Do you believe in possibility of miraculous healing through faith

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Oral Roberts had a 900 foot Jesus appear to him and demand put up Hospital to see miracles of healings, but death rate there same as in every hospital!

I actually witnessed that event.

Funny thing.......Why would a faith healer, Oral Roberts need to build a hospital?????
Why does a faith healer need to wear glasses????????

Here's a rhyme, how much wood could a wood chuck chop, if a wood chuck could chop wood?

Here's another. How much deception can be seen and heard, when there is no word, and nobody is really listening?

How long will we look the other way while people are ravaged by false teaching's promoted by men who spread their own miracle rumors?

Again, please do not misunderstand me, I KNOW that God heals people. ALways has always will.

I have no desire to break the forum's rules so all of the following is documented with names of productions, comments with page numbers.
Moderators, If this is unacceptable, please delate it but..............

E.W. Kenyon in his book the Hidden man on pg.99 wrote, “I know that I am healed because he said that I am healed and it makes no difference what the symptoms may be in my body.” An example would be if they are coughing and you say you have a cough they respond by “no I don’t, I haven’t had a cough in years.” That’s called denial of reality at best, and lying at worst.

This is what was adopted by Kenneth Hagin who writes in his book “In the name of Jesus” on the topic of divine healing and health. “I have so often said, I haven’t had a headache in so many years (45 to be exact) ... Just a few months ago, as I left the office building and started home, suddenly my head started hurting, someone might say, “well, you had a headache. No, I didn’t have one! I don’t have headaches. I haven’t had a headache since August 1934. 45 years have come and gone. And I haven’t had a headache…but if I had a headache, I wouldn’t tell anybody. And if somebody asked me how I was feeling, I would say, I’m fine, thank you.” (In the Name of Jesus, p.44) Notice he says he wouldn't tell you how he really feels because his words override the pain.

Is this honest? Is it true? Is this the way someone is to represent the Lord. Did Jesus teach this nonsense? Of course not. Is this the way Jesus acted in the Bible, or Paul or James?????

E.W. Kenyon studied at the Emerson College of Oratory in Boston which was a hotbed at the time for the emerging New Age thought.
They imagined they have discovered laws of faith, promoting a Christianized version of occultism.

This kind of thinking is what is behind the Star Wars.....May the Force Be With You.

Kenyon had divorced his wife even when he taught that what one speaks they will possess. E.W Kenyon who is certainly the Father of the Word of Faith Movement taught divine healing and that it was always God's will to heal.

But he died in a coma, brought on by a malignant tumor. He died from disease.

Kenneth Hagin states: It is not God's will for any to be sick (Healing the fathers Provision, p.9 ) I believe that it is the plan of our father that no believer should be sick that every believer should live his life to full time and actually wear out if Jesus tarries then fall asleep in Jesus. I state boldly that it is not the will of God my father that we should suffer with cancer and other dread disease and reap pain and anguish. No its God's will that we should be healed.”

While Hagin says he has had no headaches, he had 4 major cardiovascular failures. But this is one of those incidents he's not telling you (Christianity in Crises, pp.237-238; a Different Gospel by D.L McConnell) Hagin suffered 4 separate episodes of heart-crisis in 1939, 1942, 1949, and 1973.
http://www.letusreason.org/Wf25.htm

Funny stuff!!!
 
It’s sounds like delusion.

but the bible specifically says we need to believe we have received in order to get what it is we seek.
How are we supposed to override what seems like delusion?

What we "Seek" must not be out of the will of God.

"ALL" faith healers will say when someone is NOT healed that they did not have enough faith. That then places the sickness, pain and eventual upon the INDIVIDUAL which always results in guilt.

Please believe me when I tell you that I have had more people come to me over the last 50 years with that one problem more than anything other problem.

Pastor........"WHY did my little baby die. We prayed just like the Faith Healer told us. We Believe in Jesus. We Love God. We sent the Faith Healer "$500.oo dollars in SEED money and the baby still died".

When that happens to you several times you can not help be a little hostile toward that group of individuals.

There are many stories of healings that can not be explained by medical science and must therefore be attributed to God’s divine healing, however God does not promise to heal everyone because even the Apostle Paul once asked God three times to be healed. And what was God‘s answer in 2 Corth. 12:9....
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me”.

Why didn’t God heal Paul? Surely it was not that he had a lack of faith - was it? Paul and the other apostles were strong believers in miracles and participated in many of them in the New Testament, even raising the dead. WHO had more faith than Paul????.

