(Ver 1.1)  This is now Part 4 in a series of advanced Bible lessons about where Sickness and Disease Came From.   If you have not read this series of lessons from the beginning, then I would suggest that you go back to Part 1 and start there.  In today’s lesson I want to directly focus in on a false teaching that is found in many churches that causes many people to remain in sickness.  Many confused and ignorant ministers want to claim that Paul had a physical sickness, disease or disability from God and since he endured this with such great patience and humility we should also submit to the will of God and endure it the same way.  I have actually heard people teach this as if it was a message from God or a Bible verse.  They have theorized that since the Bible says that Paul was struck down blind on the road to Damascus by the brign light coming from Jesus that he had continuing and ongoing eyesight problems that followed him into his maturing years caused by God.   They even use a verse found in Galatians 6:1 where Paul makes a statement “You see what a large letter that I have written unto you”, to say Paul was using Greek letters that were written extra-large to allow him to see them.   Wow, you can really make the Bible say whatever you want it to say, can’t you?   I personally believe that in Galatians 6:1 Paul was referring that the amount of information covered in his letter to the Galatians was what was a great size and I believe that he was not talking about the size of his handwriting.  But, you can believe whatever you like and be wrong.   So let’s look at the controversial verse written in 2 Corinthians and see exactly what it says about Paul’s thorn in the flesh:

2Co 12:7  And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

I want to start this lesson with the emphasized point given to us of why Paul had this thorn.   Rather than determining what the thorn is or who gave it to him, let us focus only on the why it was there factor.  I actually believe that this reason of why it was present is more important than Paul having a thorn.  You can clearly read in 2 Corinthians 12:7 the fact that Paul said this thorn was present because of the abundance of the revelations that were given to him.  Uh oh?   You can begin today by asking yourself this question, are you a Paul?  How many revelations have you been given in the past 10 to 20 years?  Could you write 2/3 of the New Testament?  If you have not been given the same number of revelations as Paul, then you are not a Paul and you do not qualify to have a thorn.  I really do not care what the thorn is right now, if it is a sickness or a disease, you must ask yourself why you are sick and if you can say it is because of the abundant revelations that you have been given by Jesus then you are potentially the same as Paul.  Otherwise if you have not been given abundant revelations from God then you do not qualify for a thorn.  This is very simple logic based upon the words in the scripture.  This further makes it just so simple to determine now if you even qualify to have a thorn.  God was intelligent enough to write you and tell you why there was a thorn and then you must be intelligent enough to figure out if you are eligible for the thorn.  Based upon this information the vast majority of people teaching, preaching and hearing this verse do not qualify for it.    Later we will examine what a thorn is using the Bible, but for now I want you to judge yourself and make a count of how many revelations you have been given.  If there are so many that you can’t count them all, then you are qualified.  Maybe I should stop and define what a revelation is so that you can understand that concept first.

A revelation is a New Testament concept.  The word “revelation” only occurs 10 times in the New Testament.  Of course there is a book of the Bible called “Revelation” and this is the final book of the Bible that describes the time of the end.  There are no direct revelations given in the Old Testament that I know of.  But, do not misunderstand what I am saying.  God did have prophets in the Old Testament that were given words to speak from God, but if the prophets understood the Words it would shock me tremendously.  Let me give you the definition of the Greek word from the Strong’s that is translated as “revelation” so that you see what it means:

From G601; disclosure: – appearing, coming, lighten, manifestation, be revealed, revelation.

The Greek word translated as “revelation” is from another Greek word that means “to take off the cover”.  There is a clear implication given to us that the Word of God had a cover on it.  So a revelation is a revealing of the Word of God.  This of course further implies that the Word of God was a vastly hidden complex spiritual set of information that needs to be uncovered for us to understand it.  It would be like when a waiter in a restaurant brings out a covered dish to your table and you do not know what it is until they take off the lid and reveal it.  This was how the Old Testament was written.  It had a covering over it that did not permit any man to understand the true meanings that it contained.   This is a concept that I call “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight” and I write about this a lot.  These are techniques that God implemented in His Word using His extreme intelligence that allowed Him to use words that we can clearly read, but yet the way they were presented to us, it is almost impossible to understand them correctly until the Spirit of God reveals them to us.  Let me give you some more scriptures from Galatians about this subject to teach you more about the concepts of revelations.  Let me show you where Paul said he got what he taught from the Bible:

