Four main questions about divine healing

John G Lake, was asked the following question by the The Southern Association of Evangelists, who had met at Hot Springs, Arkansas, in a convention, wrote as follows:

Reverend John G. Lake Spokane, Washington Dear Sir: We are submitting the following questions to about twenty-five of the leading professors, preachers, and evangelists for reply and recognizing your extensive experience in the ministry of healing, trust that you will favor us with an early reply. The questions are as follows: First: Is God able to heal? Second: Does God ever heal? Third: Does God always heal? Fourth: Does God use means in healing?

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John G Lake's reply:

Is God able to heal

The first question, "Is God able to heal?" coming as an inquiry from the Church of Christ in her varied branches, as represented by your association, which includes ministers and evangelists of almost every known sect, is a confession of how far the modern

church has drifted in her faith from that of the primitive church of the first four centuries.

That this apostasy is true may be readily seen by a study of the New Testament, together with the writings of the Christian fathers of the first centuries.

That Jesus Christ was the accepted and recognized Healer, and the only Healer (healing through His followers) in the church for the first four hundred years of the Christian era is the testimony of every first-rate student. That Jesus Himself healed all who came to Him and

that the apostles also, after His resurrection and after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the church on the day of Pentecost, continued to do the same, is a New Testament fact. It is also well known that the church fathers testified to the vast extent of the miracle-working power of Christ through His followers until the days of Constantine. The early Christians accepted Jesus as a Savior of spirit, soul, and body. His consecration of Himself to God as the pattern consecration for all Christians for all times is declared by many of the Christian writers.

With the establishment of Christianity as the state religion under Constantine, a flood of heathendom poured into the church, and the vitality of the faith in Christ as Savior and Healer disappeared. Hordes of unbelievers came into the church with a very slight

knowledge of Christ, bringing with them many heathen customs and practices, some of which quickly predominated in the church. Among these was trust in man rather than Christ as Healer of the body. That isolated saints of God and groups of Christians have trusted God exclusively, and proved Him the Healer, is found in the experience of the church in every century. Among those in modern times were the Huguenots of France, who excelled in their faith in God. Many of them were consciously baptized in the Holy Ghost, and history records that many of them spoke in tongues by the power of the Holy Spirit. The sick were healed through their faith in Jesus Christ and the laying on of hands. Many prophesied in the Spirit. In these things the Huguenots were a reproduction of the original New Testament church. The Waldenses knew Christ as their Healer and recorded many instances of wonderful healings.

With the coming of Protestantism and the establishment of the great churches of the present

day, little knowledge of Christ as the Healer existed. Protestantism was established on one great principle, the revelation of Martin Luther, his watchword and slogan, "The just shall live by faith" (Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrew 10:38)—not by works of penance, but through faith in the living, risen, glorified Son of God. Isolated cases of healing are recorded by Luther, John Knox, Calvin, Zwingli, and others of the reformers.

With the birth of Methodism under John Wesley, a fresh impetus was given to the teaching of healing through faith in Jesus. Wesley records in his journal many instances of wonderful healings of the sick, of casting out of demons, and remarkable answers to prayer. Healing was recognized by Wesley as a possibility of faith. He apparently, however, failed to

see that the healing of the body is definitely, certainly included in the atonement of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and is part and parcel of the common salvation.

The modern teaching of healing received a new impetus through Dorothea Trudel, a factory worker in one of the German provinces. Under her ministry many were healed, so that eventually the German government was compelled to recognize her healing

institution at Mannendorf and license it. During the present century, a great number of men

have definitely taught and practiced the ministry of healing. Among the writers on the subject of healing, who are well-known in the Christian church, are A. J. Gordon, Dr. A. B. Simpson of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and Reverend Andrew Murray

of South Africa.

The Reverend Andrew Murray's experience in healing was as follows: He was pronounced

incurable of a throat disease known as "preacher's throat" by many London specialists. In despair, he visited the Bethshan Divine Healing Mission in London, conducted by Dr. Bagster. He knelt at the altar, was prayed for by the elders, and was healed. He returned to South Africa and wrote and published a book on divine healing, which was extensively

circulated in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, of which he was the recognized leading pastor. The effect of the book was to call the people's attention to the fact that Jesus was the Healer still. Great celebrations took place in the various churches of South Africa when Andrew Murray returned, a living example of Christ's power and willingness to heal.

