A Short Teaching on Sickness, the Suffering of Christ, Agreement, and Receiving the Report of the Lord
“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?” — Isaiah 53:1
Isaiah 53 does not begin with healing. It begins with a question.
Who has believed the report?
That question still confronts the Church today.
Many have heard that Jesus died for sin. Fewer have believed the full report of what His suffering purchased. Fewer still have received the revelation that Christ bore not only our sins, but also our sicknesses, our diseases, our curse, our peace, and our deliverance from the works of the devil.
The issue is not whether the words are in the Bible. The issue is whether we believe them.
Do we believe the report of the Lord?
Or have we agreed more deeply with symptoms, fear, diagnosis, family history, unbelief, religious tradition, medical authority, and the wisdom of this present age?
Faith Is a Gift, Not a Work
This must not be missed.
God’s Word is not made true by our intellectual agreement. Truth does not become truth because we finally understand it, approve it, explain it, or repeat it often enough.
God’s Word is truth.
The problem is not that God has failed to speak. The problem is that man cannot receive the report without grace, revelation, and faith given by God.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” — Ephesians 2:8–9
Faith is not a human achievement. Faith is not mental strain. Faith is not pretending. Faith is not repeating scripture as though repetition itself forces heaven to move.
Faith is a gift.
Revelation is a gift.
Even the ability to believe the report is an undeserved gift from God.
This humbles us. It removes boasting. It removes religious performance. It removes the idea that healing is received because we did everything correctly.
We are not healed because we mastered a formula.
We are not healed because we repeated the right verse enough times.
We are not healed because we proved ourselves more spiritual than others.
We receive because God gives grace. We believe because God gives faith. We see because God gives revelation.
Jesus said to Peter:
“Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” — Matthew 16:17
That is the rock. Not human intelligence. Not religious effort. Not natural reasoning. It is revelation from the Father.
So when we come to Isaiah 53, we do not merely need stronger opinions. We need revelation. We need God to open our eyes to the finished work of Christ. We need the gift of faith to believe what the natural mind cannot receive.
The prayer is not, “Lord, help me work harder until I believe.”
The prayer is:
“Father, reveal Your Son. Give me faith to believe Your report. Open my eyes to what Jesus has already done. Deliver me from unbelief, striving, religious effort, and every false agreement that keeps me from receiving the truth.”
The report is true before we believe it.
But only by the gift of faith and revelation are we made able to receive it.
The Same Tree
This conflict began in the garden.
God had spoken clearly. But the serpent challenged the Word of God:
“Yea, hath God said...?” — Genesis 3:1
Man’s fall began when he stopped simply believing God and chose instead to judge for himself. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents man taking the seat of judgment, deciding for himself what is true, what is good, what is evil, what is wise, and what should be trusted.
That same temptation remains.
God says, “With His stripes we are healed.”
The symptom says something else.
The diagnosis says something else.
The medical report says something else.
Fear says something else.
Religious tradition says something else.
Then man is tempted to return to the same tree and decide for himself whether God’s report stands.
This is the folly of fallen reasoning. We want to put God’s Word on trial and measure it by what we see, feel, fear, or understand. But God’s Word is not subject to our intellectual approval. The report of the Lord does not become true when man agrees with it. It is true because God has spoken.
The question is not whether the symptom is loud.
The question is not whether the medical report is serious.
The question is not whether the natural mind can explain it.
The question is:
Who has believed the report?
Faith does not eat from the tree of human judgment. Faith receives what God has said.
What Did Jesus Suffer?
The suffering of Christ was not symbolic. It was not light. It was not merely religious language.
Isaiah says:
“As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” — Isaiah 52:14 Other translations replace astonied with shocked, horrified.
Jesus was beaten beyond ordinary recognition. His body was torn. His appearance was marred. He did not simply receive a few bruises. His body became, as it were, one great bruise.
