Giving False Hope?

“So I shall have an answer for him who reproaches me, for I trust in Thy word.” Psalm 119:42, NAS.

When a 73 year old Indian man had a stroke, his family was told that complete recovery was not realistic. After the stroke, the man returned home and remained bedridden. Half of his face had atrophied since the stroke. His niece had become a Christian, and she had asked her church to pray for and minister to her uncle.

Her pastor, Rev. David Barnabas, visited with the uncle every week to pray with him. He also ferried the uncle to his therapy appointments. Slowly the uncle’s condition began to improve. He was discharged from the hospital without hope of improvement, but after several months of prayer, the man recovered to the point that he was no longer bedridden. Even the atrophy in his face had improved. As the uncle saw Jesus heal his body, he started attending church. One Sunday during worship, he decided to commit his heart to follow Jesus Christ.

Pastor Barnabas and the healed man were at a doctor’s appointment one day. They met a young woman who was a diabetic amputee and deeply depressed. The pastor introduced her to the man whom Jesus had healed and shared that the same Jesus could heal her. At that point a British woman doctor, who claimed to be a Christian, broke in on the conversation. She called the pastor a liar and rebuked him for giving the woman false hope.

Pastor Barnabas was taken aback by the rebuke, but he assured the doctor that what he had shared was true. The doctor said she wouldn’t believe such nonsense unless she saw and examined the man herself. Pastor Barnabas introduced her to the man, and they arranged for her to review his medical records and examine him for herself.

After the examination the doctor was astonished. “At his age, and with the severity of the stroke he suffered, the recovery he has experienced should not be possible,” she said. “In my years as a doctor I’ve never seen it before. I have to conclude that God’s healing is the only reasonable explanation.” She apologized to Pastor Barnabas and gave him a letter attesting to her medical examination and to the miracle of God’s healing. Pastor Barnabas still has her letter in his office at the church.

A year after the stroke Pastor Barnabas took the man back to the doctor who discharged him from the hospital. He examined the man and was shocked. He asked, “Are you sure you are the man who had a stroke a year ago?”

The man said, “Yes, I am that man, and Jesus healed me!”

At the writing of this article the man healed of the stroke is 80 years old and can climb four flights of stairs without assistance! And as for the diabetic woman whom the doctor said could not be healed, Jesus healed her too! But that is another story!

Pray that:

God will continue to heal people among unreached people groups like the Indians of Malaysia, so that they might come to believe the gospel and be saved body and soul.

Unbelief among God’s people will not hinder His work in reaching the lost peoples of the Pacific Rim.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.