Allow me to list some of Jesus healings where the person being healed had absolutely no faith requirements at all, even if they could!

  • The officials dying son
  • The ear of the High Priest’s servant (coming to take Jesus prisoner)
  • The madman in the synagogue (can someone not in their right mind have faith?)
  • Woman with the hemorrhage (she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment)
  • The madman and the Gardarene pigs (madman with faith?!)
  • The leper
  • The deaf and dumb man in Decapolis (how could he tell anyone about his faith?)
  • The epileptic boy (impossible to express faith in seizure’s is it not?)
  • The raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead (hard to have faith if your dead),
But neither Jesus nor the apostles ever did these healings in front of large gatherings or promoted their powers of healing before others and then took up a "Love Offering"!
 
The difference between miraculous and providential us less a matter of God's action and nature and more a matter of our understanding.

If as a result of medical care we recover, we hold it to be providential because we can see how God brought healing about.

If, however one seems to spontaneously recover, we may call it a miracle.

The difference is less a matter of what happened as it is our knowledge.

Some do have a ministry that is either intercessionary or otherwise enables or facilitates the God's healing, always within His will.

However God's will is not arbitrary, but many believers expect 'powers' to be manifest in much the same manner as in movies such as Star Wars (force) or Harry Potter magic.
 
A few years ago, I became acquainted to a man just after he was diagnosed with cancer. His doctor has referred him to a specialist, but he had not yet had that appointment.

When he did see his specialist, he was prescribed chemo therapy in preparation for surgery. This part is very similar to my experience a few years prior.

The man believed in Christ and attended church regularly. His sister who was also a believer convinced my acquaintance to see a faith healer. That healer told him that he could be healed, but he had to demonstrate his belief by refusing medical assistance. He did not receive medical treatments, his cancer metastasized, which means that the original growth produced cancer cells that traveled throughout his body, making chemo therapy less applicable and surgery unable to address.

Now, one can debate why he was not healed, whether it is a fake healer, of if his faith was not great enough, or some other unknown reason God did not choose to heal him. One can speculate whether his particular case would have been as successfully handled medically as my own. Each case is unique.

I do know that his funeral felt sadder than the others I have attended where I usually felt somber, but not that things or God was unfair.

I also know from the comments of others in our group that those who were a little skeptical of the things of the Spirit became even more skeptical.
 
A few years ago, I became acquainted to a man just after he was diagnosed with cancer. His doctor has referred him to a specialist, but he had not yet had that appointment. When he did see his specialist, he was prescribed chemo therapy in preparation for surgery. This part is very similar to my experience a few years prior. The man believed in Christ and attended church regularly. His sister who was also a believer convinced my acquaintance to see a faith healer. That healer told him that he could be healed, but he had to demonstrate his belief by refusing medical assistance. He did not receive medical treatments, his cancer metastasized, which means that the original growth produced cancer cells that traveled throughout his body, making chemo therapy less applicable and surgery unable to address. Now, one can debate why he was not healed, whether it is a fake healer, of if his faith was not great enough, or some other unknown reason God did not choose to heal him. One can speculate whether his particular case would have been as successfully handled medically as my own. Each case is unique. I do know that his funeral felt sadder than the others I have attended where I usually felt somber, but not that things or God was unfair. I also know from the comments of others in our group that those who were a little skeptical of the things of the Spirit became even more skeptical.

Hello Siloam;

Thank you for sharing your testimony. I'm sorry for your friend and brother in Christ. We can't always understand the outcome of things with God, therefore, skepticism will be a battle in our faith, trust and hope in Him. We can minimize our doubts and timidity with the empowerment in our faith walk.

God bless you, brother, and your family.
 
A few years ago, I became acquainted to a man just after he was diagnosed with cancer. His doctor has referred him to a specialist, but he had not yet had that appointment.

When he did see his specialist, he was prescribed chemo therapy in preparation for surgery. This part is very similar to my experience a few years prior.

The man believed in Christ and attended church regularly. His sister who was also a believer convinced my acquaintance to see a faith healer. That healer told him that he could be healed, but he had to demonstrate his belief by refusing medical assistance. He did not receive medical treatments, his cancer metastasized, which means that the original growth produced cancer cells that traveled throughout his body, making chemo therapy less applicable and surgery unable to address.

Now, one can debate why he was not healed, whether it is a fake healer, of if his faith was not great enough, or some other unknown reason God did not choose to heal him. One can speculate whether his particular case would have been as successfully handled medically as my own. Each case is unique.

I do know that his funeral felt sadder than the others I have attended where I usually felt somber, but not that things or God was unfair.

