The Apostle of Divine Healing In 1860, when John Alexander was thirteen, he moved with his parents to Australia and for the next seven years was secularly employed. His industry and acumen resulted in rapid advancement so that before he was twenty-one he was holding a high position with a large salary in a fine firm which annually did a business of more than two million dollars. During these years he had his first experience with divine healing when in answer to prayer he was delivered from chronic dyspepsia. In spite of the promising business career which lay before him, however, he knew that he had been called of God to be a helper of men. To further prepare himself for his life work he returned to Scotland in1868 in the University of Edinburgh. Here he studied under some of the leading scholars of the day and came in contact with the godly divines of Scotland. At the same time he engaged in practical gospel work especially in the Edinburgh infirmary where he was regarded as a lay chaplain. Desirous to gain as great a fund of knowledge in every field possible, he took the opportunity to attend the lectures and the clinics of the famous surgeons there, especially Sir James Simpson. In addition he was permitted to witness many operations and to observe their too-often tragic results. He heard the doctors acknowledge among themselves that often they were really guessing, blindly groping in the dark, in their well-meant efforts to help mankind. The things he saw and heard at this time had a profound effect on the young theological student. They furnished him not only with an acquaintance with anatomy and disease that was much greater than that of the average minister but also a firsthand knowledge of the beliefs and practices of a number of the best surgeons of the day, including their many wrong diagnoses and unfortunate mistakes. This information was to be a powerfully sharp sword in the hand of this champion of divine healing in later years, giving him additional boldness in quoting the Word of God: “Cursed be the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm” (Jer. 17: 5). “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man” (Ps. 118: 8). After two years in Edinburgh, reverses in family finances resulted in his father’s cabling him to return home at once. This ended his formal education. Back in Australia he engaged in business for the next two years while studying on the side and preaching as opportunity afforded. In 1872 he was ordained to the ministry of the Congregational Church and had pastorates successively in Alma, Sydney, and Newton. “The latter position was one of great influence, being at that time the collegiate church of the Congregational denomination, and so he had the duty of ministering to the resident professors and students preparing for the Congregational ministry.” Throughout these years he became increasingly impressed with the teaching of the Word of God that “Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses” (Matt. 8: 17). This led to hours of diligent and prayerful study of the Gospels in particular, resulting in a deepening conviction that Jesus Christ is the same today as yesterday. Then occurred the event which crystallized his convictions and confirmed his beliefs, a story best told in his own graphic words: Early in 1876, one noontide, I sat inmy study in the parsonage of the Congregational Church, at Newtown, a suburb of the beautiful city of Sydney, Australia. My heart was veryheavy, for I had been visiting the sick and dying beds of more than thirty of my flock, and I had cast the dust to its kindred dust into more than forty graves within a few weeks. Where, oh where was He who used to heal His suffering children? No prayer for healing seemed to reach His ear, and yet I knew His hand had not been shortened. Still it did not save the death even those for whom there was so much in life to live for God and others. Strong men, fathers, good citizens, and more than all, true, faithful Christians sickened with a putrid fever, suffered nameless agonies, passed into delirium, sometimes with convulsions, and then died. And oh, what aching voids were left in many widowed, orphaned heart. Then there were many homes where, one by one, the little children, the youths and the maidens were stricken, and, after hard struggling with foul disease, they, too, lay cold and dead. It seemed sometimes as if I could almost hear the triumphant mockery of fiends ringing in my ears whilst I spoke to the bereaved ones the words of Christian hope and consolation. Disease, the foul offspring of its father, Satan, and its mother, Sin, was defiling and destroying the earthly temples of God’s children, and there was no deliverer. And there I sat with sorrow-bowed headfor my afflicted people, until the bitter tears came to relieve my burning heart. Then I prayed for some message, and oh, how I longed to hear some words from Him who wept and sorrowed for the suffering long ago, the Man of Sorrows and of Sympathies. And the words of the Holy Ghost inspiredin Acts 10: 38 stood before me all radiant with light, revealing Satan as the defiler and Christ as the Healer. My tears were wiped away, my heart was strong, I saw the way of healing, and the door thereto was opened wide, and so I said, “God, help me now to preach that word to all the dying ‘round, and tell them how ‘tis Satan still defiles, and Jesus still delivers, for ‘He is just the same today.’’’ A loud ring and several loud raps at the outer door, a rush of feet, and then at my door two panting messengers who said, ‘Oh, come at once, Mary is dying come and pray.” With just such a feeling as a shepherd has who hears that his sheep are being torn from the fold by a cruel wolf, I rushed from my house, ran hatless down the street, and entered the room of the dying maiden. There she lay groaning, grinding her teeth in the agony of the conflict with the destroyer, the white froth, mingled with her blood, oozing from her pain-distorted mouth. I looked at her and then my anger burned. “Oh,” I thought, “for some sharp sword ofheavenly temper keen to slay this cruel foe who is strangling that lovelymaiden like an invisible serpent, tightening his deadly coils for a final victory.” In a strange way it came to pass I found the sword I needed was in my hands, and in my hand I hold it still, and never will I lay it down. The doctor, a good Christian man, was quietly walking up and down the room, sharing the mother’s pain and grief. Presently he stood at my side and said, “Sir, are not God’s ways mysterious?” Instantly the sword was flashing in my hands – the Spirit’s Sword, the Word of God. “God’s way!” I said, pointing tothe scene of conflict. “How dare you, Dr. K______, call that God’s way of bringing His children home from earth to Heaven? No, sir, that is the Devil’s work, and it is time we called on Him who came to destroy the work of the Devil, to slay the deadly foul destroyer, and to save the child. Can you pray, Doctor; can you pray the prayer of faith that saves the sick?” At once, offended at my words, my friend was changed, and saying, “You are too much excited, sir. ‘Tis best to say God’s will be done,” he left the room. Excited! The word was quite inadequate, for I was almost frenzied with divinely imparted anger and hatred of that foul destroyer, disease, which was doing Satan’s will. “It is not so,” I exclaimed; “no will of God sends such cruelty, and I shall never say God’s will be done to Satan’s work, which God’s own Son came to destroy, and this is one of them.” Oh, how the Word of God was burning in my heart: “Jesus of Nazareth went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the Devil: For God was with Him.” And was not God with me? And was not Jesus there and all His promises true? I felt that it was even so, and turning to the mother I enquired, “Why did you send for me?” To which she answered, “Do pray, oh, pray for her that God may raise her up.” And so we prayed. What did I say? It may be that I cannot now recall the words without mistake, but words are in themselves of small importance. . . . Still, I can remember much of that prayer unto this day. . . . I cried: “Our Father, help! and Holy Spirit teach me how to pray. Plead Thou for us, One Jesus, Savior, Healer, Friend, our Advocate with God the Father. Hear and heal, Eternal One! From all disease and death deliver this sweet child of Thine. I rest upon the Word. We claim the promise now. Thy word is true, ‘I am the Lord, I change not.’ Unchanging God, then prove Thyself the Healer now. Thy word is true, ‘These signs shall follow them that believe; in my Name, they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’ And I believe, and I lay hands in Jesus’ name on her, and claim this promise now. Thy word is true, ‘The prayer of faith shall save the sick.’ Trusting in Thee alone, I cry, oh, save her now, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.” And, lo, the maid lay still in sleep so deep and sweet that the mother said in a low whisper, “Is she dead?” “No,” I answered in a whisper lower still, “Mary will live; the fever has gone. She is perfectly well and sleeping as an infant sleeps.” Smoothing the long, dark hair from her now peaceful brow, and feeling the steady pulsation of her heart and cool, moist hands, I saw that Christ had heard and that once more, as long ago in Peter’s house, “He touched her hand and the fever left her.” Turning to the nurse I said, “Get me at once, please, a cup of cocoa and several slices on bread and butter.” Beside the sleeping maid we sat quietly and almost silently until the nurse returned, and then I bent over her and snapping my fingers said, “Mary!” Instantly she awoke, smiled and said, “Oh, sir, when did you come? I have slept so long.” Then stretching out her arms to meet her mother’s embrace, she said, “Mother, I feel so well!” “And hungry too?” I said, pouring some of the cocoa in a saucer and offering it to her when cooled by my breath. “Yes, hungry, too,” she answered with a little laugh, and drank and at the end again, and yet again, until all was gone. In a few minutes she fell asleep, breathing easily and softly. Quietly thanking God we left her bed and went to the next room where her brother and sister lay sick of the same fever. The following day all three were well. As I went away from the home where Christ as the Healer had been victorious, I could not but have somewhat in my heart of the triumphant song that rang through Heaven, and yet I was not a little amazed at my own strange doings, and still more at my discovery that HE IS JUST THE SAME TODAY.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 06:33:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015