Limitless, Part 6, Healed

March 13, 2022

Today's message was the sixth in a series called Limitless and given by Pastor Patrick. It was the first to touch on "healed." A video of the message can be found here.

Pictured at right, kintsugi, the art of "healing" pottery with gold. Healed things can be better and more beautiful than before.

Christians refer a great deal to satan, or the devil, or the enemy. There is no such character in the Torah or the rest of the Old Testament. There is a "satan," but it's more of a title than a devil; it's an "adversary", a prosecutor in the heavenly court, see Numbers 22:22,32 (the story of the talking donkey). In the Torah there is no force opposite and/or equal to God.

So, what is the "negative force" we deal with? Actually, we touched on this Torah notion a couple weeks ago when we talked about humans' two urges, the good urge and the bad urge (yetzers). As Prager puts it, "Dennis Prager's biggest problem is not society/environmental, it's Dennis Prager." YOU are your biggest problem. You must learn to control YOUR bad urge and how to use YOUR good urge.

Even if there is a unique/separate entity called the devil/enemy/satan, it's a personal issue, meaning YOU still have to battle it/him within yourself.

Patrick referenced a name for God that is rarely used (at least not familiar to me): Jehovah Rapha, the "Lord who heals." It appears in Exodus 15:26. It's the story of God "healing" the water in the wilderness at Marah ("bitter") from undrinkable to drinkable. In important ways, the people were "healed" as much as the water. The lesson is that God's power can overcome any impurity, contamination, or corruption. From Got Questions, "Jehovah-Rapha has the power to heal physically (2 Kings 5:10), emotionally (Psalm 34:18), mentally (Daniel 4:34), and spiritually (Psalm 103:2–3). Neither impurity of body nor impurity of soul can withstand the purifying, healing power of Jehovah-Rapha." This word rapha is also used in Genesis 20:17 when God "heals" Abimelech's wife of barrenness, and about 60 other references using rapha. This is probably where "The Great Physician" comes from. Rapha can generally be thought of as returning something to its normal or useful state. Also interesting, the word has ended up in human names such as Raphael, "God has healed."

Bonus Fun Fact(s)

Where is Passover described in the Torah?

Exodus 12, the 10th plague in Egypt
Leviticus 23:4-8, the Festival of Passover
Deuteronomy 16:1-8, the Festival of Passover

The Haggadah ("the telling") contains the Passover Seder details for the service/meal. It includes what you do and say across 15 sections or parts of the Seder (the first 'e' is a long 'a' sound, the word means 'order'). The Haggadah was created around the 2nd or 3rd Century A.D. Passover is one of three commanded Festivals in the Torah. The main purpose of this ritual is to remember and give thanks for the Exodus.

Check out this PragerU 5-minute video about Passover, here.