Jesus Was A Faith Healer

Medical Science verses Divine Healing

Pastor Tilson Shumate

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 often 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.

Pastor Tilson Shumate
 http://shekinahfellowship.blogspot.com/

***

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 suggestion 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 Sloane

***
 More thoughts on healing ministry...

Jesus Christ has given His apostles as much a commission to heal as to teach.

On the basis of the New Testament evidence that seemed irrefutable.

So, if the Church still claimed Christ's commission to teach, what happened to the allied commission to heal and cast out demons?

Can we believe that if we prayed for people they might be healed?

Consider the possibility that God might use your prayers to heal the sick.

In no way do we conceive prayer for healing as a negation of the need for doctors, nurses, counselors, psychiatrists or pharmacists.

God works in all these ways to heal the sick; the ideal is a team effort to get the sick well through every possible means.

Never the less I am aware that some prayer can have a psychological effect through the power of suggestion.

I am convinced through my own experiences that prayer for healing brings into play forces far beyond what our own unaided humanity contributes.

The healing ministry should be an ordinary, normal part of the life of every Christian community.

Is it possible that God directly heals people?

Does it really happen?

Is there such a thing as healing?

Jesus had a healing ministry in His day.

There are healings in the Gospels.

If the risen Christ is still healing the sick, then there is no problem in making Christianity relevant to the needs of most people today.

But does He still heal?

"Go back and tell John what you have seen and heard; the blind see again, the lame walk...and happy is the man who does not lose faith in Me" Luke 7:22-23.

The simple and the poor followed Jesus in crowds because they saw what happened, while the religious leaders tried to figure out what it all meant.

When the apostles continued Christ's healing ministry the people continued to come in crowds, while the theologians continued to question what was going on.

After the healing of the cripple at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, the high priests, rulers, elders and scribes arrested Peter and John to question them:

 "Now as they observed the confidence and assurance shown by Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.  

And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply. 


But when they had ordered them to leave the Council, they began to confer with one another, saying, “What shall we do with these men? 

For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. 

“But so that it will not spread any further among the people, let us warn them to speak no longer to any man in this name.”
Acts 4:13-17 

And so the first persecution of the infant Church was occasioned not only by the apostle's preaching the resurrection, but by their power of healing in the name of Jesus.

Acts 3:6 Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what ... ... Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have I give you:
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. ...

The actual experience of seeing a crippled man healed confronted the religious people of Jesus day with two decisions to make: one theoretical- was the healing real or not?

And one practical- what should they do about it?

They judged that it was real.

But, as for doing something, they decided to forbid it, because they felt that it was doctrinally unsound ( being connected with with preaching the resurrection of Jesus), and that it would undermine their authority- especially since the preaching and healing were done by "uneducated laymen" (office mail clerks as it were).

Consequently, these religious leaders are again being confronted, not by theories of theologians, but by the witnessing to healing that people- many of them "uneducated laymen"- claim to have experienced.

Consequently, we are faced with an opportunity not merely to discuss a theory, but to make a judgment:

"Is this true?"

And to make a decision:

"Should we do something about it?"

Some of us know from our own experiences that have convinced us that divine healing does happen, and commonly.

Having come to that judgment, we decided that we had better learn as much as we could about this new phenomenon and start praying for the sick.

For us it is no longer an option: if we could help the sick by our prayers, but would not, then we could be in danger of hearing, "Insofar as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to Me." Matthew 25:45

 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'
Luke 10:9


Praise the name of the Lord!

We have God's blessings to obey and heal the sick.

Healings do take place through prayer.

When Christians do choose to pray for healings there is an extraordinary power present and a number of healings do take place well beyond the realm of chance occurrence.

It is an ancient Christian tradition to pray for the sick.

Intercessory prayer is powerful.

Prayer directed at physical and inner healing does get results.

Jesus wishes to heal humanity through the ministry of healing: sin, inner healing, physical healing, and deliverance from evil spirits.

For some of us it is a battle to conceive that God would answer our prayers for physical needs in a human, physical way.

But He does.

He treats us as human beings, not disembodied spirits.

Christ is still at work among His people just as He was over 2000 years ago, reaching out and healing the sick and wounded.

There remains a stout resistance in many Christians who have a hard time believing that such healings can take place.

Although the Gospels abound with accounts of healings, why is it that in our day many who follow Christ find it so hard to believe that healings can still take place?

It is ironic that many Church leaders, disturbed by the loss of faith among their people, themselves lack a strong, active faith in Christ's power to help the sick and wounded in their flock.

Some people have an obstacle, a stereotyped connection they have made between the healing ministry and faith healers.

The question might be posed, "was Christ a faith healer?"

When we read the gospels, especially Mark, we cannot help being struck by the constant references to Christ's healing ministry; about half the material of the first eight chapters is devoted to narratives of His curing the sick:

"He cured so many that all who were afflicted in any way were crowding forward to touch Him."
Mark 3:10 

Can you imagine what this scene was like?

Would we demean the Lord Himself by classifying him as a "faith healer," with a sense of our own superiority to such a person?

And if it He was not a faith healer, what descriptive word should we use?

No where in the gospel do we see Christ encouraging the sick to live with their illness.

On the contrary, He everywhere treats sickness as a manifestation of the kingdom of Satan which He has come to destroy.