When the Shunammite woman came to Elisha after her son died, notice what Elisha did.  He took a specific set of actions. Gehazi was to take the Prophet’s staff and lay it on the boy’s face.  He was not to speak to anyone on the way.

It is interesting that the boy did not immediately recover and Gehazi returned, unsuccessful.  Didn’t Elisha hear God, you may ask?  I’m inclined to say he did.  Why didn’t the child come back to life then?  I don’t think the Bible spells it out explicitly, but I would lay the blame on Gehazi’s doorstep,  as being an unsuitable vessel of grace.  He later proved this in the case of Naaman the Syrian.

In any case, when Elisha finally arrived, he didn’t anoint with oil or lay hands on the boy, but instead, did something that would be strange in any age.  He lay on the boy nose-to-nose (2 Kings 4:32) and eventually the boy came back to life.  Again, he didn’t walk around the bed seven times in the manner of Jericho or smash arrows on the ground as in the case of King Jehoash (2 Kings 13:18).  He was specific in what he did and got results.

Jesus put his spit on a man’s tongue (Mark 7:33), spat in another man’s eyes (Mark 8:23), and asked Lazarus to come forth (John 11:43).  He asked the 10 lepers to go and show themselves to the priests in one instance (Luke 17:12), but laid hands on the one leper who sought healing (Luke 5:13).  Jesus was precise, He didn’t try everything, He did one thing.

If you are in healing ministry, realize you can minister in hundreds of ways to any healing candidate.  Will every approach work?  No, but the one the Holy Spirit illuminates in your heart will in most cases.  I say most cases, because it is not that simple working through the vessels of clay that we are. Unforgiveness on the candidate’s part, tiredness on our part, or disorganization may just a few obstacles to healing.

Yes, we must know all the Biblical approaches to healing, many of which are listed on this blog.  But we must always strive to hear the Holy Spirit in every situation.  We must also be flexible and open to his direction during the healing encounter.  I have seen dual errors of treating every situation like a nail when you only have a hammer (e.g., laying on of hands on everyone you meet), and being so inflexible during ministry, you don’t receive a change in direction from the Holy Spirit.  We would do well to avoid both.

May you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit as you minister, may you be flexible enough to deal with changing circumstances in healing ministry.  Amen.

Can you give some info on Why we don’t see many healing miracles in the Western culture. Is it a lack faith by those praying for others to be healed? I don’t like pulling single scriptures out to back up my point but there are a few that talk about faith the size of a mustard seed or Jesus said we would great things than this etc. I feel frustrated when I see and pray for people who are in for example a wheelchair and their own desire is to be healed by God?

Sorry for the delayed response. Great questions. We do have miracles associated with many ministries in the West, but not only are they fewer than in the early 20th century (in my opinion), but there is a definite resistance to any kind of reporting of Christian ministries in our day, other than scandals.  I certainly detect an anti-Christian spirit developing in the US, but it is even more advanced in Europe.  If for example, a blind person was healed in your ministry, no news outlet would carry it, and even so, it would probably be an obscure “documentary” about “religious craziness” showing at 1.00am and featuring you with Indian mystics and David Blaine.

So, just as God spoke to Elijah about him not being alone and 7,000 being reserved who had not bowed their knee to Baal, the same is true today.  There are many miracles occurring in the US and in Europe.  In churches across the land, by itinerant evangelists, in countless healing rooms, healings are occurring – real, verifiable healings.  In my 5 years in healing rooms, we had bad blood tests becoming good, bad X-Rays and MRIs coming back good, and people released form chronic pain and set free.   I have seen deafness healed, diabetes healed, double vision restored instantly and my own horrible prognosis for my shoulder (“your only option is surgery!”) discarded by God – now I’m back lifting weights – no surgery.

It is all there, but you’ll never see it in a paper or on TV.  Rather, in unheralded meetings and in healing rooms all over the US, people ARE getting healed.  Is it as much as I would like?  Clearly not!  Any why not?  I continue to maintain that our current crop of pastors and teachers are largely unbelievers in the area of healing and the miraculous.  You shouldn’t take a fly swatter to a gun fight, which is what these dear ones do.  They proclaim loudly that they believe but their actions belie their words.  They don’t preach healing, don’t demonstrate it, and in the rare instances that they mention healing, they twist it to their experience and strip it of any power…

• “He heals sometimes…”
• “If it is His will, you’ll be healed…”
• “God’s will is for you to be sick…”
• “Sickness will build your character…”
  
• “How else would we die…?”
• “Sometimes He answers Yes, sometimes No, sometimes Wait…”
• “This sickness is to make you humble/teach you patience/(add any excuse you like) …”
• “What about Job?”
• “What about Paul’s Thorn?…”
• “What about Trophimus, who Paul left sick…”
  

I could go on and on.  Essentially they are out there preaching myths and fables and not healing.  That’s what all the above junk is.  So we don’t get healing.  God does not work through laymen (bottom-up) – He works through pastors (top-down).  So no matter how on fire you are, if your pastor is a big ball of faithlessness in the area of miracles and healing, that’s the atmosphere you’ll have. You will be pulling uphill and you will have less success than if you had a believing pastor.   God respects His order in the church, regardless of whether you are right and the pastor is wrong.  That just the way it works.

