Precisely the Prophetic, Part 16

Chapter Six – Signs, Miracles, Wonders, and Visitation (cont)

Russ:

After this lady returned to the doctors to confirm her healing, they had more bad news. Her blood tests revealed a severe strain of hepatitis and on top of that mononucleosis. She was extremely contagious, and they quickly put her in an isolation unit while they considered what treatment regimen to proceed with. About this time, the family reached out to me and asked if I would go to the hospital to pray for her again. I arrived at the hospital and saw her through the double isolation windows the doctors had secluded her behind. I intended to go lay hands on her, but the hospital staff demanded that I put on a gown and mask to protect myself from infection. Anger and boldness rose up in me, as I pushed past them and barged into the isolation room unprotected. I hadn’t come there to contract disease I’d come there to heal disease! The woman was instantly healed and discharged the next day completely whole.

Not long after this, another young woman came forward diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer. She not only wanted to be healed (obviously) she wanted to have children. In those days, I learned not to hesitate or think too long about the plight of the people coming for prayer. I laid hands on her and declared her healed. I told her to keep her next doctor’s appointment, and the confirmation came – she was totally healed with no sign of cancer in her body. That wasn’t all. Within a few weeks, she became pregnant with her first child and went on to have five children to her great delight. God was a prayer-answering God, and we were taking him at his word.

The Lord wasn’t through demonstrating Himself. The little church was growing even though I was young and inexperienced (only 22 years old at the time). I often joked that the only time I questioned the wisdom of God was when he put such a young and green kid as I was into the ministry. That being the case those years were highlights of the ministry we’ve walked in now for over 38 years. Time and again in those years, those with hopeless cases and deathbed diagnoses came to our simple storefront church and came away healed by the power of God. Our faith was simple and our expectations high that what the Father said in his word would be our experience, and we were not to be disappointed.
The most significant miracle we saw during those years was after we outgrew our facilities at the time and moved to a bigger building. I got up on Sunday morning and took a text from the book of Colossians:

[Col 2:15 KJV] 15 [And] having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Having read that opening verse, I gave the title of my message to be “Satan is a Defeated Foe.” No sooner than the words came out my mouth, an elderly lady on the front row collapsed and pitched onto the floor. It so happened that two RN’s were sitting on either side of her and quickly sprang to her aid. After a few moments, they both looked up at me shaking their heads. She was gone. She was dead. The atmosphere in the congregation at that moment was electric with panic and fear. The pews were filled mostly with college students and medical school students from McNeese University. Before they could react, I spoke up:

“Folks, don’t move and don’t say anything. Just give me 1 minute…”

At that, I knelt and put my hand over the lady’s still form. I commanded life to come back into her body. In the name of Jesus, I refused to let her die. I prayed with all the faith I could muster and miraculously she suddenly shook, stirred, gave a great whooping inhalation of air and sat back up in the pew, straightening her glasses with her bible in her lap, glaring at me as though to object that she ‘d been made such an object of attention. The kids in the pews jumped up, shouting. They didn’t know what else to do. As one man they ran out of the building and down the street screaming at the top of their lungs. They’d experienced the power of God and they as well as ourselves were forever changed

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