Then Isaiah continues:
“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows...” — Isaiah 53:4
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities...” — Isaiah 53:5
“The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” — Isaiah 53:5
This is the report.
He was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The punishment needed to obtain our peace was laid upon Him.
And with His stripes we are healed.
Matthew confirms that Isaiah was speaking not only of sin in a narrow sense, but also of sickness and disease:
“Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” — Matthew 8:17
Peter, looking back after the Cross, says:
“By whose stripes ye were healed.” — 1 Peter 2:24
Not might be.
Not maybe.
Not someday, if God chooses.
Were healed.
The finished work of Christ is not a theory. It is a report to be believed.
More Than Bodily Healing
Christ bore our sicknesses and carried our diseases. By His stripes we were healed. But the healing purchased by Christ reaches deeper than the body.
He came to redeem the whole man — spirit, soul, and body.
Sin did not merely bring sickness into the body. It brought death into man’s spirit, darkness into the soul, corruption into the flesh, separation from God, and bondage under the curse. Therefore, the work of Christ is not merely the removal of symptoms. It is the making of a new creation.
“The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” — 1 Corinthians 15:45
In Christ, we are not merely returned to the condition of Adam before sin. We are brought into the life of the risen Christ. We are made new in the Second Adam.
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” — 2 Corinthians 5:17
This is resurrection life.
Paul cried:
“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection...” — Philippians 3:10
That power is greater than anything natural man has seen, heard, reasoned, measured, or understood. It is not merely human improvement. It is divine life.
The fullness of what we are in Christ has not yet been completely revealed to us. Scripture says:
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him...” — 1 John 3:2
That is the end of the report: not merely forgiven sinners trying to survive, but sons of God being conformed to the image of Christ.
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son...” — Romans 8:29
So healing is not a small doctrine. It belongs to the larger revelation of redemption. Christ did not suffer merely to patch up fallen man. He suffered, died, rose again, and poured out His Spirit so that we might be made new, joined to Him, filled with His life, and finally transformed into His very image.
We were healed from sickness and disease.
We were delivered from the curse.
We were made alive unto God.
We were made new in Christ.
And we await the full unveiling of resurrection life.
This is the report.
Who has believed it?
Sickness, Sin, and the Curse
The Church has often separated sickness from sin, as if sickness were spiritually neutral. Scripture does not do that.
Sickness, disease, decay, and death entered the human condition because sin entered the world. Before the fall, there was no sickness, no corruption, no death, and no curse. After sin entered, death entered.
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin...” — Romans 5:12
Sickness is part of the death-process working in fallen flesh. It belongs to the broken condition of mankind under sin.
The law also makes the connection plain. Deuteronomy 28 lists sickness, disease, inflammation, oppression, fear, confusion, blindness, and destruction among the curses connected to disobedience.
The curse does not come without cause.
“As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.” — Proverbs 26:2
A curse does not simply land without ground. Sin gives ground. Disobedience gives ground. Fear gives ground. Unbelief gives ground. Agreement with a lie gives ground.
This is not said to condemn the sick. It is said to expose the legal ground by which sickness, bondage, and oppression operate.
Praise God, the Gospel does not leave us under the curse.
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us...” — Galatians 3:13
Christ did not merely forgive us while leaving us under the full claim of the curse. He became a curse for us. He bore what stood against us. He redeemed us from the curse of the law.
Therefore, the believer does not receive healing by denying that sin, sickness, and curse are connected. The believer receives by believing that Christ bore the curse, broke its claim, and calls us to agree with redemption instead of bondage.
The Devil’s Work and Man’s Agreement
The devil is a liar. From the beginning, his method has been to challenge the Word of God.
“Yea, hath God said...?” — Genesis 3:1
That was the pattern in the garden, and it is still his pattern today.
God speaks truth.
The devil presents a contradiction.
Man agrees with the lie.
Bondage follows.
Second Corinthians 4:4 says:
“The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not...”
