LESSONS FROM 70 YEARS OF MINISTRY: ‘WHAT I HAVE RECEIVED I PASSED ON TO YOU AS OF FIRST IMPORTANCE.’ (PART 9) AVAILABLE ON ITUNES, SPOTIFY, GOOGLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE.
A believer who had been praying a long time without result for a sick, believing relative, raised this question in one of my meetings, ‘Sometimes I’m strong, but sometimes I doubt even though I don’t want to, and I’m afraid I’m losing my faith for this healing. I believe, but in practice it’s hard – how can one deal with this?’
I have to admit that in my own ministry I have to face similar problems, not necessarily in healing, but in some other area where I need more faith. Every New Year I like to take a few days away from the ministry, to be alone with the Lord and to spend time in serious prayer. In one of these times I was praying over this very issue, how to receive a stronger gift of faith, how to receive something by faith which is absolutely impossible to the human mind.
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles (1 Corinthians 12:7-10, NKJV)
I was healed from throat cancer forty years ago, but I was sick for three months before I came to the spiritual place with God where the miracle happened – three months in spiritual growth, followed by a sudden revelation – an explosion – and in that moment the healing was instantaneous! When I was in a communist prison thirty years ago for Bible smuggling, I was almost one year in the prison, believing that God would work the miracle to get me out – but that year was the best year of my life! Yes, I was separated from my wife and my children, my youngest daughter was only three years old – but I grew all the time in my experience with God! It was a testing of my faith, but God when did it, it was sudden, a big miracle! I travelled the world for two years afterwards, talking about that miracle. I preached to more than a million people, sometimes ten thousand at a time – a quarter of a million came to Christ because of that testimony! But the miracle took one year of prayer. I’m a coward and from the first day I cried, ‘Oh God get me out!’ In the early days I thought that they would torture me, then simply throw me out of the country – but God didn’t get me out!
However, if He had answered my first prayers and released me from the prison within one or two days, what would have happened? Suppose God had organised things ‘extremely well’ and got me out of prison really quickly – I would not be evangelising in Russia the way I do now, I would not have the ministry I have today. The longer I stayed in the prison, the bigger the miracle became – in the end it was the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, who came to Czechoslovakia, just to get me out! I was not thrown out of the ‘back door’! I was released in a blaze of publicity! That’s God! But the whole miracle took one year to prepare. I didn’t let go of God even in the darkest days of despair – I knew, I believed – but it hurt and it was hard. If only you could know how bad those days I spent in prison were!
It’s the same with you. Hold on. Don’t let go of God! God WILL do it! If it takes three months, three years, God WILL do it.
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28, NKJV)
If you have doubts, don’t feel that God will abandon you because of this. Let me encourage you. About three weeks before I was released from the prison (and God had told me the exact day I would get out of the prison), all the pressure in there got so much, I had a heart attack. They took me to the prison hospital and gave me an ECG. They had no medicine, so they just sent me back to my cell, and I cried out, ‘Oh God, why have I had a heart attack? I’m not believing! If I really believed that I was coming out in three weeks, I wouldn’t be having a heart attack, I’d be dancing for joy! Oh God, I’ve let go of my faith! Oh God, forgive me!’ And God did! Three weeks later, I came out!
God understands. We’re human! Only God is divine! We’re going to fail sometimes, even I fail God, I’m not a ‘holy man’ – but I do trust God, and I love God. God looks on your heart. Look at the times when Peter failed Jesus, isn’t that true?
When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, (Matthew 8:16, NKJV) If you are believing for healing, for yourself or others, healing is part of the atonement of Christ. Matthew 8:16-17 says that Jesus healed all that were sick in order that the words of the prophet Isaiah would be fulfilled, ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses’ (Isaiah 53:4).
We don’t live in a perfect world, but in a sinful world. Let me ask this question, is every single believer living without any sin? Let’s be truthful – we do fail God – even Paul said, ‘The good things I would do, I don’t do, and the bad things I don’t want to do, I do!’ Yes, there is forgiveness through the Blood of Christ, that is why John said to the believers, ‘I write unto you that you sin not, but if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father’ (1 John 2:1).
It’s the same with healing. Yes, we should be without sin, but the fact is the devil is in the world and we’re tempted and tested every day. It’s the same with healing, we accept that colds and flu are infectious, that accidents happen to all of us. We suffer cuts and bruises, headaches, toothache and sometimes broken limbs. When our children suffer from mysterious symptoms we consult the doctor. But with healing, God CAN do it, God WANTS to do it, but healing doesn’t always happen, sometimes the devil gets in the way, sometimes it is a question of our choice, sometimes a question of even our understanding of what God wants to do in our lives. Have you ever had a financial problem? God wants to either prevent us getting into the problem in the first place, or deliver us out of it. But does this always happen, or do we sometimes suffer?
Yes, all these things WILL be resolved, they WILL happen when Christ returns, that’s the final victory – and the devil will have to sit in my old prison! Then, everything will be perfect, no more death, no more tears! Calvary was our ‘D’-Day when Christ made the victory possible, but ‘V’-Day (final victory), is when Christ returns to earth, and at the moment we’re living in the in-between.
And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. (Deuteronomy 8:2, NKJV)
Miracles don’t come easily. You might think I talk about miracles as though they grow on trees. They don’t. When I had the cancer in my throat and when I was in prison, God said the same thing to me, ‘Do you want to go the easy way or the hard way?’ I’m a coward, so I said, ‘Tell me the easy way!’ With the cancer, God said, ‘The easy way is you have the operation,’ – the cancer was on my vocal cord – ‘you’ll lose your voice, but you can learn to speak using your stomach muscles, and you won’t die, I’ll be with you!’ Then I said, ‘If that’s the easy way, tell me the hard way!’ I chose the hard way, because when I said, ‘What happens if I choose the hard way?’, He said, ‘I’ll work a miracle!’
‘Psalm 23’ used by kind permission of www.vinesong.com