I also know from the comments of others in our group that those who were a little skeptical of the things of the Spirit became even more skeptical.

I can not tell you the number of people who I have counseled and prayed with over almost the same situation.

Many, many people wanted to turn from God because they blamed the death on themselves because they thought they did not have enough faith or in or one case in particular, they did not give a large enough "Love Offering".

That is the result of such tragic false teaching and it breaks my heart,
 
Thats some crazy beliefs in the US people have.
If christians did that in nz they'd probably get deported. Actually in nz there was a guy called Brian Houston, and he made this kind of prosperity church but it ran into trouble, and so he went to Australia. His father had allegations of child sexual abuse against him but his son failed to report it. Now it is the hugely popular Hillsong church which makes a tonne of money and also confuses a lot of christians because that money doesn't really go to charity but the Houstons families own pockets. It's kinda run like a business.
Now some people get sucked into the hype of all that. They preach a lot of everything's all about you and God wants you to live your best life stuff.
 
I am a firm believer/knower that Our Heavenly Father Our Lord God Almighty can do a lot more than many people who believe in Him think. When I say that Our Heavenly Father can do anything I mean it lot more than many people I have heard/ read from believe. He just wants patience and for you to have no doubt in His Greatness That’s Beyond Measure and sooner or later you will be helped By Him somehow and it might be in ways you never dreamed of.

I’ll finish with the Words of Our Lord Jesus

Mark 9:23

"`If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."

Thanks
 
A lot depends upon how one defines the word "Miracle" and how one interprets events.

If you define miracle as something that is impossible under normal laws of the universe, whether man understands them correctly or not is quite different from something that in highly unlikely to the point that it would statistically happen only once in all time.

I believe the universe was constructed to exhibit God's nature. The laws of nature reflect its maker. To suggest that the Lord cause something contrary to His nature (the understood as well as the unknown laws of nature) is self contradictory.

Instead, the Lord may show mastery of nature (since it is His nature we are talking about) and cause things to happen that we cannot explain.

It is termed "Miracle" when we can not understand and observe how He performed the act.

It is termed "Providence" and manifest Love when we think we know how it was done, even when we cannot reproduce it ourselves.

If you insist on a miracle being something that in other contexts would be called magical, God never does that.
 
I actually witnessed that event.

Funny thing.......Why would a faith healer, Oral Roberts need to build a hospital?????
Why does a faith healer need to wear glasses????????

Here's a rhyme, how much wood could a wood chuck chop, if a wood chuck could chop wood?

Here's another. How much deception can be seen and heard, when there is no word, and nobody is really listening?

How long will we look the other way while people are ravaged by false teaching's promoted by men who spread their own miracle rumors?

Again, please do not misunderstand me, I KNOW that God heals people. ALways has always will.

I have no desire to break the forum's rules so all of the following is documented with names of productions, comments with page numbers.
Moderators, If this is unacceptable, please delate it but..............

E.W. Kenyon in his book the Hidden man on pg.99 wrote, “I know that I am healed because he said that I am healed and it makes no difference what the symptoms may be in my body.” An example would be if they are coughing and you say you have a cough they respond by “no I don’t, I haven’t had a cough in years.” That’s called denial of reality at best, and lying at worst.

This is what was adopted by Kenneth Hagin who writes in his book “In the name of Jesus” on the topic of divine healing and health. “I have so often said, I haven’t had a headache in so many years (45 to be exact) ... Just a few months ago, as I left the office building and started home, suddenly my head started hurting, someone might say, “well, you had a headache. No, I didn’t have one! I don’t have headaches. I haven’t had a headache since August 1934. 45 years have come and gone. And I haven’t had a headache…but if I had a headache, I wouldn’t tell anybody. And if somebody asked me how I was feeling, I would say, I’m fine, thank you.” (In the Name of Jesus, p.44) Notice he says he wouldn't tell you how he really feels because his words override the pain.

Is this honest? Is it true? Is this the way someone is to represent the Lord. Did Jesus teach this nonsense? Of course not. Is this the way Jesus acted in the Bible, or Paul or James?????

E.W. Kenyon studied at the Emerson College of Oratory in Boston which was a hotbed at the time for the emerging New Age thought.
They imagined they have discovered laws of faith, promoting a Christianized version of occultism.

This kind of thinking is what is behind the Star Wars.....May the Force Be With You.

Kenyon had divorced his wife even when he taught that what one speaks they will possess. E.W Kenyon who is certainly the Father of the Word of Faith Movement taught divine healing and that it was always God's will to heal.