The devil blinds through deception. He takes people captive through lies, fear, unbelief, lust, pride, bitterness, offence, and false doctrine.
Second Timothy 2:26 speaks of those who are taken captive by him. Ephesians 2:2 speaks of the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. Acts 10:38 says Jesus healed all who were oppressed of the devil.
Sickness can be part of Satanic oppression.
Luke 13 tells of a woman bowed together for eighteen years. Jesus said:
“Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond...?” — Luke 13:16
Jesus did not call that condition a blessing. He called it bondage. He identified Satan as the one who had bound her. Then He loosed her.
The devil puts forward the lie.
The symptom speaks.
The diagnosis speaks.
Fear speaks.
The wisdom of this age speaks.
Religious unbelief speaks.
But the believer must ask:
Who am I agreeing with?
Faith is agreement with God.
Unbelief is agreement with something contrary to God.
Repentance includes changing agreement.
Seeking the Lord First
When sickness appears, the first question is not, “What does the doctor say?”
The first question is:
“Lord, what do You say?”
Second Chronicles 16:12 gives a solemn warning:
“And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.”
The issue was not merely that physicians existed. The issue was that Asa did not seek the Lord.
That is the danger.
If our first response to a symptom is to run to man for an opinion before seeking God, then we have already revealed misplaced trust. We have put human wisdom in the first seat and God in the second.
That is unbelief.
The issue is not doctor or no doctor. The issue is order, lordship, and final authority.
If we seek the Lord first, and He directs us to receive medical help, then that can be obedience. But to seek the medical opinion first, while failing to inquire of the Lord, is to make man’s word the first authority.
The believer’s order should be:
- Seek the Lord first.
- Repent where needed.
- Ask for wisdom.
- Search the heart.
- Stand on the Word.
- Resist the devil.
- Break agreement with the lie.
- Receive what Christ has purchased.
Medical opinion may describe a condition, but it must never outrank the report of the Lord.
The symptom may be real, but it is not lord.
The diagnosis may be factual, but it is not final truth.
The Word of God is truth.
Owning Our Part
One reason this message is resisted is because we do not want to own our part.
We are quick to say, “Do not condemn me.”
We are slower to say, “Lord, search me.”
But Scripture says:
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” — Romans 3:23
None of us stands above correction. None of us is beyond repentance. None of us has reason to pretend there is no unbelief, no disobedience, no bitterness, no unforgiveness, no fear, no pride, no agreement with lies, and no wrong thinking in us.
Jesus Himself connected sin and sickness when He said to the man He healed:
“Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” — John 5:14
That is not condemnation. That is warning and mercy.
James also connects confession, prayer, and healing:
“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” — James 5:16
So when sickness appears, the believer should not hide behind excuses. We should humble ourselves and ask:
- Lord, is there sin I need to repent of?
- Is there fear I have agreed with?
- Is there bitterness I have justified?
- Is there unforgiveness I have protected?
- Is there rebellion I have excused?
- Is there unbelief I have called wisdom?
- Is there a lie I have received as truth?
- Is there a curse I am agreeing with though Christ has redeemed me from it?
This is not about accusing others. It is about refusing to excuse ourselves.
The purpose is not shame. The purpose is freedom.
God exposes what is killing us so He can deliver us from it.
No Condemnation in Christ
Truth must never be confused with condemnation.
Condemnation says:
“You are guilty, and there is no hope.”
The Gospel says:
“Sin brought the curse, but Christ bore the curse. Come out from under the lie and agree with redemption.”
Romans 8:1 says:
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus...”
There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. But no condemnation does not mean no correction. No condemnation does not mean no repentance. No condemnation does not mean sin has no consequence. No condemnation means Christ has borne the judgment and opened the way of freedom.
We are not healed by pretending there is no sin.
We are healed by coming to the One who bore sin.
We are not delivered by pretending there is no curse.
We are delivered by believing Christ redeemed us from the curse.
We are not free because sickness is harmless.
We are free because Jesus destroyed the works of the devil.