In a short time, persons who had read of his ministry of healing made request to their pastors to be prayed for, so that they might be healed. In some instances, the pastors confessed that they had no faith and could not honestly pray with them for healing.

Others made one excuse or another. Eventually, the people began to inquire what the trouble was with their pastors. Andrew Murray, the chief pastor, had been healed. He had written a book on healing. Members of the church throughout the land were praying through to God and finding Him their Healer still. But the preachers in general were confessing

lack of faith.

So, the circulation of the book became an embarrassment to them. Instead of humbly

confessing their need to God and calling upon Him for that measure of His Spirit's presence and power that would make prayer for the sick answerable, they decided to demand the withdrawal of Andrew Murray's book from circulation in the church, and this was done. Although the truth of the teaching of divine healing, and the personal experience in

healing of the Reverend Andrew Murray and hundreds of others through his ministry, and the ministry of believers in the church remained unchallenged, the Reverend Murray was requested not to practice the teaching of divine healing in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa.

This experience illustrates with clearness the difficulties surrounding the introduction of a more vital faith in the living God in the modern church. Every church has had, in a greater or lesser degree, a somewhat similar experience. The usual custom in the modern church is that when a preacher breaks out in a living faith and begins to get extraordinary answers to prayer, he is advised by the worldly-wise; and, if he is persistent, is eventually made to feel that he is regarded strange. If he still persists, he is ostracized and actually dismissed by some churches and conferences.

Experiences like the above are entirely due to the failure of the modern church to recognize the varied ministries of the Spirit, as set forth in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians, the

Word says concerning the order of ministers in the church that: God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. (1 Corinthians 12:28)

Thus, a ministry for every man called of God is provided, no one conflicting with the other, all recognized as equally necessary to the well-rounded body of Christ.

The modern church must come to a realization of other ministries in the church besides preaching. In the modern church, the preacher is the soul and center and circumference of his church. The primitive church was a structure of faith composed of men and women, each qualifying in his or her particular ministry. One was a healer, another a worker of miracles, another a teacher of the ways and will and Word of God, another an evangelist, another a pastor, another an overseer. It should be an easy matter for any modern church to adapt itself to the gifts of the Spirit and so remove forever the difficulty that befell the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa and that has befallen our own churches. Instead of discouraging a ministry of the Spirit through the practice of varied persons, these ministries and powers may be conserved and utilized for the building up of the kingdom.

Our neglect in this matter has forced into existence such institutions as Christian Science and one-thousand and one new thought societies and varied philosophies, which endeavor to supply that which in the primitive church was supplied through the Lord Jesus Christ and the ministry of spiritual gifts by His followers in the church.

Nevertheless, the knowledge of Jesus, the Healer now and forever, has spread among the masses of the people until in almost every city there are organized groups of Christian people who trust in God wholly and solely and proclaim Jesus their only Healer. A new day is dawning, and knowledge of the reality and power of the redemption of Jesus Christ is recognized on every hand. A little over five years ago in Spokane, we established divine healing rooms, with a competent staff of ministers. They believe in the Lord as the present, perfect Healer, and they minister the Spirit of God to the sick through prayer and the laying on of hands. The records show that we minister to about two hundred persons per day; that of these two hundred, one-hundred seventy-six are non-church members. The knowledge of and faith in Jesus Christ as the Healer has gripped the world outside of the present church societies, and the numbers of those who thus believe are increasing with such rapidity that in a short time, they will become a majority in many communities. These healings have been of the most extraordinary character, as shown by the fact that great numbers of them have been declared incurable by physicians and surgeons, proving the fallacy of the oft repeated foolish statement that "the days of miracles are past." It demonstrates that the day of miracles never passes where faith is present to believe God for the thing

declared in His Word.

A boy of twelve years, suffering from tuberculosis of the spine so extreme that he was compelled to wear a steel jacket both day and night, was brought to the healing rooms a few days ago for prayer. In less than ten days, his condition was so improved that he

discarded the jacket entirely; his shoulders had straightened, and his vertebrae remained fixed. The boy, James Early, returned to his home at Rosalia, Washington, praising God that he had proven that in our own city in March 1919, Jesus Christ is still the Healer.

