HEALING
FAITH
BY A.P. MOORE
The subject of
healing of disease and bodily infirmities in answer to “the prayer of faith,”
is being
revived and agitated in all the land, and it is so plainly demonstrated
by living witness who have been healed without the use of medicine, and
when medical skill has been exhausted, that the candid must confess that it is
of God.
It is
true that all revivals of any of God’s precious though long-neglected truths,
have met with the most bitter persecution and persistent opposition even from
professed Christians and ministers of the Gospel, but truth is of God,
and must prevail in spite of all opposing forces. Those who oppose the healing
of the sick in answer to “the prayer of faith,” do so on the assumption that “the
age of miracles is past,” and was confined to the Apostolic age. But where in
the Bible are we taught this? Is it a greater miracle to heal the sick than to
convert a sinner? See a person with murder in his heart, a terror to his family
and to all who know him, but let that person get converted by the Spirit of
God, and see the great change wrought in him. He becomes peaceful and serene,
gentle, loving and kind; his sin is taken away and the whole moral nature
changed. He is a new man in Christ Jesus. Truly it is not in the power
of man to effect this change in himself. It is a miracle of God for such a
heart to be changed.
No
Christian will claim for a moment that we are past the age of conversions. But
it is by the same power, and through the same agency, that the sick are
restored to health.
It is in
answer to believing prayer that the sinner is accepted, forgiven, renewed. The
promise of Jesus is, “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall
find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” This promise extends over the
entire dispensation, while Christ is Mediator between God and man, while He is
the sinner’s Advocate; and the promise in Jas. v:15, for bodily healing
belongs to us now as much as do the promises of spiritual healing
through faith in Christ Jesus.
Let us
examine the passage in Jas.:v14, 15, and see if physical healing does not run
parallel with the forgiveness of sin. “Is any sick among you? Let him call for
the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the
name of the Lord: And 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.”
Now it is
evident that this is not local in its application: forgiveness of sins extends through
the entire dispensation, and so does the promise of healing for the sick, in
answer to believing prayer.
The
epistle of James is address to those “which are scattered abroad,” and blessed
promises therein were extended to all. In the same chapter which contains the
instructions in regard to the sick, the apostle says, “Be patient, therefore,
brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for
the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he receive the
early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the
coming of the Lord draweth nigh” (7th and 8th
verses). This certainly has no local application; neither has the promise in
the 14th and 15th verses. Healing faith is the same as
faith in any portion of God’s Word. It is simply to believe in and rest
on the specific promise of healing, just as we come to God by Christ Jesus and
rest on His promise of forgiveness and acceptance. It is no mysterious emotion;
it is simply to believe that God’s promise for you, as well as for the
thousands throughout the land who can today testify to having received this
healing.
It is not
fanaticism to take a plainly pointed out means for obtaining the blessing of
health. It is the height of folly not to take it. “The prayer of
faith shall save the sick.” Believe this: God has declared it. Honor Him by
believing it. DO not think that you can better glorify God by doubting his Word
or His power and continuing to suffer, than by believing His promise, and receiving
health. No disease is too great to baffle the skill of the “Great Physician.”
Let us claim the blessing so freely offered, and then confess to the glory of
God the work which He has wrought in us.
The
following lines form the pen of Charlotte Murray so fully express our feelings
that we quote them here:
“He healed them
all-the blind, the lame, the
palsied.
The sick
in body and the weak in mind;
Whoever came, no matter how afflicted,
Were sure
a sovereign remedy to find.
His word gave health, His touch restored the
vigor
To every
weary, pain-exhausted frame;
And all he asked before He gave the blessing.
Was simple
faith in Him from those who
came.
And is our Lord, the kind, the good. the
tender,
Less loving
now than in those days of old?
Or is it that our faith is growing feeble,
And Christian
energy is waxing cold?
Why do we not with equal expectation,
Now bring
our sick Ones to the Lord in
prayer.
Right through the throng of unbelieving
scruples,
Up to His
very side and leave them there?
He never health refused in by-gone ages,
Nor feared
to take the ‘chastisement’
away;
Then why not ask it now instead of praying
For patience
to endure from day to day?”
***
God
grudges nothing. He Who gave His son, He Whose Spirit is content to well in
tabernacles, which, though by His workmanship made fair within, are without badgers’
skins, has not shown how freely He gives. If we can bear it, all is ours; if we
have it not, it is because we cannot bear it. Let us, like John, but make our
dwelling night to that side cleft for us, seeing in the water and blood shed
thence a pledge of those unsearchable depths of love which still remain, and we
may drink our fill of love; and as no lack is there, so surely will there be no
grudging. –Andrew Jukes
