So He goes up to heaven (you don't know about it, because no one was there to write it down), and He sprinkles His blood on the Holy of Holies; and the next thing you know, He's showing up in the upper room going: okay, I can be touched - which meant the blood was accepted forever.
So the priest would go in, and he would sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat, on the horns of the altar; and if it was not accepted, he would be killed, and they would drag him out. If it was accepted, then he would come out, and wash his hands -then he could be touched again.
Then he would walk out, and take the other lamb and say: “Behold Israel - your sin”; and he'd march the lamb between them. Then he'd let the lamb go, and when they couldn't see the lamb anymore, he would say: “Behold Israel, your sin has been removed from you, as far as the east is from the west”.
So the idea of Laying on of Hands has nothing to do with form; everything to do with function; and we've made a form out of this, big time. We've made a form out of everything - I'm talking about good people, who love God with all their heart.
The first time I ever got to pray for somebody, I was on staff at a Presbyterian Church – yeah, they're not really into all that - but I was on staff, and there was this lady who had MS. Her name was Kim, and they came to me, and they said: we heard that you're Pentecostal; and I didn't know if I wanted to admit that or not, because Pentecostals in Charleston are a bit embarrassing, and I said: aah, who told you that?
They said: listen, you believe in healing, don't you? I said: yes. They said: well you're the only one here who does; so we want you to pray for this MS to go. She was in a wheelchair and what-not. I said: oh sure. I mean, what am I going to say? I was 19 years old at the time, and I said: give me a week to prepare myself, because it takes a week to get the anointing and stuff back then - and this is what I thought. Kind of embarrassed about that now, but I was 19, and giving it my best.
So a week's time, with three days left to go, I fasted for three days. My heart was right - I fasted for three days, I did everything, all the forms, all of them - like I did everything I could think of. Man, I had oil out, I was dousing the whole place with oil, I was fasting, I was praying in tongues, I was praying in English, I was praying laying down, I was praying standing up. I even did that whole like crying thing, where you're like breathing in and crying at the same time, the thing that Pentecostals do, you know that thing, that (gasp/inhales) like that, I was doing that!
I was doing everything I could think of to get the anointing to come. I was throwing all the devils out the place, and I mean - oh man, I was doing everything. Then of course the day came, and I was so excited, and I'm like full of faith, because I had pressed in, I'd broken through, I'd done all these things that we do. So she comes in, and of course we start to pray. Then we pray, and we pray, and we pray, and we pray, and we do this don't we, we just do this. We do all our forms.
So this man comes and says: okay, I'm sick; and so what do we do? We have all the forms to get him healed right, so we lay our hands on him, so we put our hand on him, and we pray something like: Lord, you know, heal him; and then we step back and we say: do you feel better? And he says: no.
Then we go: oh, what do we do? Jesus said: lay hands on the sick and they'll recover; and so I just did - and he didn't get any better. I must be missing something. What am I missing? Oil, we need oil - so we get oil, we douse his head with oil, and then we pray over him, and we say: do you feel better? He says: no; and we're like: okay, what am I missing? What am I missing?
Agreement! We need agreement, right? So we're praying, we didn't even switch the person we're praying for. We're praying and we're like: okay, you need to agree, and so we're all agreeing, we're all agreeing, and we step back and say: do you feel better? He says: no.