But he died in a coma, brought on by a malignant tumor. He died from disease.

Kenneth Hagin states: It is not God's will for any to be sick (Healing the fathers Provision, p.9 ) I believe that it is the plan of our father that no believer should be sick that every believer should live his life to full time and actually wear out if Jesus tarries then fall asleep in Jesus. I state boldly that it is not the will of God my father that we should suffer with cancer and other dread disease and reap pain and anguish. No its God's will that we should be healed.”

While Hagin says he has had no headaches, he had 4 major cardiovascular failures. But this is one of those incidents he's not telling you (Christianity in Crises, pp.237-238; a Different Gospel by D.L McConnell) Hagin suffered 4 separate episodes of heart-crisis in 1939, 1942, 1949, and 1973.
http://www.letusreason.org/Wf25.htm

Funny stuff!!!
Word of faith theology has many problems within it, as how can they claim divine rev elations when they deny essential truths of Christianity?
 
A lot depends upon how one defines the word "Miracle" and how one interprets events.

If you define miracle as something that is impossible under normal laws of the universe, whether man understands them correctly or not is quite different from something that in highly unlikely to the point that it would statistically happen only once in all time.

I believe the universe was constructed to exhibit God's nature. The laws of nature reflect its maker. To suggest that the Lord cause something contrary to His nature (the understood as well as the unknown laws of nature) is self contradictory.

Instead, the Lord may show mastery of nature (since it is His nature we are talking about) and cause things to happen that we cannot explain.

It is termed "Miracle" when we can not understand and observe how He performed the act.

It is termed "Providence" and manifest Love when we think we know how it was done, even when we cannot reproduce it ourselves.

If you insist on a miracle being something that in other contexts would be called magical, God never does that.
Miracles do still happen even today, but by very definition would be few in number!
 
What we "Seek" must not be out of the will of God.

"ALL" faith healers will say when someone is NOT healed that they did not have enough faith. That then places the sickness, pain and eventual upon the INDIVIDUAL which always results in guilt.

Please believe me when I tell you that I have had more people come to me over the last 50 years with that one problem more than anything other problem.

Pastor........"WHY did my little baby die. We prayed just like the Faith Healer told us. We Believe in Jesus. We Love God. We sent the Faith Healer "$500.oo dollars in SEED money and the baby still died".

When that happens to you several times you can not help be a little hostile toward that group of individuals.

There are many stories of healings that can not be explained by medical science and must therefore be attributed to God’s divine healing, however God does not promise to heal everyone because even the Apostle Paul once asked God three times to be healed. And what was God‘s answer in 2 Corth. 12:9....
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me”.

Why didn’t God heal Paul? Surely it was not that he had a lack of faith - was it? Paul and the other apostles were strong believers in miracles and participated in many of them in the New Testament, even raising the dead. WHO had more faith than Paul????.

Allow me to list some of Jesus healings where the person being healed had absolutely no faith requirements at all, even if they could!

  • The officials dying son
  • The ear of the High Priest’s servant (coming to take Jesus prisoner)
  • The madman in the synagogue (can someone not in their right mind have faith?)
  • Woman with the hemorrhage (she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment)
  • The madman and the Gardarene pigs (madman with faith?!)
  • The leper
  • The deaf and dumb man in Decapolis (how could he tell anyone about his faith?)
  • The epileptic boy (impossible to express faith in seizure’s is it not?)
  • The raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead (hard to have faith if your dead),
But neither Jesus nor the apostles ever did these healings in front of large gatherings or promoted their powers of healing before others and then took up a "Love Offering"!
Check the Christians after the Apostolic Age , as all of them agreed that the healings and miracles ans so called sign gifts passed away with passing of the Apostles!
 
Check the Christians after the Apostolic Age , as all of them agreed that the healings and miracles ans so called sign gifts passed away with passing of the Apostles!

Yes sir, that is correct.

And here is another little fact......for those today who think that the office of Apostle is valid today..........
There is NOT ONE single Scripture in which "any" apostle lays down a line or command or even a suggestion for Succession.

The office of apostle was only avavailabe for MEN who had..........
They needed to have been with Jesus during the whole three years that Jesus was among them.
They needed to be an eyewitness of Jesus’ baptism when the Heavenly Father validated Jesus’ person and work.
They needed to have heard Jesus’ life-changing teachings and been present to see His healings and other miracles.
They needed to have witnessed Jesus sacrifice Himself on the cross and to have seen Jesus walk, talk, and eat among the disciples again after His resurrection.