Another Incident We ministered to Grover Risdon of 914 Rockwell Avenue, Spokane, and God performed one of the most remarkable miracles of healing that is known to history. When Baby Grover was born, he was found to have a closed head; the opening in the top of the head that permits the skull to expand was closed. The brain grew, forcing the skull upward three inches, like the ridge of a house roof. The forehead was forced upward in the same manner and the back of the head likewise. The pressure on the brain caused paralysis of the right side and leg, also the foot. The child was dumb. Medical science could give no relief or offer a cure. Surgical scientists said, "Wait until he is twelve years old; then we will cut the skull into eight sections and put a plate over the head to cover the brain." Surgeons frankly said, "We fear such an operation may destroy his life, but it is his only chance."

Then the parents, in distress, turned to the church and pastors, but they told them, "God does not hear prayer for healing now; that was to prove to the people in Jesus' day that He was divine." The father said, "If He healed my stricken son, it would prove to me that He is divine now," Then hope came. The mother suffered with prolapse of the uterus. She came to the healing rooms and was healed. Faith grew. Her daughter, Alice, was partially blind and could only see by the use of the most powerful glasses. She was stricken with appendicitis. When she was suffering tortures, holy hands were laid upon her in Jesus' name, and she was healed. Then Grover was brought to the healing rooms. As we ministered to him the second time, the paralysis was destroyed. He could walk like other children. Then the head began to come down and expand normally; and in a short time, he could speak like other six-year-old children. God's work is perfect. He is wholly well. And the boy, his parents, his family, the neighborhood, the city of Spokane, and the world are better because Jesus Christ was honored as Savior and Healer still. Thousands healed by God's power in the city of Spokane and the surrounding country join with them, proclaiming that they, too, have proved the Lord Jesus Christ—"The same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8) —Savior and Healer.

This letter is respectfully submitted as an answer to your question, "Is God able to heal?" For Jesus said, "If I do [the works of My Father],...though ye believe not me, believe the works" (John 10:38). He also said, "Is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?" (Mark 2:9).

Does God Ever Heal?

The New Testament records forty-one cases of healing by Jesus Himself. In nine of these instances not only were the individuals healed, but multitudes, and in three instances it especially says "great multitudes" (Matthew 12:15; 15:30; 19:2). With the growth of His life's work, the demand for extension was imperative, and in Luke 9, we read:

He called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. (Luke 9:1-2)

When they in turn were overwhelmed with work, we read that Jesus appointed seventy others also, and sent them into the cities round about, saying, "Heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you" (Luke 10:9). If there was any foundation whatever for the foolish belief that only Jesus and the apostles healed, the appointment of these seventy should settle it. When the seventy returned from their first evangelistic tour, they rejoiced, saying, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name" (Luke 10:17). In addition to the seventy, we read that the disciples complained to Jesus, saying, "We saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us" (Luke 9:49). And Jesus replied, "Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me....He that is not against us is for us" (Mark 9:39; Luke 9:50).

This, then, makes a New Testament record of eighty-four persons who healed during the lifetime of Jesus.

Jesus, the twelve apostles, seventy others, and the man who "followeth not with us." Paul and Barnabas were not apostles during the lifetime of Jesus, but we read in the Acts of their

healing many. Paul himself was healed through the ministry of Ananias, an aged disciple who was sent to him through a vision from the Lord. (See Acts 9.)

Philip was one of the evangelists who preached at Samaria, and under his ministry there were remarkable signs and wonders. (See Acts 8:13.) Under the ministry of the apostle Paul, the sick were not only healed and the dead raised, but also handkerchiefs were brought to the apostle that they might contact his person. When laid upon the sick, the diseases disappeared, and the evil spirits departed from them. (See Acts 19:12.) The book of James gives final and positive instructions of what to do in case of sickness, commanding that, if sick, one shall send for the elders of the church. Concerning their prayer of faith, the Word says,

The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. (James 5:15)

Forty years after Jesus, Clement, Paul's contemporary, said, "Men received gifts of healing."

Irensaus, a hundred and ten years after Christ, said,"Men healed the sick by laying their hands upon them."

Justin Martyr (ad 110-163) wrote concerning the operation of God in the church in his day, "For one receives the spirit of understanding, another of council, another of strength, another of healing, another of teaching, and another of the fear of God."

And again he said, "For many demoniacs throughout the whole world and your city, many of our Christian men exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified by Pontius Pilot, have healed and do heal."

Two hundred years after Christ, Origen wrote, "Men had marvelous power of curing by invoking the divine name. They expel evil spirits and perform many cures and foresee certain events, according to the will of the Logos."

St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (ad 340-397) tells of one Severne, a butcher by business, who became blind and was healed of the Lord.

It is recorded of St. Macarius of Alexandria (ad 375- 390), A man withered in all his limbs and especially in his feet was anointed in the name of the Lord, and when commanded in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, "arise, and stand on thy feet, and return to thy house," immediately arising and leaping, he blessed God. ...There was brought to him from Thessalonica a noble and wealthy virgin, who for many years had been suffering from paralysis. With his own hands he anointed her, pouring out prayer for her to the Lord and so sent her back cured to her own city.

St. Augustine (ad 426) declared, "But the miracles that persons ascribed unto their idols are in no way comparable to the wonders wrought by our martyrs."

In AD 698, a man named Bethwegan, paralyzed on one side, prayed at the tomb of Cuthbert: "In the midst of his prayer he fell, as it were, into a stupor...felt a large hand touch his head where the pain lay....He was delivered from the weakness, restored to health down to his feet He rose up in perfect health, returning thanks to God for his recovery." It is said that the very garments that St. Cuthbert had worn during life remained so impregnated by the divine Spirit of God that, like the handkerchiefs taken from Paul's body to the sick, the virtue from his garments cured many, as may be seen in the book of his life and miracles.

Medieval history records miracles of healing having taken place at the following shrines: those of St. Thomas at Canterbury, Our Lady at Walsingham, St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster, St. William at York, St. Cuthbert at Durham, St. Thomas at Hereford, St. Osmund at Salisbury, St. Erkenwald at London, St. Hugh at Lincoln, St. Wulfstan at Worcester, Little St. William at Norwich, St. Werburgh at Chester, and St. Frideswide at Oxford. In this connection, may we say that in the canonization of saints it was necessary to establish before a court the fact that, in at least two instances, actual miracles had been performed. In this connection we quote, "The evidence was sifted to the utmost and every disqualifying feature was made the most of." So the Pope Benedict XIV had a right to say, "The degree of proof required is the same as that required for a criminal case."

These medieval miracles, therefore, deserve respectful treatment, and the cumulative evidence of so much concurrent testimony by distinguished and upright men makes it impossible to think that theywere all deluded and mistaken.

Among those canonized, and others in whose lives there was positive evidence of the healing power of Christ in well-established cases, are (according to Bede): St. John of Beverly (ad 721), St. Bernard (ad 1091-1153), St. Francis of Assisi (ad 1182-1226), St. Thomas of Hereford (ad 1282-1303), St. Catherine of Siena (ad 1347-1380), Martin Luther (ad 1483-1546), St. Francis of Xavier (ad 1506-1552), St. Phillip Neri (ad 1515-1595), Pascal's niece (ad 1646), George Fox (ad 1624-1691), John Wesley (ad 1703-1791), Prince Hohenlohe (ad 1794-1847), Father Matthew (ad 1790- 1856), Dorothea Trudel (ad 1813-1862), Johann Blumhardt (ad 1805-1880), and Father John of Cronstadt (ad 1829-1908).

Concerning the reliability of the present existence of the miracle-working power of God, permit me to quote Richard Holt Hutton, justly estimated as one of the broad-minded writers and who was regarded as a profound materialist. "But whatever miracles be, history shows a great amount of evidence...that such events have happened in all ages.... Enthusiasm and fraud cannot be asked to account for as much evidence on this subject as exists." It is a matter of common knowledge that ten thousand persons were healed under the ministry of Dorothea Trudel of Mannendorf. The records of the Russian courts show that such a multitude of persons where healed under the ministry of Father John of Cronstadt, who died in 1908, that the church of Russia, fearing his growing and powerful influence, decided to have him imprisoned. Because of the great numbers who were healed under his ministry and who became his faithful adherents, and because of his extreme age, they decided that it was wiser to let him live out his natural life than to undertake his control by the church.

During the life of John Alexander Dowie, before his mentality was affected through overwork, he established a city in the state of Illinois, forty miles north of Chicago on the lakeshore, known as Zion City. This city was established in 1901. In twelve months it had a population of four thousand. In three years the population was estimated to be ten thousand. The city council passed by-laws banishing forever doctors, drugs, medicines, and use of swine's flesh. None of these are used by his followers if they wish to remain in good standing. Their vital statistics reveal that their death rate is lower than that of other cities of the same population. Insurance companies were afraid to insure the Zion people because of the well-known fact that they would not employ physicians or take medicines. But at present, insurance companies are seeking their business. They are now recognized to be among the healthiest people in the United States. On an occasion at the Chicago Auditorium, persons from all parts of the world who had been healed through their ministry were invited to send testimonies on a card two-and-a-half by four-and-a- half inches. It required five bushel baskets to hold these cards. They numbered sixty thousand. Ten thousand persons in the audience rose to their feet, testifying to their own personal healing by the power of God, making a grand total of seventy thousand testimonies.

In South Africa, divine healing now holds such sway among both black and white that army officers estimated that in the recent war, twenty out of every hundred [servicemen] refused medical aid and trusted God only. This necessitated in the army the establishment of the Divine Healing Corps, who ministered healing by the Spirit of God.

By the most careful estimates The Church at Spokane reports one hundred thousand healings in the past five years. Spokane has become celebrated as the greatest divine healing center in the world. The hotels of the city testify to the continuous supply of patients coming from all parts of the world to receive ministry, and among the healed are a goodly number of physicians who, like others, have found the Lord Jesus Christ is the True and Great Physician.

Among prominent physicians who have not only been healed of God, but who also have adopted the ministry of healing through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ are: Phineas D. Yoakum of Los Angeles, head of the Pisga Institution, whose blessed ministry of healing is recognized by Christians everywhere; Dr. William D. Gentry of Chicago, who not only was prominent in his profession as a physician, but also as the author of Materia Medica in twenty volumes, which is found in every first-class medical library (his publisher sold over one hundred thousand copies of this work); and Dr. A. B. Simpson, the founder and head of the Missionary and Christian Alliance, which is said to maintain a thousand missionaries in different parts of the world, is another former doctor under whose ministry miracles of healing have continuously occurred.

To this I add my personal testimony that, after twenty-five years in the ministry of healing, hundreds of thousands of sick have been healed of the Lord during this period, through churches and missionary societies founded on the pattern of the primitive church, finding God's divine equipment of power from on high. With this weight of testimony before us, it seems childish to continue debating the ability or willingness of God to heal the sick. Let us rather, with open minds and heart, receive the Lord Christ as Savior and Healer, trusting Him with our bodies as we trust Him with our souls and so permit His hundredfold salvation for every need of the spirit, soul, and body to be exemplified and our consecration as the children of God stand unchallenged.

Does God Always Heal?

In considering the subject of divine healing and its applicability to present-day needs, the question, "Does God always heal?" is uppermost. The church at large has taught that healing is dependent on the exercise of the will of God and that the proper attitude for the Christian to assume is, "If it be Thy will." Continuously, we hear men say, "No doubt God can heal; He has powers, and He can heal if He will." We believe that this attitude of mind and this character of reasoning are due to ignorance of the plain Word and will of God, as revealed through Jesus the Christ. We contend that God is always the Healer. We contend further that it is not necessary for God to will and that He does not will the healing or non-healing of any individual. In His desire to bless mankind, He willed once and for all and forever that man should be blessed and healed. He gave Jesus Christ as a gift to the world, so that this blessing might be demonstrated and His willingness and desire to heal forever made clear. Christians readily admit that Jesus is the entire expression of the law, the life, and the will of God. As such, He demonstrated forever by His words and acts, what the mind of God toward the world is He healed all who came to Him, never refusing a single individual, but ever bestowed the desired blessing. In healing all and never refusing one, He demonstrated forever the willingness of God to heal all, both saint and sinner.

It is absurd to think that only the good were healed by Jesus. He healed all who came. (See Matthew 4:24, 8:16, 12:15, 14:14, 15:30, 19:2; Mark 1:34, 6:13; Luke 4:40, 6:19, 9:11.) Their coming was sufficient to secure the blessing. He healed because it was the nature of God to heal, not because it was a caprice of the mind of God, or not because the mind of God was changed toward the individual through some special supplication. Whosoever was ready and willing to receive healing received it from the Lord. His grief, in one instance, is expressed in the gospel narrative in that, "He could there [at Nazareth] do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a jew sick folk, and healed them. And he [was amazed] because of their unbelief" (Mark 6:5-6). Men have assumed that it is necessary to persuade God to heal them. This we deny with all emphasis. God has manifested His desire to bless mankind through Christ.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:16-17)

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

His method of saving the world—and what constituted His salvation—is shown in Matthew: Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues [revealing the will of God], and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. (Matthew 4:23)

The facts of God's will, of His purpose to establish the kingdom of Christ, and of His deliverance from sickness—a kindred blessing for spirit and soul and body are here provided in the common salvation. The redemption of Jesus does not rest on His crucifixion alone. It rests equally in a combined victory of crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Each step was an elevation in divine consciousness to one end, the bestowal of the Holy Spirit upon the world. Through His crucifixion, He fulfilled the type and fact of the Jewish sacrifice. (See Hebrews 9:26, 10:12.) Through His resurrection, He manifested and demonstrated His power over death and that death itself was made a captive. (See Romans 6:9; 2 Timothy 1:10; Revelation 1:18.) Through His ascension to the throne of God and through receiving from the Father, the gift of the Holy Ghost, He was now equipped to bestow universal salvation upon whosoever would receive. (See John 14:12-17; Acts 1:4-8, 2:38.) The method by which men receive the healing power is parallel to the method by which we light our homes through the use of electricity. A dynamo is set up. Through its motion, it attracts to itself from the atmosphere the quality known as electricity. Having attracted electricity, it is then distributed through the wires wherever man wills, and our homes are lighted thereby. The dynamo did not make electricity. It has been in the atmosphere from time immemorial. It was the discovery of the ability to control the electricity that made the lighting of our homes a possibility. Without it, we would still be living by the light of a tallow candle or a kerosene lamp.

In the spiritual world, the spirit of man is the dynamo. It is set in motion by prayer, the desire of the heart. Prayer is a veritable Holy Spirit-controlling dynamo, attracting to itself the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God being received into the spirit of man through prayer is distributed by the action of the will wherever desired. The Spirit of God flowed through the hands of Jesus to the ones who were sick and healed them. It flowed from His soul, wirelessly, to the suffering ones and healed them also. The Holy Spirit is thus shown to be the universal presence of God—God omnipresent. The Spirit of God is given to man for his blessing and is to be utilized by him to fulfill the will of God. The will of God to save a man is undisputed by intelligent Christians. The will of God to heal every man is equally God's purpose. God has not only made provision that, through the Spirit of God received into our lives, our souls may be blessed and our bodies healed, but further we in turn are expected and commanded by Jesus to distribute the Spirit's power to others, that they likewise may be blessed and healed. "And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name," said Jesus, ",..they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover" (Mark 16:17-18). This refers not to a special priest or a particular individual endowed with peculiar powers, but to the believer, the everyday man who accepts the gospel of Jesus Christ and who becomes a declared disciple of the Son of God. (See Mark 16:14- 20.)

The Spirit of God is ours to embrace. It is ours to apply to the need of either soul or body. It is the redeeming quality of the nature of God that Jesus Christ regarded as essential to the world's blessing. His life on earth, His death on the cross, His resurrection from the dead, and His ascension to glory were all necessary to secure its benefits and bestow them upon the world. It was Christ's means of supplying a universal salvation for whosoever will accept it. On the day of Pentecost, when the floodtide of the Holy Spirit broke over the church at Jerusalem and its glory-power radiated through their souls and rested upon them as tongues of fire and they were filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance, the people demanded an explanation of the phenomena. (See Acts 2:1-12.)

Peter replied, This Jesus hath God raised up [resurrection], whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted [ascension], and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost [fulfillment of the promise of the Father], he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. (Acts 2:32-33)

Through His crucifixion and through His victory over the grave, Jesus secured from the Father the privilege of shedding the Holy Spirit abroad over the world. This was the crowning climax of the redemptive power of God ministered through Jesus Christ to the world. And from that day to this, every soul is entitled to embrace to himself this blessed Spirit of God which Jesus regarded so valuable to mankind, so necessary for their healing and salvation, that He gave His life to obtain it. Consequently, it is not a question, "Does God always heal?" That is childish. It is rather a question, "Are we willing to embrace His healing?" If so, it is for us to receive. More than this, it is for all the world to receive, for every man to receive who will put his nature in contact with God through opening his heart to the Lord. Jesus, knowing the world's need of healing, provided definitely for physicians (disciples, ministers, priests, healers) who would minister, not pills and potions, but the power of God. The gift of healing is one of the nine gifts of the Spirit provided for and perpetuated forever in the church. (See 1 Corinthians 12:8-11.)

It is an evidence of ignorance of God's Word to continue to discuss the question, "Does God always heal?" as though God healed sometimes, and sometimes He did not. Enlightenment by the Spirit of God, through the Word, reveals that God always was

the Healer, is the Healer today, and will be the Healer forever. The Word says, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). Consequently, there is healing from every disease for every man who will, in faith, embrace the Spirit of God promised by the Father and ministered through Jesus Christ to the souls and bodies of all who desire

the blessing.

Peter, in his exposition of this fact said, "By whose stripes ye were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). The use of "were" in this text indicates that the healing was accomplished in the mind of God when Jesus Christ gave Himself as the eternal sacrifice and has never had to be done over again for the healing of any individual. He willed it once; it is done forever. He made the provision and invites the world to embrace it. It is yours to have, yours to enjoy, and yours to impart to others.

Does God Use Means in Healing?

By the term means is understood the varied remedies, medicines, and potions commonly used by the world at large and prescribed for the sick—in short, materia medica.

♦ Mr. James Mason Good of London, England, who was so eminent in his profession that for twenty-five years he had in his care the royal house of Britain, declared his convictions before the British Medical Association in these words, "The science of medicines

is founded upon conjecture and improved by murder. Our medicines have destroyed more lives than all the wars, pestilences, and famines combined."

♦ The famous Professor Chauss of Germany states with emphasis, "The common use of medicines for the curing of disease is unquestionably highly detrimental and destructive and, in my judgment, is an agent for the creation of disease rather than its

cure, in that through its use, there is continuously setup in the human system abnormal conditions more detrimental to human life than the disease from which the patient is suffering."

♦ Our own Dr. Holmes of Boston, formerly president

of the Massachusetts Medical Association, said in an

address before the Massachusetts Medical

This should be an extremely easy question for anyone to decide. The world has always had her system of healing. There were the thousand and one systems of healing evolved in all the centuries; these were mankind's endeavor to alleviate suffering. They existed in the days of Jesus, just as they exist today. Systems of so-called healing are without number. The ancient Egyptians used them and were apparently as proficient in the practice of the same as our modern physicians. Indeed, their knowledge of chemistry seems to have superseded ours, as they were able to produce an embalming substance that preserved the human body and kept it from dissolution, for almost every museum of note has its samples of Egyptian mummies. It is the unintelligent who suppose that the ancient physicians were any less skillful in the healing of the sick through their means, remedies, and systems than the modern physician. Of the supposed curative value of our modern medical practice, there is an abundance of testimony from the varied heads of the medical profession that should be sufficient to convince any candid thinker of their valuelessness:

♦ The public commonly believes that medicine is a science and that its practice is entirely scientific. Whereas, so great a man as Professor Douglas who occupied the chair of medical jurisprudence in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, declared, "There is no such thing as the science of medicine. From the days of Hippocrates and Galen until now we have been stumbling in the dark, from diagnosis to diagnosis, from treatment to treatment, and have not found the first stone on which to found medicine as a science."

Association, "It is my conviction, after practicing medicine for thirty-five years, that if the whole materia medica were cast into the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes."

♦ Dr. John B. Murphy, the greatest surgeon our country has ever produced, has spoken his mind concerning surgery as follows, "Surgery is a confession of helplessness. Being unable to assist the diseased organ, we remove it. If I had my life to live over again, I would endeavor to discover preventative medicine, in the hope of saving the organ instead of destroying it." Just prior to his death he wrote an at article entitled, "The Slaughter of the Innocents," condemning cutting out of tonsils and adenoids, demonstrating that the presence of inflammation and pus and the consequent enlargement was due to a secretion in the system that found lodging in the tonsils and that the removal of the tonsils in no way remedied the difficulty, the poison being generated in the system. He purposed to give his knowledge to the public for their protection from useless operations that he regarded as criminal.

