Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

We had a case in this state several years ago. Some friends of ours had gone to visit relatives for Thanksgiving and their son (I think he was around 12) was on the couch sick. These folks went to a UPC church here in Ohio. The pastor was a District Presbyter and preached against going to doctors or using medicine. When our friends returned at Christmas time for another visit, the boy was still on the couch sick. Someone reported it and local officials came in and charged the parents with some crime.

Cases like this have some difficulties for both sides. On one hand parental care is usurped and religious freedom is broken and on the other hand the child's welfare is at stake. When a parent prays and fasts for his/her children and holds out from taking them to the doctor or giving medicine it is not easy. One problem in cases like this is that the parent may not really want to do that but feels pressure from the leadership and the saints in the local church to remain faithful. Then, if/when healing does not come the parents can be branded as weak in faith or that they must have some kind of failure or sin and God is withholding His healing to bring correction and growth. It's bad either way. Also, it brings a reproach with the neighbors.

Well, the parents were taken to court. The Pastor was asked but refused to testify on their behalf. This pastor had a policy that he would not even go into a hospital to pray for anyone.

When the judge asked the mother why she would not take her child to the doctor all she could do was say, "I did take my child to a doctor. I took him to Jesus the Great Physician." Well, it's been several years since this case and I don't remember how it turned out. The child survived and I think was returned to his parents in time.

A young couple from that same church moved to our town some time after that. They had a small baby. One day my wife was babysitting him and when she changed his diaper she was shocked at what she saw. His scrotum was huge from a hernia. When she asked the mother about it she got the standard answer that they were trusting the Lord for their baby's healing and they did not go to doctors. The couple soon moved back to the rural area where they had come from so I don't know how the child turned out but that was something that could have been corrected by surgery but they wouldn't (because of personal faith or conviction) or couldn't (because of how it would look to the pastor and church members) do it. One time the mother of that little boy said to us, "Bro. R.... hasn't been to a doctor in years." Some times I can be kinda smart mouthed (some of you may have noticed that on this forum) and I asked, "Well, where did he get his glasses then?" The mother tried to assure me that that was different but could not explain how.

Here in Ohio we have had several cases we know of personally in UPC and ALJC churches where people would not or could not use doctors and medicine.One time we saw a woman in tears as she explained to her pastor how that when she was involved in a car accident and the police and ambulance came she was powerless to stop her mother (or whoever it was) from going to the hospital because the ambulance crew and police insisted on it and over rode her objections. In this same church when the tornado of 1974 hit our area, they proudly played a tape of the pastor's wife screaming as they pulled pieces of glass from her body instead of letting her seek medical attention. I've also preached in one of the churches here where the women do not go to a doctor or hospital to have babies but a local midwife takes care of them. These are good people. I am not criticizing them. I just don't see some of these things the way they do.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Wow, that is some sad stories Bro. Sam.

Think I will now go and thank God my UPC church does not believe this way. My pastor has a heart condition and goes to the doctor regularly.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

These examples are not faith based, IMO. My Mother was a woman of great faith, but she had no problem with going to a hospital or doctor in an emergency situation.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

thank you for pointing that out.

that is what I was trying to show in my post about the words of Jesus, the words from Proverbs, and the words from Ecclesiasticus capter 38.

In Isaiah chapter 38, King Hezekiah was told by the prophet Isaiah, "Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die and not live." The king turned his face to the wall and cried out to the Lord with weeping. He claimed the promise of God about God's covenant of healing found in Exodus 15:22-26. Some think he may have even prayed in tongues because of the wording of verse 14 in Isaiah 38. God spoke to Isaiah and told him to go back in there and give Hezekiah the good news that He had heard him and was going to heal him and add 15 years to his life. Isaiah delivered the message of healing and then told him to follow a home type medical procedure of putting on a poultice. I see no conflict between calling on God for healing according to His Word, receiving the anointing of oil and laying on of hands, and also using whatever medical means are available.

Over the years I have made lots of hospital calls. In some cases the nurses will join hands with us around the bed of a patient and pray. I tell them that we are all on God's healing team together and we just play different roles in the healing ministry.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

:thumbsup

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

When my Dad was about 12 years old, he and his younger brother both had double pneumonia. Their mother (my grandmother) believed in prayer but she also called the doctor. The doctor did what he could but did not believe the boys would live through the night. Their mother stayed up all night praying. One of those boys (my Dad) lived to age 80, his brother recently passed away at age 92.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

No, just commenting on the thread, I agree with your comments.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

I don't see these as Faith Healing cases... they are "perversion of the gospel cases".

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Yup. I've been waiting for someone to bring up
that these parents have made themselves brothers
to one who would commit suicide?

...Can't find it now, just read it like yesterday;
paraphrased "One who refuses a physician if
they need one is a brother to him who commits suicide."

Possibly a scholar may help me here, or I'll keep looking.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

I believe that many times healing is denied because of rejected truth. God is not obligated to hear the prayers of anyone but His own. When He does it is only from His great mercy. I am not saying that such is the case here, but God does not indulge us in foolishness. Further, just because one rejects medical treatment does not a suicide make.