Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

I guess the bright side of these stories is that there are still few enough that when they do happen, they still make the national news.



Trial opens for faith-healing couple accused of murder in son's burst appendix death

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/10...#ixzz1uTgngRHH

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

It is great to believe God for healing, it is greater to use the resources (doctors, medicine, and hospitals) that he has given man for relieving sickness and pain, as we pray and trust God with our lives. Otherwise, our "faith" can become child abuse, and that my friend, is in violation of Jesus own words, concerning children.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Or at least taken him to an urgent care, anywhere.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Jesus said that a sick person needs a doctor in Matthew 9:12

Solomon said that medicine doeth good in Proverbs 17:22

Proverbs 18:9 says: “He who does not use his endeavors to heal himself is brother to him who commits suicide.”


If you are Roman Catholic or have an old King James Bible, or a 1611 King James Bible, or a Jerusalem Bible, or a New English Bible or a LXX Bible or a NRSV Bible, you have a book in the Old Testament called Sirach or Ecclesiasticus or Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach.Below are some verses from chapter 38 of that book. We have read these verses to people (Roman Catholic) in hospitals or in their homes when we pray for them.

The Jews did not consider the apocriyphal books to be "Scripture" but could be used for wisdom and teaching and are found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. If you are a "1611 KJV only" person you can read and apply the apocryphal books right along with the rest of that version.


1 Honour physicians for their services,
for the Lord created them;
2 for their gift of healing comes from the Most High,
and they are rewarded by the king.
3 The skill of physicians makes them distinguished,
and in the presence of the great they are admired.
4The Lord created medicines out of the earth,
and the sensible will not despise them.
5 Was not water made sweet with a tree
in order that its power might be known?
6 And he gave skill to human beings
that he might be glorified in his marvellous works.
7 By them the physician heals and takes away pain;
8 the pharmacist makes a mixture from them.
God’s works will never be finished;
and from him health spreads over all the earth.
9 My child, when you are ill, do not delay,
but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you.
10 Give up your faults and direct your hands rightly,
and cleanse your heart from all sin.
11 Offer a sweet-smelling sacrifice, and a memorial portion of choice flour,
and pour oil on your offering, as much as you can afford.
12 Then give the physician his place, for the Lord created him;
do not let him leave you, for you need him.
13 There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians,
14 for they too pray to the Lord
that he will grant them success in diagnosis
and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.
15 A man sins in the eyes of his Maker
if he defies the physician.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Ya, the prosecutor is going for broke with that charge. As insanely angry as these cases make me, any semi-intelligent juror would/should realize that the parents didn't maliciously murder their kid.

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, 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.
 

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.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Hmm, as long as no one dies, I agree with you.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Proverbs 18:9 Amplified

"He who is loose and slack in his work is brother to him who is a destroyer and [a]he who does not use his endeavors to heal himself is brother to him who commits suicide."

"Endeavors" here being translated "go to the Doctor," I guess. "Doing what might be considered normal in the circumstances." See commentaries.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

I've wondered if healing is not manifest maybe because
it just isn't God's will, in many cases? What do you think?
In other words, people die, every day, and it is just your time to die?

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

The word 'waster' in that passage in the KJV means 'destroyer'. Thus it could read, the lazy is brother to the destroyer. This has nothing to do with the topic under discussion, and the Amplified is not a word for word translation, and therefore is not always reliable.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

This can happen as well. That is not for me to know or judge for certain. However, I have no issue with those who choose to not visit the physician but choose to rely on God for their healing. I do not believe that they should be prosecuted for a crime. This was the decision of the family. When the government decided that we could be forced into treating family members, they overstepped their authority. Sadly we have been in this position for too many years.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Ya, I have to agree with you; after all, even if
you're deathly ill, and say, refuse to see a Doctor,
you aren't going to die unless it's God's will, right?

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

Your sounding like Timmy now. :)

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

I believe in SOME cases they should be. It is one thing if an adult makes a decision not to seek medical attention because of faith issues but it is quite another for an adult to withhold treatment (such as an insulin shot) from a kid who has no say in the matter.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

But seems to agree with most of us, @
"Believe and understand that healings
occur by faith; but if you need a Dr go see a Dr?"

Something this illuminates, to me,
is just what our def of "faith" is here;
to us, it's an effort we make with our...intellect?
when "faith" is more reflected in the actions
that led up to needing the healing in the first place.

Maybe not always? A cigarette smoker believing for
a cure for lung cancer being the obvious, but there are
many similar ways to manifest what you don't want
whose connections are not as clear, imo.

Eat CAFO meat, deny yourself a vital
couple nutrients (Omega3 and D),
entertain the host of ills, while
"believing" for their cure?

A list of a hundred would be cool : )

2) ...

(the more...obscure the better?)

oh, wrong thread...

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

I am a firm believer in divine healing.......but I have said for years there is a fine line between stupidity and faith. God gets NO glory when someone dies/suffers needlessly when medical options that can mend and stop the suffering are available. It was God who gave men the intelligence and the know how to develop treatments for illness and we make a mockery of God and the church when we refuse basic help....imho

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

I will not claim to know the will of God with any certainty in that issue, unless God has spoken to me about it directly. Therefore I will not engage myself in a hypothetical situation. However, it is likely to be so.



If they have been to the doctor, and thereby know that the child is in need of insulin, and they withold such treatment, then they should be prosecuted. However, if they know that their child is ill, but do not choose to seek the care of a doctor, then they should not be prosecuted.

Re: Another Example of Faith Healing.
 

RW, I will admit that I do not like the thought of parents permitting their children to die from a lack of treatment, however, I like the thought of the government forcing people to be treated even less.