Healing

Medical Science verses Divine Healing

It would seem that God has chosen not to heal very often in our present day. Those who know better than that, have in an attempt to bring healing, brought much opposition upon themselves and the body of Christ.

To some, it is viewed as a reproach against the church, to others it is simply the offense of the cross.

Faith for divine healing is always met with the majority opposing it. Whether, saved or unsaved, people have immediate doubt when they cannot see immediate results.

 Though they are also uncertain about Medical science, and need several doctors’ opinions, they still feel they are more likely to get results from doctors. Prayer is usually secondary, and all forms of spiritual activity are postponed until all else fails.

In medical science, doctors are revered for administering treatment, more than ministers are for offering the prayer of faith. Even in the face of conflicting reports, doctors are treated like gods.

People get sick, and people die, with or without medical science; yet, many times, healing ministries are ridiculed and God is blamed.

When faith for the miraculous is overlooked, earnest prayer becomes a last resort. Certainly, there are times we need medical attention, but more certain than that we always need prayer.

The legal prescription, drug lords of America, advertise heavily for their multi billion dollar drug trafficking industry.

 When Jesus, the great physician, begins to release His healing virtue in these last days, it will be a major threat to the legalized drug pushing industry.

Christians will be arrested and even killed for administering Divine Healing.

Hospitals are in the healing business. They make their money by treating illnesses to the best of their ability. It is both noble and necessary in a world that is riddled with sickness and disease.

I commend them for their compassion, sympathy and devotion. Not all doctors are corrupt; not all preachers and not all priests.

There is a pure and true healing ministry that will burst on the last day’s scene in such power that multitudes will bypass medical science in search of the divine.

 This will cause such an upheaval in the world of merchandising miracle drugs that it will launch a multi million dollar effort to discredit and stop Christian from (what they will call) practicing medicine without a license.

Many, who understand the validity of natural cures, can appreciate what I am saying. 

Insurance companies are largely cooperating with muscling out natural cures; by not insuring those who prefer that type of treatment over expensive prescriptions that may lead to addiction and possible side effects.

Soon the world will witness Jesus Christ as the healer of all their diseases. That same Jesus, who lives in every believer by God’s Holy Spirit, will be persecuted to a degree never thought possible in a civilized world. If the love of money is the hidden root of all evil, you can imagine what the visible fruit of that tree might be.

Tilson

I found this testimony in my archives. Barbara Shlemon, a nurse, tells the story.

One night in 1964 the Lord taught me a lesson about His love which was to change my ideas about suffering and, ultimately, the course of my life.

As a professional nurse, I was assigned to the evening shift of a medical surgical ward in a small Midwest hospital. The report we received from the day shift showed one patient in a comatose condition who would probably expire during the night.

The situation was particularly sad because the patient was a young mother of three small children who had put up a valiant fight for her life during her stay in the hospital.

As I entered her room to check the flow of her intravenous bottles, I was overcome with sorrow at the sight.

The woman's weight had dropped to 90 pounds, most of it concentrated in fluid in her abdomen, which gave her the appearance of a nine month pregnancy.

Her arms and legs were like toothpicks; she had lost all the hair on her body, and jaundice colored her skin a deep yellow. She did not appear to respond to any kind of stimuli, and her breathing was shallow and irregular.

I glanced at her husband across the room and wished there were words which could convey to him some comfort. The death of his wife seemed very near.

Back at the nurse's station I confessed my feelings of inadequacy to Harriet Saxton, the other nurse on duty with me.

 She agreed that the situation was grave but she didn't believe it was hopeless. I knew Harriet to be a devote Episcopalian with a deep faith that God really answered prayer.

I felt, however, that she was being unrealistic in believing God could or would intervene in this case.

Undaunted by my skepticism, she approached the husband with the suggstion that he contact his parish priest to anoint his wife with the sacrament of 'extreme unction.'

For many years this sacrament of anointing with oil was looked upon as a preparation for death, the final unction. Harriet explained that the Vatican Council had undertaken to return the concept of this sacrament to it's original emphasis, the sacrament of the sick. It was to be administered as a means of healing.

The husband took a long while to consider this action and finally decided there was no other recourse. The priest who answered the call was at the hospital within minutes.

 An elderly man, pastor of the local Catholic church, he quietly read through the Latin ritual, pausing at intervals to apply the holy oil to the sick woman's body. He also brought the Holy Eucharist with him in the form of a small host, but the woman was in too deep a coma to accept it. The priest gently touched it to her lips and left the hospital.

The whole procedure had only taken minutes, no visible changes had occurred in the patient's condition, and I went off duty that night thinking we had instilled false hope in a hopeless case.

The next afternoon found me back on duty. As I walked past the dying woman's room, I glanced in and froze in my tracks. She was sitting up at the side of the bed sipping soup. I couldn't believe it!

The day nurse walking past me said, matter of factly, "She took a turn for the better last night."

 My initiation into the healing power of Jesus Christ had begun and I could hardly contain my curiosity about the subject.

 I began reading the scriptures and discovered the great number of gospel texts concerned with healings. It had never occurred to me that such phenomena could be possible in the 20th century.

David