"In 1932 a team of us students were trekking round England. The rule of the trek was that we were not to sleep in beds but on schoolroom floors or the sod of earth. We were not to preach in churches but witness in the open air. Ten of us were in a team and each pulled a rope of a covered cart in which we kept our blankets, kits and supplies. We carried no personal finances. Gifts were channeled into the trek fund. The three months trek was a thousand miles.
We came one day into Eli in Cambridgeshire. A telegram was handed to me saying my sister Christina was desperately ill with meningitis on the brain and was not expected to recover. My mother was sick at home. Father was travelling in Scotland. The request was that I go immediately to Birmingham were my sister was on the hospital staff as a nurse.
"Is there something wrong?" I was standing in the street reading the telegram, and the enquirer was a lady unknown to me. I told her the contents of the message.
"Would you like to go to Birmingham? If so, I will send my chauffeur with the car to take you to the station. And, if I may, I would like to purchase your ticket."
I was soon on my way-with a one-way ticket and not a penny in my pocket. While praying on the train, the Lord gave me the promise of James 5:14 in a very living way. It was something entirely new to me, but it was impossible to doubt-the promise was healing.
Arriving at the hospital at midnight, I was given permission to see my sister, but at the door of the ward I met the nurse in charge.
"Have you ever seen a miracle of healing, nurse?" I asked.
She looked aghast.
"Neither have I," said I. "But we are going to see one."
I recounted the Lord's certain promise on the train.
Suddenly she burst into tears.
"Why the tears, nurse?" I gently enquired.
"Oh, I used to be a happy Christian, but after losing two brothers in accidental death, sorrow seems to have robbed me of faith."
We knelt in prayer, and when we arose the radiance of things recovered was shining in her eyes.
My sister was saved and healed immediately and most miraculously on the day she was supposed to die.
"I don't understand it," said the lady doctor next morning. "I really don't."
When I explained it, she could not but believe that it was indeed the gracious work of God. She asked me about my work, pointing to my khaki shorts and shirt-the trek outfit.
"And where will the team be going now?"
"They're moving to London, doctor, and I shall join them in a day or two."
"Oh, will you meet them there? I must see when there is a train for you. I have a schedule in my room. Wait a moment!"
Off she ran and on returning brought a gift-the fare to London, where I rejoined the team. Thus did the Lord look after the incidental expense of the journey, too.
In later years there was another occasion when the Lord used me in that way-to the Nosu evangelist, Chang Chih Cheng. Twice, too, I myself have been healed by the Lord-once when poisoned.
But this I must add by way of warning. These were special circumstances and with special promises attached and given to me by the Holy Spirit of God-promises so certain as to put the issue beyond doubt. Never again have I been used in this way and never again have I been healed in this way. I believe these occasions to be an honour and happiness which is not common for God to bestow in this age, and the Lord deeply impressed upon me that this was not something that I had to preach and practice. We are, I am sure, to be careful to preach to the general public what the Lord has commissioned us to preach-the Gospel of His grace. The essential elements of this Gospel are the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation to God, acceptance with God, peace with God, the new birth, and the hope of glory. We are told in God's holy Word that whosoever believes that Gospel "shall be saved." Millions have found it to be so. On the other hand, thousands upon thousands, have believed what faith healers preach and have sincerely believed for healing only to find that they have not been healed. The reason is that healing is not part of the Gospel. There is no promise of God given for healing through believing.
There is a present day unusual surge of interest in healing. We cannot limit God and He does heal when it is His sovereign will to do so. There is, however, a big difference between God's healings in Scripture and the "faith" healings which certain men want people to claim. The Scriptural healings were immediate (Matt. 8:3; Acts 3:6-7); complete (Matt. 6:56; 12:13); comprehensive, embracing all sorts and forms of people (Luke 7:21; Matt. 12:15); permanent-no relapses. Many were healed without mention of faith. Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:25-30), Trophimus (II Tim 4:20), Timothy (1 Tim. 5:23), and even the apostle Paul himself (Gal. 4:13) were all sick, nor could faith heal them, and certainly these chosen ones were not without faith." ~
Dan Smith, from Pilgrim of the Heavenly Way (available from Granted Ministries).
But, says one, "That dreadful 'but'! Why must there be such a difference?" The answer is, Because there always was a difference. The wheat was sown by the Son of man: the false wheat was sown by the enemy. There was always a difference in character:—the wheat was good, the tares were evil. This difference did not appear at first, but it became more and more apparent as the wheat ripened, and as the tares ripened too. They were totally different plants; and so a regenerate person and an unregenerate person are altogether different beings. I have heard an unregenerate man say that he is quite as good as the godly man; but in so boasting he betrayed his pride. Surely there is as great a difference in God's sight between the unsaved and the believer as between darkness and the light, or between the dead and the living. There is in the one a life which there is not in the other, and the difference is vital and radical. Oh, that you may never trifle with this essential matter, but be really the wheat of the Lord! It is vain to have the name of wheat, we must have the nature of wheat. God will not be mocked: he will not be pleased by our calling ourselves Christians while we are not so. Be not satisfied with church membership; but seek after membership with Christ. Do not talk about faith, but exercise it. Do not boast of experience, but possess it. Be not like the wheat, but be the wheat. No shams and imitations will stand in the last great day: that terrible "but" will roll as a sea of fire between the true and the false. Oh Holy Spirit! Let each of us be found transformed by thy power.
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