LESSONS FROM 70 YEARS OF MINISTRY: ‘WHAT I HAVE RECEIVED I PASSED ON TO YOU AS OF FIRST IMPORTANCE.’ (PART 8) AVAILABLE ON ITUNES, SPOTIFY, GOOGLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE.
So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. (Mark 11:22-24, NKJV)
In December 2002, as part of the process of getting a resident’s permit in Ukraine, in order to prove I did not have TB which is endemic out there, I had to have a lung X-ray. But the doctors called me back, took more X-rays, and then told me I had a shadow on my lung and that I had pneumonia. Probably I had already I had already had it for over a month, because I remember a fever had started on the last day of October while I was evangelising in Siberia.
Back in England I was treated with antibiotics, but after two courses of treatment I went again for X-rays and the patch on my lung was bigger. The doctors became extremely worried, they didn’t want me to travel overseas and they set up exhaustive tests in a hurry. They said bluntly, ‘It’s not pneumonia, you have lung cancer.’
I prayed about it, and I did go overseas to carry out my ministry, but the day after I got back the hospital process started. On the Thursday I had the CT (computer tomography) scan and it showed the cancer.
I believe in prayer and in a God of miracles. But I am faced with a challenge: do I really believe God or not? On the following Monday I had to go for a bronchoscopy when they would put a camera down my lunng and take a sample of the growth. The doctors had already fast-tracked me into a process which would lead to an operation to remove all or part of my right lung - on the Wednesday I was booked to go in for the final verdict. The only question, how much of my right lung they would take away?
I said, ‘Lord, how can I go back into Russia and preach like I preach and say that You are a mighty God of miracles who’s got power to do everything, including healing cancer, if I have got half of my right lung cut out, followed by chemotherapy? If You have finished with me, if my ministry is over, then don’t heal me, because if I can no longer evangelise I might as well die, I have no other reason to live! But if You want me to go back into Russia and Ukraine and finish the work You gave me to do, then I want You to heal me completely!’ But I only had a few days, from Thursday to Monday!
God said to me, ‘David, you’ve got a mountain in your life that you’ve got to move, and that mountain is to get that cancer out from your lung. If you can believe that without an operation you can be completely healed, then nothing will be impossible from there on.’ Now desperately seeking God’s answer from Scripture, I was reading from Jeremiah 33:6, ‘I will bring health and healing’; and Jeremiah 33:20-21, ‘I will not break my covenant with David’; and Psalm 89:35, ‘I will not lie to David’; and ‘Is anything impossible with God?’ (Jeremiah 32:17&27). On the Monday I was in the hospital, tubes down my lung looking for cancer – but God had already given me the answer, I knew it was gone. The doctors looked at me in amazement and said, ‘You have no cancer!’ I didn’t go to a healing evangelist, I went to the Word of God and God completely healed me – no operation, no treatment – I only had God and the Bible, and that’s all I needed to confound the doctors. They were shocked, they didn’t believe God. But I do, I believe in a God of power, of miracles. The Bible is very clear. Isaiah 53:5 says Jesus was wounded for our sin, bruised for our iniquity and with His stripes we are healed. Matthew 8:16-17 says Jesus healed all that were sick to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. So healing is to fulfil Bible prophecy!
Desperate for Jesus!
When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. (Matthew 9:36, NKJV)
Throughout my ministry I have tried to share with you some of the miracles of healing which are experienced in Russia but inevitably people in the West say, ‘God works miracles there, but it is not the same in our home churches.’ Yet my experience has been that I have seen the same miracles in England and Germany, particularly so in Australia. No, not in the same numbers, but just as dramatic.
You ask me, ‘Is there a difference then?’ The answer is yes. I believe that with my own ministry there is a strong reason for these miracles – and remember that these do not just include healings.
In a TV interview in America, a well-known healing evangelist was asked what reason could he give for the miracles he sees in his meetings. His reply was that it was the atmosphere, the large numbers in the auditorium, the beautiful music and the awe-inspiring presence of the Holy Spirit. The same people asked me the identical question. I remembered the dusty stadiums in Russia and Ukraine, broken seats, poor amplification, thousands of people fighting to be touched by the Lord, crowds out of control, cries of desperation, shouts of despair. Helpless people, dirty bandages, open wounds, stinking diseases. The middle-aged looking so old because of their poverty and suffering. No medicines, no available doctors or hospitals. Over the whole stadium such a desperate sense that without this Jesus, if He is not alive, unless someone knows Him, there is no hope. My answer was this: the reason I see so many miracles is the desperate need of the people to find a real Jesus – and the desperation of Jesus to find the people who really want Him.
So many in the comfort of the West say to me, ‘Pray for me, but if I am not healed I will go to the doctor, or the hospital, they will heal me!’ This is not wrong, but in Russia they say, ‘Pray for me, without Christ I have no hope and I will die in pain!’ They are desperate for Him. That’s the difference!
In the Bible Jesus says, ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man will open the door, I will come in! (Revelation 3:20). Jesus is more willing to give than you are to receive! I sometimes say, get into a race with God, try to out-give Him! You will never succeed in out-giving God, but the more you try, the more He will give you!
The real life of faith, of being a Christian, of receiving either forgiveness or healing, is in knowing Him. I try to tell people how simple it is to receive Jesus, all you have to do is be like a drowning man, stop struggling, let go of your tiny piece of flotsam and come into His open arms. That wonderful hymn writer put it so powerfully, ‘Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me... I come.’
Healing, deliverance, forgiveness... stop struggling and come into His arms! Talk to Jesus. He’s listening. Ask Him to forgive your sin or to heal you. He loves you, He’ll answer!
You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13, NKJV)
‘You Answered Me’ used by kind permission of www.vinesong.com