- Take Sickness Away
Exodus 23:25 And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.
God promises Moses in the wilderness that the people will serve the Lord and that the Lord will bless their bread and water. This is what the Lord did for the people when they left Sinai and sojourned in the wilderness for forty years: He provided manna every day and miraculous water when they needed it.
The further promise is that He will take sickness away from among them. Not a big deal was made of this promise, but apparently the people did not get sick for at least the forty years of wandering. Leprosy was a problem, but provision for the healing of this disease and for the certification by the priest of a healed person. Moses himself retained his strength and health from the age of 80 to 120.
But it seems most likely that this promise was for a season of time; at least until they reached the Promised Land. Unfortunately, God did not promise to take sickness away from all people for all times. God does take sickness away from some of the people some of the time. This kind of miraculous healing occurs throughout the Bible and especially during the ministry of Jesus. God does heal diseases and take away sicknesses throughout history and throughout our lifetimes. And even when it is medicines and surgery that removes sicknesses, we always attribute the healing to God. He is the God who heals us, whatever means He chooses to use. We do have the promise that when we are healed it is the Lord who does it.
On the contrary, we can all expect to get sick and grow old; this is the direct result of our Sin. We shall surely die, and every sickness is a temporary form of a little death. It comes and goes. We get sick and we get healed. One day the promise will definitely come true: there will be no more sickness, pain, physical problem, or death at all. And this goes on forever. The miraculous healings of Moses’ time, Elijah’s time, Jesus’ time, and other times are signs or tokens of the permanent healing of the soul bought by Jesus, and they are signs that point to Jesus as the giver of eternal life, a life during which all sickness is taken away from the resurrected body completely, absolutely, and forever. Jesus has defeated death and disease once and forever. While we wait for that day we enjoy the health of a redeemed soul and anticipate the day when the body will never be sick again.