Gal 1:11  But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

Paul is talking about the Gospel that he was preaching to the people on the earth and he tells you that these words did not come from a man.  This is just another way of telling you he didn’t learn it from a church denomination, a Sunday school, a seminary or even a preacher.  These are usually the institutions which teach the doctrines of men.  You see many churches in the world today only know how to teach lessons that they learned from other men and they have no spiritual substance or value to them.  These types of men are not led by the Spirit of God, they are usually led by books, calendars, denomination plans and lessons and other doctrines of men.  Paul tells you exactly where he got his message and it is not from any of these usual places:

Gal 1:12  For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

If Jesus Christ came to you one day and taught you something awesome in the Bible, what would have been Jesus’ purpose for doing this?  Is it just for you alone?  Why do you think that Jesus gave Paul such great revelations of the Word of God, was it for Paul personally to grow up spiritually and no one else?  Of course it was not, Paul was called by God to be a teacher of the Word of God, and so Jesus came and taught him what to teach.  Can Jesus still do this today?  I know for a fact that He can and has.  Did you know it makes all the difference in the world where your preacher got his message that he teaches you on Sunday morning?  If it comes from a book other than the Bible, it is worthless no matter how entertaining it might be.  We can clearly see that Paul claims to have been taught by Jesus Christ and the message that he taught was the words of Jesus and not the words of Paul or any other man.  We are definitely starting to understand why Paul had a thorn in his flesh, even though we still do not yet have a clue what this was.  Before I move on in this subject let me teach more about what a revelation is:

Eph 3:3  How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,

As you can read a revelation is the implied understanding of a hidden mystery.  A mystery is always something that is not clearly made known until the ending.  If you have ever read a mystery novel then that is what I am talking about.  The ending of the book almost always reveals the surprise.  You can try to read it and you can think on it and you can attempt to figure it out, but until it is revealed it rarely is the right conclusion in your mind to what really happens in any really good mystery story.  If you can read a book and figure out the ending before it happens then it is not a good mystery story.  God’s Old Testament was the greatest mystery story of all time.  It had complex twists and turns and unexpected things happened like God comes to the earth in the flesh when no expected Him to show up this way.  Jesus instead of fighting with a sword and conquering the world’s kingdoms has come to the earth to die and no one expected that.  Jesus at his trial does not even defend himself in court and He is convicted of no crimes and yet sentenced to die on a cross like a criminal.  These are some of the greatest mysteries of God and why Satan did not know what to do with Him.   While Jesus walked the earth in the flesh He starts speaking to the people in parables that told of hidden spiritual things that had been kept secret since the foundation of the world and this was clearly the start of the unveiling of the mystery of God.  Jesus started revealing these mysteries to His disciples when He walked among us and then Jesus later appeared to Paul and taught him some more of the mysteries of the Old Testament.

Eph 3:4  Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

This book about Christ is the greatest Mystery book that you will ever attempt to understand.  The complex hidden spiritual things in this book will cause you to scratch your head and wonder how did I not see that or say what did that say?  Saul, who became Paul was a serious Bible student before he ever understood what he was reading.  Saul was a devoted religious man of the order of the Pharisees (Php 3:5).   It was only after Saul was struck down blind on the road to Damascus and the man of God came to him and restored his eyesight and filled him with the Spirit of God (Acts 9:17) that Paul ever began to understand the mysteries of the Bible to teach them.  This could be my story also but, that is not my subject today so I will not go there.

