The Bible tells us very clearly, helps us - says this is for your healing. By His stripes, you were healed. If there is no healing for a believer, then there's no need for the stripes to have been laid on Jesus. When that blood was shed, it was shed for healing. It was shed for wholeness. Sickness is when we lose our strength in our body. Sickness is a part of the curse of the four, so when sickness comes around our body it's an invader. It's part of the cursing. Jesus Christ shed His blood, the blood than ran down His back was shed for you and for me, so there is blood. There is a provision made in Jesus' death. His blood was shed for healing. Why do we not see more people healed? Well much of it's to do with unbelief. Some of it has to do with unconfessed sin, and some to do with being determined to take hold of what God says is my provision.
You know when they came out of slavery out of Egypt, there was not one sick person. That's a pretty tall order isn't it? They were all healed at the Feast of Passover, and we celebrate Jesus as our Passover. Interesting thing about all these feasts, Jesus was the High Priest. Jesus is our High Priest. Jesus was the offering, He's our offering. Jesus is the altar where the offering was shed, Jesus is everything. That's why when Jesus was speaking to the disciples, He said He opened up in their understanding, everything in the Old Testament concerning Himself, and this was part of it, so they begin to see all of what were their tradition and their culture, they saw it suddenly, like the lights came on. They were oh my! Oh my! That blood that was shed, oh, it was shed for this, blood that was shed for that, oh, it was shed for this!
They began to see Him in all the amazing what He'd done, so He shed His blood for healing. What about His head? The head is the crown. It's interesting it tells us in the Bible - let me give you the Verse for it - Matthew 27, Verse 27 to 30 - it says they plaited a crown of thorns, beat it upon His head, and they put it down. Then they began to bow down and mock Him, and they called Him the King of the Jews. They began to mock and ridicule His kingship. Was He a king? Yes He was, and yet they bowed down and ridiculed Him. Now when Adam fell of course, the Bible tells us that he fell by giving up his rulership, by surrendering. He put something in place of God in his life. He put something before God. He put his own wife, he put his own desires before God and what happened was, the Bible said there was a curse came, and the ground that he laboured that he should have had dominion over, brought forth thorns.
That means it was very hard, it was very difficult. If you'll notice with people today is they struggle and strive. It doesn't matter who people are, it's like the ground of their life does not yield and become fruitful. They don't prosper easily. There's a lot of sorrows and pains and difficulties accompany trying to accrue wealth, trying to succeed and get ahead in life. Life seems to be extraordinarily difficult, in spite of all the modern appliances we have. Why is that? Because there's a curse on the ground, and it won't yield forth willingly. That's why people struggle and wrestle.
It's like there's an invisible power that you're working against, and you just get something happen and it goes backwards, something else breaks out. It's like there's a constant pressure against people, and that's a result of the curse. When Jesus took this crown on His head, He dealt with the issue of idolatry in our lives, putting something ahead of God, so you and I could be restored to our rightful relationship, and the ability to reign in life. You're not a victim any more. When Jesus had that crown put on Him He suffered, He endured the failure of Adam. He endured Adam's sin where Adam substituted God being first, put something else first, and in the end brought all of us into a problem. So Jesus took that. Isn't that amazing?
They plaited a crown of thorns. Whenever you place something in your life ahead of Jesus, ahead of God, its idolatry. Have you noticed this, that when you put something ahead of God, how hard life gets? Have you noticed or ever had the experience, where God told you to repent of idolatry, and when you put something right, life went a lot easier for you? This is the crown of thorns. These are the thorns of life, and I've found whenever you're going through thorny experiences in life, have a look into your heart and see if something came in your heart ahead of God. If somehow you've displaced God from your life, and now your life is very, very hard - I've watched people and it shows the stubbornness. They will go through hardship after hardship after hardship, and never stop to think that maybe the hardship is the consequence of having idols in my heart, that my life is not rightly aligned.