So I could go on – we don’t have serious prayer or intercession in most churches, we seldom hear sermons on healing, there’s no way we can have sustained explosions of widespread healing as long as the present situation continues.  God confirms His Word with signs following…  No word of healing, no confirmation.  The good thing is that you can find places where the pastor is leading the healing revival, places where they pray, teach, preach, and demonstrate healing.  They exist, absolutely and God is doing amazing stuff in those places.

I may continue in this vein later…  Blessings.

The first question is whether there is a connection between sin and sickness. The answer is “yes” to the general question. By the general question, I mean that there was no sickness before Adam’s fall. The entrance of sin brought sickness in tow. Notice also that in the Atonement, God introduced the solution to sin and sickness, i.e.,

Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Psalm 103:2-3 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases

So that shows the link between sin and sickness in the general causative sense. The fallen state of humanity is the background to all sickness. However, we see that healing and the forgiveness of sins became available through the second Adam—Jesus Christ. I say “became available”, because they are not automatic. The new currency of exchange with God has become faith, and forgiveness and healing are available through faith.

Now, let’s look at the individual level. Can sin bring about sickness? Yes it can. The sin of worry can bring about many stress-related diseases. Fornication can lead to sexual diseases. Anger and violence can lead to physical harm. Illegal drugs destroy the whole person. Thus, many types of sin can lead to sickness and harm to the mind and body. The best authority here is Jesus, who, after healing the disabled man at the Pool of Bethesda, found him and said;

John 5:14  Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

Jesus warns the man that further sin can lead to sickness.  Some may then conclude that all sin leads to sickness or that all sickness is the result of the sick person’s sin. However, these would be erroneous assumptions. I’ll explain why in the next post…stay tuned…

After a while, she managed to slowly drive back home and visited the doctor soon after. Several studies followed and eventually, the doctors told her they thought she had suffered a mini-stroke in the recent past that affected the muscles attached to one eyeball. Their remedy was surgery to tighten up the muscles. As has happened at similar times in the past, indignation rose up within and I said I believed Jesus could heal her. I asked if she wanted to pray and she said yes.

At this point, I called a friend of mine in Kenya – a stalwart in prayer, and we had this 3-way call while physically separated by thousands of miles. After quick introductions, my other friend began to pray up a storm. He bound and he loosed, he banged out scripture after scripture, cast out demons and called forth healing. From me came hearty amens interspersed with the tongues of angels.

After a minute or so, someone tried to call me via call waiting, repeatedly. I ignored the call, angry at the enemy apparently trying to distract us from this important mission. I keep hearing the call waiting beeps. No matter. We press on. After my friend concludes, I begin to storm the heavens and call forth healing. Eventually, I am done and we “power down”.

I called out my friend’s name. No response. “Perhaps she’s slain in the Spirit,” I thought…very spiritually. God has a sense of humor, as you’ll see in a second. I realized she was not connected and called her. Here’s her story.

When the prayer began, she sat in a chair, took off the special glasses she had been given to merge the images, shut her eyes and leaned back. In doing so, the phone connection was lost, so she opened her eyes to call me back. When she did, her eyesight was perfect!. She screamed and excitedly called me back. However, our prayer blitz had just begun and we were not stopping for anyone She was the caller, as you have probably guessed. We kept at it for another 15 minutes or so, until we were done and called her back.

God has a sense of humor indeed. She was healed immediately we started praying, but I can imagine the angels laughing as we raised a holy ruckus for the next 15 minutes. Needless to say, no operation was required by the puzzled doctors. This is one of the most touching, but also the most hilarious healing I have been involved in. I thank God for it – for saving my friend from going under the knife.

Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

However, she saw her daughter awake and went right to her, very emotional, talking frantically to her and calling for the nurses. Interestingly enough, her daughter fixed her gaze at me all through this. I knew she knew she had been revived for the Prayer of Agreement, but disconcerted by her mother’s entrance and approaching nurses, I fluffed it. I told the mother I was a there to pray for her daughter and asked if I could. Cautiously, she said yes but in my flustered state, I didn’t do what I had myself asked for i.e., a Prayer of Agreement, and instead prayed a tepid prayer that I knew didn’t even make it out the window. Obedience and boldness are so important.

She began an instant improvement from that day on, but I went home and wept that day, because I knew I had not done what I was called to do. Each day saw further improvement and positive reports from the doctors, but I was cheered not a bit. On the day they were transferring her out of intensive care to the regular ward due to her improving condition, she died. This came as a shock to everyone but me.

Yes, I did beat myself up for a while over that. Do I still beat myself up? Of course not! It is often harder to forgive ourselves than others, but I learned long ago that wallowing in self accusation is a favorite trap of the enemy. She was saved and is walking the streets of gold; I learned obedience; and I led her father to the Lord in the hospital and followed up for months afterward. Please, don’t even get started about the Lord having some purpose in her untimely death at 30-odd years old. We just lost that one. We’ll do better next time. In the tragedy, God gave comfort, because that’s what He does. In ministry to the sick, may we be bold, compassionate, and obey His leading. Amen.