Eph 3:5  Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

As you can see the mystery was not made known to men before in the Old Testament.  But, God has revealed them to us through His apostles and prophets by His Spirit.  This is a foundational key to understanding if you qualify to have a thorn like Paul.  I gave you a lot of the background information that is very relevant to making this determination.  If you determine you are a Paul and can have a thorn like him, then let’s stop and figure out what this thorn was next.  Let us reread a our foundational verse for today’s lesson:

2Co 12:7  And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

I only underlined the part that I wanted you to focus in on.  Paul describes this “thorn” as a messenger of Satan that was sent to “buffet” him.  It is first important to note that whatever this thorn was, it came from Satan and not from God.  The term “messenger” in the Greek can mean an angel or a preacher.   It is someone who carries a message.  The Fedex Company is a messenger business that delivers messages.  Angels or messengers can be sent by God, or in this case they can also be sent by Satan.  An angel is of course a spiritual being.  You must realize that Satan has angels under his control in order to understand the spiritual kingdoms that exist.  God has a spiritual kingdom and Satan has a spiritual kingdom and both of these kingdoms have angels.   You can read about these angels in a spiritual war with each other in Revelation 12 and Daniel 10.  However, I am not convinced that Paul’s thorn was an angel of Satan.   I am more inclined to believe that Paul who knew the Old Testament was speaking in Bible figurative terms much like we do today in our modern language when he was describing a thorn in his flesh.  Here is an Old Testament verse that Paul no doubt knew and it contains a definition of what a thorn in the flesh meant:

Num 33:55  But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.

God is using figurative language to describe a people.  The children of Israel were instructed by God to drive out the inhabitants of the land and God says if you do not do this those that you allow to stay will become major stumbling blocks to you.  God uses a term “a prick in your eye” or “a thorn in your side” and both of these are a way to describe someone who is causing you either emotional pain or spiritual pain but never a physical pain.  In this case God is warning the children of Israel that these people would cause them to sin against God.  They would introduce them to idol worship and other godless religions.  God figuratively calls this a “pain in their flesh”.  In our world we use this technique of speaking still today to describe people who are causing us emotional distress.  We say “she is a real pain in my….” and you pick the body part that applies.   Let me give you a possible example of this type of person in the Bible that Paul could have been speaking of:

Act 16:16  And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:

Here in Acts 16:16 Paul and others are going to pray and a certain demon possessed woman starts following them around.  This certainly qualifies to be a “messenger of Satan”.    A spirit of divination is basically a “fortune teller” who uses evil spirits to try to tell people the future.  We have these confused types of people still in the world today.

Act 16:17  The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.

Do you see that this woman starts following Paul around and begins to yell to people “These are the servants of God who show you the way to salvation”.  You cannot read these words in a book and clearly understand the tone that they were spoken in.  I can only assume that these words were spoken as “mocking words of sarcasm and cynicism”.  You see what else would a demon possessed woman be saying?  Satan does not promote a real man of God and tell people how to get saved; Satan is not working to help you out of his kingdom into the kingdom of God.  It is very clear to me that Paul was a great man of God who Satan wanted to cause others not to believe his words from God.   No, you see in these verses an example of how Satan can use a person in the world to be a thorn in your side as we just read about in 2 Corinthians 12:7.  Paul when he describes a “thorn in his flesh” is using figurative language to describe someone who was trying to distract him from the assignment that God had given to him to cause him not to teach the revelations of God.  Satan was clearly not interested in these revelations getting out.  Satan was attempting to thwart them before they were spread around the world. 

I am convinced that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was not a physical weakness, a sickness, disability or a disease.  I believe it was Satan’s attempt to keep the revelations of God from being proclaimed.  Regardless of what the thorn was, it was given to Paul by Satan because of the revelations from Jesus.  This means I do not know of anyone in the world today that qualifies to have the same “thorn” that Paul did.  If you think you have been given a thorn in your flesh and that this is a sickness to keep you humble, you better tell me what revelations you are teaching that will make you a Paul.  I want to hear about these revelations very soon, they must be really good for Satan to want to stop them from coming out.  This was a strange Bible lesson on healing, sickness and disease I know, but you have to counter the false teachings with the truth in order to get people to understand that they are not a Paul and they do not have to endure a thorn like Paul did.  Please do not allow the teachings of some men on the earth to allow Satan to keep you in the bondage of sickness.  If you have been taught that Paul endured physical sickness and prayed to God for Him to take it away from him and God did not, therefore you must also endure sickness in your body with the same level of humility, say sorry Satan that will not work on me again.

If you would like to continue reading on the subject of healing in the Bible you can continue to “Part 5“.