Acts 1:21-22.................gives those qualifications---
"So one of the men who have accompanied us during tall the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”

Since that is not possible to take place today....Biblically then there can not be an Apostle today.

The "Sign Gifts" were given only to the 12 so that they could write the New Test. and spread the gosple to all the world in so doing.
Their abilities validated their message and when the New Test. was completed, there was then no need for the office to continue as the "Perfect" in
1 Corinthians 13:10 had come.
 
Yes sir, that is correct.

And here is another little fact......for those today who think that the office of Apostle is valid today..........
There is NOT ONE single Scripture in which "any" apostle lays down a line or command or even a suggestion for Succession.

The office of apostle was only avavailabe for MEN who had..........
They needed to have been with Jesus during the whole three years that Jesus was among them.
They needed to be an eyewitness of Jesus’ baptism when the Heavenly Father validated Jesus’ person and work.
They needed to have heard Jesus’ life-changing teachings and been present to see His healings and other miracles.
They needed to have witnessed Jesus sacrifice Himself on the cross and to have seen Jesus walk, talk, and eat among the disciples again after His resurrection.

Acts 1:21-22.................gives those qualifications---
"So one of the men who have accompanied us during tall the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”

Since that is not possible to take place today....Biblically then there can not be an Apostle today.

The "Sign Gifts" were given only to the 12 so that they could write the New Test. and spread the gosple to all the world in so doing.
Their abilities validated their message and when the New Test. was completed, there was then no need for the office to continue as the "Perfect" in
1 Corinthians 13:10 had come.
Not to not-pick but a significant exception to the must have traveled with Jesus rule is the conversion of Saul to Paul in Acts ch 9.

Paul did have to convince the believers of the time and often explicitly claimed the title of apostle.

Today, some who do not really claim succession will use apostle as an honorific to refer to an effective leader. This can be confusing when other denominations claim much for passing on the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands.

No one should really care what some person calling himself Siloam thinks, but my view is that true Apostleship was a special office to establish fundamental teachings and 'kick-start' the body of believers.
 
Some churches claim they are 'apostolic' which is very confusing for many.
Also catholics say that Apostle Peter founded their church.

I don't try and argue for or against, but just stick to what the Bible says and from what I know and have experienced. There's no need to PROVE God if you KNOW God.
 
Not to not-pick but a significant exception to the must have traveled with Jesus rule is the conversion of Saul to Paul in Acts ch 9.

Paul did have to convince the believers of the time and often explicitly claimed the title of apostle.

Today, some who do not really claim succession will use apostle as an honorific to refer to an effective leader. This can be confusing when other denominations claim much for passing on the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands.

No one should really care what some person calling himself Siloam thinks, but my view is that true Apostleship was a special office to establish fundamental teachings and 'kick-start' the body of believers.

I have head that same conversation and thought as well. After much prayer and study and I know you realize this fact, that while traveling to Damascus three years after Jesus was resurrected, he was was miraculously confronted by the Lord Himself and brought to repentance . While he stayed in Damascus, Ananias received a vision that revealed why Saul was called and chosen to ultimately take on a special responsiblity.

IMO, there is enough Biblical evidence exists that shows, and reaffirms, Paul's calling as being unique.

In Acts 13:2 the church in Syrian Antioch is told by God to "separate both Barnabus and Saul to Me for the work to which I have called them" .

According to the Scriptures, only those who were personally chosen by Christ could qualify to serve as apostles and in that sense Paul does qualify as a "Called Apostle" by the Lord Jesus and IMO for a specific reason. He.....Paul was the one Apostle who opened the door of the "Church" for the Gentiles.

Paul was chosen by Christ to explain the "Mystery" of the church that up until then was not known.

But that is just my opinion.
 
One example I can think of is that Paul being a missionary and any one of us being called a missionary or evangelist is still the same calling, but the thing was Paul was the FIRST one to go to the Gentiles. We just carry on his work, which is why the church is built on the FOUNDATION of apostles and the prophets.

I think the deal is with the apostles that they needed to have seen and witnessed the risen Christ.

I think also depending on your definition, an apostle is the first person to evangelise anywhere. That's why in nz there's Samuel Marsden, who was apostle to New Zealand, or in Ireland, Saint Patrick, apostle to the Irish.

It's a bit rich to assume that people everywhere have already heard of the gospel, there will always be places where it's not been heard or the Bible hasn't been translated into the language yet. There will still be communities that have been isolated and haven't received the gospel at all - YET.
 
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