Afterword –– Those Who Are Not Healed
“Why are not all healed?” The only honest answer I
can give is: I do
not know. And I am afraid of those who claim they do
know. For only God
knows, and who can fathom the mind of God? Who can
understand His
reasoning?
I think there are some simple matters we can look
into, but the
ultimate answer as to who is healed and who is not
healed lies with God
alone.
Often there are those who come praying for physical
healing and they
get so caught up in the spiritual impact of the
miracle service that
they forget about their own need. They soon direct
their prayers toward
others and begin rejoicing over the miracles that
take place. Oddly
enough, it is often at this precise moment that God
chooses to
heal—when self is forgotten and God and others come
first.
This was what happened in the case of Eugenia
Sanderson, although she
had also been praying and believing. But others,
like Fred Burdick, axe
skeptics — hard-boiled unbelievers in miracles — yet
they, too, are often
healed. Tiny Poor was healed without ever getting
into the service,
while there are many like Ritva Romanowsky, who are
healed on the way
to the service or like Kenneth May who are healed
while waiting to get
in. Freda Longstaff was healed in her home, and Nick
Cadena left
shaking his head, not realizing that the Holy Spirit
had gone to work
in his life and would eventually heal both body and
soul. And who can
figure out what happened to Mary Pettigrew? There is
no understanding
the mind and the ways of Almighty God.
There are thousands and thousands who can prove
conclusively that Jesus
has healed them and that His power remains the same
and the faith that
has in times past “subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the
violence of fire,
escaped the edge of the sword ... turned to flight
the armies of the
aliens” — that faith has done it again!
Yet, we must face facts. There must be a reason why
some people are not
healed; why there are those who insist that they
have “all the faith in
the world” and they leave the service in the same
condition as when
they came. The great tragedy is that discouragements
ultimately come
with disappointments.
We know from God’s Word that a faith that weighs no
more than a grain
of mustard seed will do more than a ton of will or a
mind of
determination. The faith that Jesus talked about can
no more manifest
itself without result than the sun can shine without
light and heat;
but in many instances, people have mistaken their
own ability to
believe for the faith which only God can give! Faith
is not a condition
of the mind. It is a divinely imparted grace to the
heart.
Our emotions and desires are often mistaken for
faith and it is so easy
to blame God when there are no results from
something that has been
purely of the mind and not of the heart. One of the
most difficult
things in the world is to realize that faith can be
received only as it
is imparted to the heart by God himself. It cannot
be manufactured. No
matter how much we nurture and cultivate that spirit
that the world
interprets as faith, it will never grow into the
type of faith that was
introduced by Jesus.
When we come to our salvation, it is still a matter
of faith and,
again, He gives us His faith to believe. “As many as
received Him to
them gave He power to become the sons of God, even
to them which
believe on His name.”
The same Holy Spirit who convicts the sinner of his
sins and sees to it
that he is given enough conviction to convince him
of his sin, will
provide faith enough to convince him of his
salvation. But no man in
himself possesses that faith. It is given him by the
same One who gives
the faith for our physical healing: the Author and
Finisher of our
faith — Christ Jesus!
With Him there is no struggle! How often in a
miracle service I have
seen conscientious people struggling, straining,
demanding that God
give them the healing for their body, and yet there
was no answer.
We can believe in healing. We can believe in our
Lord and His power to
heal. But only Jesus can work the work that will
lift us to the
mountain peaks of victory. We have made faith a
product of a finite
mind, when all of the other gifts of the Spirit we
have attributed to
God. To many people, faith still is their own
ability to believe a
truth, and is often based on their struggles and
their ability to drive
away doubt and unbelief through a process of
continued affirmations.
There is belief in faith, but faith is more than
belief. Faith is a
gift Jesus is our faith, and the Giver of every good
and perfect gift
is the Author and Finisher of our faith. Active
faith is unquestioning
belief, trust, and reliance upon God with all
confidence. Faith can
become as real as any of our senses. When we receive
His faith, we also
receive understanding. Everything that God has for
His children, He
puts within the reach of faith—then He turns around
and gives them the
faith to appropriate the gift.
Then Jesus spoke. With Him, there is no struggle and
the waves of doubt
and anxiety and worry all fade away and a glorious
and marvelous calm
and peace enter into the heart and mind of the one
who has received
that which only He can give. Then the only noise
will be that of praise
and adoration from the lips of the one who has just
been healed by the
Great Physician.
