor ignorant of things of the spirit. People of God, I hope that something I have said makes sense to you or is worth something to you. I do not know if you understand my heart? At this time in history, God wants it, he has always wanted it, but more than ever, mature churches, pastoral churches, complex churches, biblical churches, that are not afraid of the truth and even if the truth makes matters difficult for them, but that hold fast to the truth of God because there is security, there is true power, there is prosperity, there is God's presence, there is inviolability. The demons do not know what to do with a man or a Congregation that is tied to the truth of God. That Congregation will always be prosperous, it will always be blessed. That community will always go from bigger to bigger, because God's truth will be its cover and will be its protection.

Let's stand up and receive that word from God this morning and ask the Lord to give us wisdom to express these truths in a way that is understandable to you and that is food for your life, that you can practically get something out of it and that enrich their lives. That is the type of church you attend. In the fight you will find me and you will find Congregación León de Judá. It will not find it in the rest of the extremes, it will find us there in the heat of contradiction, tension, the agony of life where eternity is trying to get into this tiny funnel and cannot because it is infinite.

There we are and there we will be until Christ comes. And one day all these problems will be solved because then we will be as we are known, we will know as we are known and all the arcana and all the questions will be resolved in an instant. And you will know everything you need. Meanwhile, live the complexity of the reality that you inhabit and thank God that your passport is stamped and everything is fine, because you are now going to enter eternity with Christ Jesus because he paid the price.

Father, thank you, we love you, we bless you. Give us your peace, Lord. Anything that has not been pleasant to you, any comment, any way of expressing things that has not been according to your desire, forgive us. Remove any error issued from the minds of your children and leave only what will bless and strengthen them.

Bless our Congregation, our community, Father, and free us from pride, free us from unjustly criticizing our brothers, but keep us attached to your truth always and guide us, guide us and give us your wisdom. We love you, Lord. Thank you for being so merciful to us. Blessed be your name. Send us out of this place, Lord, with the faithful manifestation of your grace wherever we go, in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen.