March 27, 2012
Chapter 5
It Takes Persistence When One Begins Praying for the Sick
Another point that those in the healing ministry wrote about had to do with persistence. They expressed the need to keep praying for the sick even if you don’t see a lot of results at first. From their experience, there is a “learning curve,” or at least a “persistence curve,” when people incorporate healing as part of their ministry. If you feel called to a healing ministry, a key component is to keep taking advantage of opportunities that come up to pray for people, even if you don’t have much success in the beginning.
Curry Blake says:
When you start to push a car, when you first start, there’s a whole lot of effort with very little result. But once you get it rolling, it will gain speed and it actually gets easier, or it feels easier anyway, to actually keep the car moving or even to gain speed once you get it rolling. That’s what it is. See, the enemy does not want you to get those first few battles. He doesn’t want you to get those first few victories, because once you get those first few victories, even if you have defeats after that, you’ll keep going. But if he can keep you from getting the first few victories, then there will always be that little doubt in your mind of, “Is this for me? Is this right? Is this for today?”[1]
So you may start with absolutely no results, but it is the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. If you do not grow weary in well-doing, you shall reap in due season. So that means, there can be a time when you don’t really see the result. So whenever you start to do this, you have to realize that as you start out in this, it may start small.[2]
When telling the story of how he started in his healing ministry, John Decker said:
It was there [in a healing meeting in Seattle] I began praying with conviction for the sick. I did not see too much happen, but I continued to minister to the sick like the other men I had been watching the past months.[3]
Start with something easy. In learning how to heal the sick, we sometimes have to start with something that does not seem to require much faith. Headaches, high fevers, pains in the neck, or sore backs may be easier to tackle than praying for someone dying of terminal cancer. All healing is easy for God. However, for the Christian who has never prayed for the sick, start with something similar to the next passage.
When Jesus entered Peter’s house, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve Him (Matthew 8:14–15 ESV). [4]
Not All Healings Are Instant
Another point of agreement among those who minister healing is that not all healings are instantaneous healings. Sometimes healings happen immediately; sometimes it’s a process, a progressive healing that takes time.
Curry Blake says:
All of Jesus’ healings weren’t instant. Over and over again, it says, “the child began to amend from that hour.” So healing can be a process.
There are some diseases that we see [healed] instantly more than others. There are some that we see progressive more than others. I don’t like progressive, nobody does. I will take it any way I can get it, but as we say in Texas, “If I have my druthers,” I’d rather not have it progressive. I would rather have it instant.
We saw a young boy who had Down Syndrome. He had all the characteristics of Down Syndrome, and over a period of 1½ to 2 years, even the structure of his head changed, to where now you look at him and you can’t tell he ever had Down Syndrome. He went from a 5-year-old mentality up to his rightful age.[5]
John Decker writes:
I teamed up with Ken and began ministering with him. We would pray for anyone who needed healing. Pains were leaving people as we prayed. Some people never received anything, others did. Headaches would leave, casts from broken bones would come off early, sore backs would become normal, and sinuses would clear up. Some of the healings would take a while. Other healings were instant.[6]
Dunkerley states:
Nor were all of Jesus’ healings instantaneous: The blind man at Bethsaida was first healed partially, later completely.[7] The timeframe was short but not instantaneous. The lepers in Luke 17:11–19 were not healed until after they left the presence of Jesus.[8] The man in John 9:6–7 was blind when he left Jesus’ presence.[9] He was not healed until after he washed.
What, based on the experience and teaching of Jesus Himself, should we expect and teach with regard to healing evangelism? First, we should not assume that every prayer will lead to instant success, nor should we teach that everyone will be healed instantly who truly believes.[10]
More Than One Method
One thing I was glad to see among the healing evangelists was that while they all use somewhat different methods and even believe some different things regarding healing, they make a point of not being dogmatic regarding how healing is done, what methods are used. They realize that Christians with fruitful healing ministries use different methods and have good results, which shows that the promises regarding healing in the Bible are the standard, and yet the methods used can be different.