One of the greatest secrets that I have learned
through the years is
that when I have realized my own helplessness and
have acknowledged it
to Him, I have received some of the greatest
manifestations of His
power that I have ever experienced. You are nearest
your possession of
this imparted grace when you realize your own
helplessness and your
complete and entire dependence upon the Lord.
I am reminded of the young lady who, in describing
faith, used this
illustration. She said, “When I was learning to
float on water, I
realized I had to completely relax and without fear
trust the water to
hold me up — it worked. I floated — in the same way
I faithed.”
We receive nothing by demanding of God, but it is
because of His great
love, compassion, and mercy that He gives to us.
Often we lose sight of
the fact that not one of us can claim any
righteousness of our own, not
one is worthy of the smallest blessing. We are the
receivers of His
blessing because of His mercy and compassion.
Healing is the sovereign
act of God.
When I was twenty years of age, I could have given
you all the answers.
My theology was straight and I was sure that if you
followed certain
rules, worked hard enough, obeyed all the
commandments, and had
yourself in a certain spiritual state, God would
heal you.
Lo and behold, my theology came tumbling down and
was crushed into a
thousand pieces when one day a man who had just
entered the auditorium
during a miracle service stood silently against the
back wall, and
after not more than five minutes, walked boldly to
the stage and freely
admitted, “My ear has just opened and I do not
believe!”
Although I questioned him repeatedly, he never
recanted. Seeing the
crowd, out of curiosity, he came in, not knowing
whether it was an
auction or some kind of giveaway program. He was
standing there as a
spectator and after much questioning, I found out
that he had not been
to church for more than twenty-five years and had
put himself in the
category of an atheist.
It is possible for me to relate many cases where
people have been
healed who were amazed, who freely admitted that
they did not expect to
be healed, who sobbingly cried, “I cannot believe it
— I cannot believe
it!” Until we have a way of defining it, all that I
can tell you is
that these are mercy healings. They have been healed
through the mercy
of the Lord.
We forget the mercy of God—we forget His great
compassion — we forget
that we do not earn our blessings; neither do we
merit His goodness.
Were it not for the mercy and the compassion and the
grace and the love
of God, not one of us would be a Christian and the
same holds true when
it comes to physical healing. How often I have
thought that God cares
very little about man’s theology, and we are so
prone to get dogmatic
about things that we know so little about!
God never responds to man’s demands to prove
himself. I am amazed at
the number of people who try to proposition God. But
you cannot put God
on the spot; you cannot say to Him, “I am not sure
of You, but if You
will heal me, then I will believe in You.”
We have all heard of atheists who have attempted to
disprove God by
cursing Him and daring Him to strike them dead. Then
when nothing
happens, they loudly proclaim, “There is no God,
else He would have
struck back.” But God cannot be manipulated.
Jesus recognized this when Satan tempted Him to
throw Himself from the
pinnacle of the Temple and proposition God to catch
Him up. Satan even
quoted Scripture to try to prove that God would
answer such a
presumptuous demand. But you cannot presume upon
God. It is up to us to
follow God, not demand of Him. God does not have to
prove himself to
anyone.
There are some things in life which will always be
unanswerable because
we see through a glass darkly. God knows the
beginning to the end,
while all we can do is catch a glimpse of the
present, and a distorted
glimpse at that.
If a man like Paul, after all his glorious
revelations, did not have
the answers for his own thorn in the flesh, then how
can we expect to
know the answers? God’s answer to Paul is adequate
to me, “My grace is
sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect
in weakness.”
Paul’s answer to the world should become the
password of every
believer, “Most gladly, therefore, will I rather
glory in my
infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon
me.” In Nehemiah’s
time, when the people were sadly mourning, he said
to them, “The joy of
the Lord is your strength.” That simply means, what
pleases God is your
strength.
In 1865, when Lincoln was assassinated — the great,
patient, mighty
Lincoln — an excited throng of thousands gathered in
the streets of
Washington. They were utterly bewildered, going to
and fro as sheep
without any shepherd. They were overcome by
questions and emotions
incident to that tragic hour. But in the midst of
the tragic turmoil, a
man appeared on the steps of the Capitol and said,
“God reigns and the
government at Washington still lives.” The crowds
dispersed quietly.
The right words had been said: “God reigns!”
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