Jesus didn't. He left all but one sick at the Pool of Bethesda. A servant is not greater than his master. Yet Jesus had all the faith and authority you could hope for.

If we have authority over sickness, why can't we go empty hospitals? Actually, we can, but not the way that the objectors think. We cannot just go from room to room raising up one person after another.

Jesus did prolific healing miracles, but the people he healed came to him or were brought to him by their friends. He did not go to the local infirmaries and heal all that were sick there. They had to go to him! Consider all the Scriptures in the New Testament where they brought the sick to be healed by Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc.. That is the New Testament pattern. People need to go where the gospel is being preached.


Of course, you can preach the gospel to someone who is in the hospital, including the healing part. If the person believes the gospel, he can rise up healed. However, a little thirty-second dissertation on healing is not going to do the job in most cases. People need more time to soak up the Word concerning healing. The most important thing is for the person himself to develop faith to be healed, since your faith receives for you, not for someone else. God may heal someone in answer to your prayers, but the person needs faith of his own to keep his healing and repel sickness in the future. Only continual hearing of the Word will bring this faith.

It takes time for people's faith to grow. People need teaching. That is why Jesus not only healed, but preached and taught everywhere he went. At Nazareth, where they would not receive his healing ministry, he had no alternative other than to go around teaching the people. You can't just walk in the hospital and wave a magic wand and cure everyone instantly.


Now if you could get everyone in the hospital to hear good teaching on healing for long enough, you could probably get most of them out. (Not everyone wants to be healed, and not everyone wants Jesus, who is the Healer, and healing is a package deal. If you want to serve a dead philosopher or one of the 300 million Hindu gods, you aren't a candidate to receive healing until you are open to the gospel.)

People ARE being released from hospitals after being healed by the power of God. As more people realize their privilege of receiving healing from the Lord their Physician, we should expect to see more of this.

A close relative of this objection, not worth covering separately, is: "If healing is for all, you should go empty hospitals." This is the equivalent of saying, "If eternal life is for all, you should get everyone you preach to saved." That makes no sense at all in the light of Mark 4, where it is clear that the Word will fall on different kinds of ground and produce different results. It is our job to spread the good news of eternal life and healing, and it is largely up to the people who hear it what happens.


If someone objects that those who preach that healing is for all should be emptying hospitals, you can retort that if that person really believes that salvation is for all, he should go empty crack houses in the nearest slum! Can't all the drug addicts receive eternal life? Yes, if they hear and believe the gospel. But every individual is at a different place. That is why you can't just go into a crack house and get everyone saved in a day, and that is why you can't just go into a hospital and get everyone healed in a day. Some people are in a position to receive right away and some are not.

The fact that you cannot get all the drug addicts downtown saved tonight does not prove that they could not all receive forgiveness and eternal life. The fact that you cannot get all the sick people in the local hospital healed tonight does not prove that they could not all receive healing from God. Like most objections, this one falls apart when you apply it to the receiving of eternal life.