From these quotations from the heads of the medical profession in various countries, we perceive the power of the Word of God, which declares,

"In vain shalt thou use many medicines ["In vain have you multiplied remedies" NASB]; for thou shalt not be cured" (Jeremiah 46:11).

God's Way In Contrast To Man's Way

What then, did Jesus have in mind as better than the world's systems of healing, which He never used or countenanced? God's remedy is a person, not a thing. The remedy that Jesus ministered to the sick was a spiritual one. It was the Holy Spirit of God. The

tangible, living quality and nature of the living God, ministered through the soul and hands of Jesus Christ to the sick one.

So conscious was the woman who was healed of the issue of blood that she had received the remedy, and of its effect and power in her upon only touching the hem of His garment, that she "felt in her body that she was healed of that plague" (Mark 5:29). Jesus likewise was aware of the transmission of the healing power, for He said, "Someone hath touched me, for I perceive that virtue has gone out of me" (Luke 8:46). This same virtue was ministered through the hands of the apostles and of the seventy. It was also ministered by the early Christians when they received from God, through the Holy Ghost, the ability to minister the Spirit of God to others. Of the twelve apostles, it is said:

He gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. (Luke 9:1-2)

Of the seventy, it is written that Jesus "sent them two by two...into every city and place, whither he himself would come" (Luke 10:1), and He said unto them, "Heal the sick that are therein, and say to them, the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you" (verse 9). So vital was this living Spirit of God and its healing virtue in the lives of the early Christians that it is recorded of Paul that they brought handkerchiefs and aprons to him, that they might touch his body; and when these were laid upon the sick, they were healed and the demons went out of them. (See Acts 1:9.) In this instance, even inanimate objects, handkerchiefs and aprons, were receptacles for the Spirit of God, imparted to them from the Holy Spirit- filled person of the apostle Paul.

This was not an experience for the early Christian alone, but is the common experience of men and women everywhere who have dared to disbelieve the devil's lie—which is so carefully fostered and proclaimed by the church at large—that the days of miracles are past.

Every advanced Christian who has gone out into God, who has felt the thrill of His Spirit, who has dared to believe that the Son of God lives by the Spirit in his life today, just as He lived in the lives of the early Christians, has found the same pregnant power of God in himself. Upon laying his hands in faith upon others who are sick, he has seen with his own eyes the healing of the sick take place and realized the transmission of divine virtue. Today, millions of men and women trust God only, for the healing of their body from every character and form of disease. What, then, is this means of healing that Jesus gave as a divine gift to Christianity forever? It is the living Holy Spirit of God, ministered by Jesus Christ to the Christian soul, transmitted by the Christian because of his faith in the word of Jesus, through his soul and his hands to the one who is sick. This reveals the law of contact in the mind of Jesus when He gave the commandment:

"They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover" (Mark 16:18).

With praise to God, we record to His glory that, through twenty-five years in this ministry, we have seen hundreds of thousands of persons in many parts of the world healed by the power of God. Throughout these twenty-five years in different lands, we have established churches and societies composed of Christian men and women who know no remedy but the one divine remedy, the Lord Jesus Christ. They have faith in His redemption and in the presence and power of the Spirit of Christ to destroy sin and sickness in the lives of men forever.

In our own city, for five years, no day has passed in which we have not seen the healing of many. For five years we have ministered, with our associate pastors, in The Church at Spokane alone, to an average of two hundred sick per day, who come from all quarters of the land and even from foreign countries, to receive the healing power of God. These healings have included almost every known form of disease. The majority of these healings have been of persons pronounced hopeless by their physicians. Many of them had spent their all, some tens of thousands of dollars, for doctors, medicines, and operations. They found the Lord Jesus Christ and the ministry of healing by the power of God just as efficacious today as it ever was, thereby demonstrating the truth of the Word of God.

CONSECRATION PRAYER

My God and Father, In Jesus' name I come to Thee. Take me as I am. Make me what I ought to be in spirit, in soul, in body. Give me power to do right. If I have wronged any, to repent, to confess, to restore—no matter what it costs. Wash me in the blood of Jesus, so that I may now become Thy child and manifest Thee in a perfect spirit, a holy mind, and a sound body, to the glory of God. Amen.

End of text from Ch 17, John G Lake on Healing, compiled by Robert's Liardon.