If God Can Heal Why Doesn't He?

One of the hard questions that the Christian must face is this one. If God can heal, why doesn't he? We have stories in the gospels and in the book of Acts of Jesus, or one of the apostles healing or even raising the dead. So we know that God has the capacity to do these things, yet it is our experience that though God sometimes brings healing or saves a life - it is not in the same manner that it happened in the book of Acts.

Why not?

Why is Peter able to command Aeneas to get up after 8 years as a bed-ridden cripple? Why is Peter able to restore Tabitha to life after lying dead for a couple of days?

In this sermon, after considering the story as Luke recounts it, we ask three questions:

1. Does God still heal in the way that he heals in the book of Acts?

2. If God can heal, why are there sick and dying Christians?

3. Wouldn't signs and wonders of this sort be the most effective way to establish and grow the church?