HEALING FAITH
APRIL, 1881

By A. P. Moore

The subject of healing of disease and bodily infirmities in answer to “the prayer of faith,” is being revived and agitated in all the land, and it is so plainly demonstrated by living witnesses who have been healed without the use of medicine, and when medical skill has been exhausted, that the candid must confess that it is of God.

It is true that all revivals of any of God’s precious though long-neglected truths, have met with the most bitter persecution and persistent opposition even from professed Christians and ministers of the Gospel, but truth is of God, and must prevail in spite of all opposing forces. Those who oppose the healing of the sick in answer to “the prayer of faith,” do so on the assumption that “the age of miracles is past,” and was confined to the Apostolic age.

But where in the Bible are we taught this? Is it a greater miracle to heal the sick than to convert a sinner? See a person with murder in his heart, a terror to his family and to all who know him, but let that person get converted by the Spirit of God, and see the great change wrought in him. He becomes peaceful and serene, gentle, loving and kind; his sin is taken away and the whole moral nature changed. He is a new man in Christ Jesus. Truly it is not in the power of man to effect this change in himself. It is a miracle of God for such a heart to be changed.

No Christian will claim for a moment that we are past the age of conversions. But it is by the same power and through the same agency, that the sick are restored to health.
It is in answer to believing prayer that the sinner is accepted, forgiven, renewed. The promise of Jesus is, “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.”

Let us examine the passage in Jas. 5:14, 15, and see if physical healing does not run parallel with the forgiveness of sin. “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him.”

The epistle of James is addressed to those “which are scattered abroad,” and the blessed promises therein were extended to all. Healing faith is the same as faith in any portion of God’s Word. It is simply to believe in and rest on the specific promise of healing, just as we come to God by Christ Jesus and rest on His promise of forgiveness and acceptance. It is no mysterious emotion; it is simply to believe that God’s promise is for you, as well as for the thousands throughout the land who can to-day testify to having received this healing.

It is not fanaticism to take a plainly pointed out means for obtaining the blessing of health. It is the height of folly not to take it. “The prayer of faith shall save the sick.” Believe this: God has declared it. Honor Him by believing it. Do not think that you can better glorify God by doubting his Word or His power and continuing to suffer, than by believing His promise, and receiving health. No disease is too great to baffle the skill of the “Great Physician.” Let us claim the blessing so freely offered, and then confess to the glory of God the work which He has wrought in us.

The following lines from the pen of Charlotte Murray so fully express our feelings that we quote them here:

“He healed them all – the blind, the lame, the palsied,
The sick in body and the weak in mind;
Whoever came, no matter how afflicted,
Were sure a sovereign remedy to find.
His word gave health, His touch restored the vigor
To every weary, pain-exhausted frame;
And all He asked before He gave the blessing
Was simple faith in Him from those who came.

And is our Lord, the kind, the good, the tender,
Less loving now than in those days of old?
Or is it that our faith is growing feeble,
And Christian energy is waxing cold?
Why do we not with equal expectation,
Now bring our sick ones to the Lord in prayer.
Right through the throng of unbelieving scruples,
Up to His very side and leave them there?
He never health refused in by-gone ages.
Nor feared to take the “chastisement” away;
Then why not ask it now instead of praying
For patience to endure from day to day?