“For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” — 1 John 3:8
Help My Unbelief
A person may say, “I believe,” and yet still recognize unbelief working within.
In Mark 9, the father of an afflicted child cried out:
“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” — Mark 9:24
That is not contradiction. It is honesty.
He did not defend his unbelief.
He did not call it wisdom.
He did not build doctrine around it.
He brought it to Jesus.
That is the right response.
Lord, I believe Your report.
Help everything in me that still argues against it.
Faith does not pretend there is no battle. Faith brings the battle into the light and agrees with God.
The Failure of Wrong Teaching
This is the fullness behind the title:
Who Has Believed?
The report of Isaiah 53 is not merely that Christ suffered. It is that His suffering purchased redemption from sin, sickness, curse, fear, bondage, and the works of the devil.
Yet much of the modern Church has preached forgiveness while neglecting the full provision of the Cross. Many believers have been taught to accept sickness as normal, mysterious, or even God-sent, rather than resisting it as part of the curse from which Christ redeemed us.
Many have been taught to seek medical authority first and God second. Many have been taught to call unbelief “balance.” Many have been taught that healing is rare, uncertain, or only for a few. Many have been taught to believe the diagnosis more deeply than the stripes of Christ.
The number of sick believers in the Church does not prove that the report is untrue.
It testifies that the report has not been fully believed, preached, or received.
Isaiah still asks:
Who has believed our report?
Not who has heard it.
Not who has read it.
Not who has debated it.
Not who has explained it away.
Who has believed it?
Will He Find Faith?
Before Jesus returned to the Father, He asked a sobering question:
“Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” — Luke 18:8
The Lord does not ask frivolous questions.
This question should make the Church tremble. He did not ask whether He would find buildings, programs, religion, activity, committees, ministries, medical opinions, or theological explanations. He asked whether He would find faith.
That question belongs beside Isaiah’s question:
“Who hath believed our report?”
The issue in the last days is still faith. Will the Church believe the report of the Lord, or will it believe the report of symptoms, diagnosis, fear, tradition, and the wisdom of this age?
Faith is not stubborn human optimism. Faith is not pretending. Faith is not religious denial. Faith is the gift of God by which we receive what God has spoken and stand in agreement with Him.
When the Son of Man comes, will He find a people who believe the report?
What Else Would He Do?
When an ill believer asks Jesus to heal them, we must consider that He may lovingly point back to the whipping post and the Cross and say:
What else would you have Me do?
He has already borne our sicknesses.
He has already carried our diseases.
He has already taken our infirmities.
He has already received the stripes.
He has already become a curse for us.
He has already cried, “It is finished.”
The question is not whether Jesus is willing to become Healer.
He is Healer.
The question is whether we will believe what He has already done.
A Prayer of Agreement
Father, I choose to believe Your report.
I believe Jesus was wounded for my transgressions.
I believe He was bruised for my iniquities.
I believe the chastisement of my peace was upon Him.
I believe that by His stripes I was healed.
I repent for agreeing with fear.
I repent for agreeing with symptoms as final truth.
I repent for making man’s word higher than Your Word.
I repent for unbelief, disobedience, bitterness, unforgiveness, and every agreement with the curse.
I thank You that Christ has redeemed me from the curse of the law.
I thank You that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
I thank You that Jesus destroyed the works of the devil.
Lord, reveal the finished work of Christ to me.
Help my unbelief.
Teach me to seek You first.
Teach me to agree with Your Word.
Teach me to receive what Jesus has already purchased.
I reject sickness as my identity.
I reject the curse as my inheritance.
I reject the devil’s lie as my truth.
I believe the report of the Lord.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Final Word
The Church does not need a new report.
The report has already been given.
Christ suffered.
Christ bore sin.
Christ carried sickness.
Christ redeemed us from the curse.
Christ destroyed the works of the devil.
Christ is risen.
Christ is Lord.
The question remains:
Who has believed?