This is important, as some of the healers vary quite a bit from one another in belief and practice. In his videos and audios, Curry Blake often makes a point of saying that you don’t need to do this or that, referring to some of the methods others use, but even he makes the point that the actual methods used aren’t the most important thing and that people shouldn’t get dogmatic about it. He says:
People ask me, “What’s the best method for healing or best method for this or that?” Now, it’s very simple. The method that you believe in is the method that will work for you. There’s no one method that Jesus gave. The closest He gave was in Mark 16 where He said, “Lay hands on the sick and they will recover.” That’s the standard.[11]
The message [the Bible] is sacred; our methods are not. Our methods change with the generations. That’s why our music changes; that’s a method. The way you do certain things will change, but the message has to be sacred, it has to be kept pure.[12]
What I’m trying to get you to do first is to understand the principles of it, so that when I teach you the specifics and the methods, you won’t get hung up on the method and you’ll realize that the method I show you is not the end-all method. It’s a method to get you started.[13]
When we will start to minister I will take you through several different ways to pray for people and you will know what to do. So we will be specific. Now just don’t take that for a formula and think that you have to mimic word for word every time. But essentially it comes down to this: Tell the spirit, the sickness, or the body what you want it to do. That’s it.[14]
John and Sonja Decker make the point about different methods in this way:
Jesus grants more grace toward us than we do to each other. Just because a minister displays an unusual style in healing the sick, we need not discount him because he is unorthodox. Jesus reminds us to examine the fruit of their presentation. Are people genuinely healed? Do they give God all the credit? Are people being saved? We shall know them by their fruit. Remain on the side of Jesus by following His examples from the written Word.[15]
Don Dunkerley, who is from a Presbyterian background, wrote about his previous skepticism toward some with evangelical healing ministries, especially flamboyant ones who use certain gifts of the Spirit in their ministries, such as the word of knowledge. He gives three stories in his book about mass evangelism and healing that helped him overcome some of his skepticism. He wrote about a Ugandan preacher who ministered healing and who had more faith in divine intervention and miracles than Dunkerley did. Upon getting to know the man and seeing his sincerity in preaching the Gospel and his love for souls, he realized that there are those with large healing ministries who use rather flamboyant methods who truly are concerned with salvation of souls and not just healing of bodies, or in promoting themselves.
He tells another story about working with Richard Roberts, the son of Oral Roberts, a famous Pentecostal healing evangelist. It was at an interdenominational crusade with many different churches working together. He was one of the few non-Pentecostals on the team and his job was teaching training seminars for pastors. He wrote the following regarding the nightly evangelistic rallies:
[During the rallies] I had no function except to sit on the platform—which gave me an opportunity to observe carefully. I also had the opportunity to observe the team members behind the scenes, including at dinner after the crusade each night in the dining room of our hotel.
One evening a team member from ORU [Oral Roberts University] had a word of knowledge describing a woman who was being healed at that moment. The team member pointed to the section of the crusade grounds where she was seated. He mentioned her age and described the illness from which she was being healed. Almost immediately a woman from where he had pointed came to the platform and said she was the person. Her age, she said, had been given exactly. She indeed had the very illness he had described, but could feel that she had been immediately healed.
A few years before, if I had seen such a thing on TV or even from the audience, I would have been sure the woman was a “plant.” But at dinner that evening after the service there was amazement and rejoicing over the precise accuracy of the word of knowledge. Clearly if the woman was a plant, it was unknown to any of the team members, including Richard himself.
I am sure it was a miracle. Everything I saw and heard during that week seemed genuine.[16]
Dunkerley watched people get saved and healed by those using methods which he didn’t employ and which he, in times past, considered fake. The method was different but the results were the same, because those preaching and praying for the sick applied God’s Word, were sincere, and were motivated by the love of God to lead others to salvation.
Different people use different methods in healing ministries. Some put emphasis on using different gifts of the Holy Spirit; others on fasting and praying beforehand; some insist on anointing with oil; others don’t do any of these things. Yet there are successful healing ministries using all of these methods and techniques.
The simple fact of the matter is that God heals. He uses Christians who have the faith to pray for others as a conduit of His healing power. The actual methods that are used, the technicalities and details, are secondary to the fact that He wants to show His power, love, and compassion to others through healing them and bringing them to Him. I believe He is looking for those who will take up the challenge to use healing as part of their witnessing ministry.
(Next in this series: Where Healing Evangelists Disagree)
[1] DHT Audio 8.
[2] DHT Video 1.
[3] DWJD 3.
[4] DWJD 3.
[5] DHT Video 9.
[6] DWJD 3.
[7] And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to Him a blind man and begged Him to touch him. And He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when He had spit on his eyes and laid His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see men, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid His hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And He sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village” (Mark 8:22–26 ESV).
[8] On the way to Jerusalem He was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered a village, He was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When He saw them He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving Him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” (Luke 17:11–18 ESV).
[9] Having said these things, He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then He anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing (John 9:6–7 ESV).
[10] HE 52, 54.
[11] DHT Audio 11.
[12] DHT Audio 11.
[13] DHT Audio 11.
[14] DHT Audio 12.
[15] DWJD 3.
[16] HE 191.
Copyright © 2012 The Family International.
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