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Bible Questions with Michael Pearl
Episode 071: Does God give people the ability to heal others?

By Michael Pearl

Episode 071 Transcription:

Michael Pearl:  Alright, I'm Michael Pearl, and I'm here answering any kind of Bible question that you've got. Many of you have emailed in some questions, and I've not seen the questions. Jared is here with the question. He's going to be reading it to you and then I'll give you an answer. What is it, Jared?

Jared:  We are surrounded by those who claim that they can heal in the name of God. Does God give some people the ability to heal others?

Michael:  Absolutely. Jesus said—when he got ready to depart, he said, "It's necessary for me to go to the Father," he said, "because the works that I do shall you do and greater," when he goes to the Father. And, so, I have seen personally many healings in Jesus' name. I've been healed.

About 10 years ago, I guess it was, I was bit by a brown recluse spider—on my thigh— about three days before I was to speak to a group of about 1200 to 1300 on the east coast.

I don't know if you know what a brown recluse spider is, but there are a lot of them around here. My thigh swelled up from my knee all the way to my groin; all the way around the leg. Two thirds of the way around the leg, the leg was inflamed; and it makes a little spot in the middle that eventually rots out. Sometimes a person will lose nearly a pound of flesh over the next seven, eight, nine, ten months; and it's a horrible thing.

Now, the first symptom is it makes you terribly sick. It's worse than the flu: a high fever. I became so sick that I was just about delirious. I couldn't get out of the chair. I was in this recliner chair and I couldn't eat. I was throwing up, just feeling terrible all over; aching.

It was about 24 hours before I was to speak, and the elders from the church came over and they anointed me with oil. Now, that particular day, I think like they felt like they needed more oil because they really wet me down with it, and they prayed for me.

Now, I didn't have any faith. I didn't have much of anything. I was dying I felt like. But, they prayed for me and I immediately felt better and went to sleep. And, when I woke up the next morning, literally there was no sign that I'd ever been bitten. All the swelling was gone. The center spot was gone. The leg was fresh and clean and whole and healed entirely.

So, I traveled 12 hour—whatever it was—to the east coast and showed up there just in time to speak. And, that was my first video on child training. I don't remember what the name of it is. It was filmed at that time. There was a whole TV studio there ready to film and it was important that I be there. And so, God healed me just in the nick of time.
Now, it was not by some TV Evangelist that was getting a special offering or trying to raise some money with his healing. This was just some of the old boys there at the church that came out and prayed and there wasn't any of ’em that jumped up and said, "Be healed," and did some kind of a magic thing with some transfer of virtue from his body to me. They were just some ordinary old Christians with just ordinary faith and God did some super-ordinary thing by healing me.

Now, I've prayed for people. I remember one time there was a woman in the church that came to us and her six year old girl had developed cerebral palsy and was falling down; and the doctors had said that's what it was and they were starting treatment. They brought her to the church on Sunday night and asked us to pray for her.

And, so, we had her come down and we laid hands on her and prayed for her; and, now, I didn't jump up and say, "Now, your child's healed," and become dynamic and dramatic with it and point to myself. We just quietly laid hands on her and prayed for her and she went back to her seat.

And, they came back on a Tuesday and said, "We went back to the doctor and the doctor said there's no sign of cerebral palsy." And, I knew that family for several years after that and there was no return of the disease. She was completely and totally healed.

I have a friend who is a lawyer. And now, this guy is Presbyterian. He wasn't Pentecostal, he was charismatic and he didn't speak in tongues. He's just kind of a dry Presbyterian lawyer. And, there was a tent meeting in Memphis. Shamrock, R.J. Shamrock—I used to listen to him on the radio and I think he's one of the best Bible story tellers I ever heard. He could really tell a Bible story.

And, Shamrock was having a tent meeting. Now, it was mostly black people in a poor district—there was a big old tent set up there about one third full. And, as sort of a novelty, we all decided to go down there one night and check on old Shamrock.

So, we went down and listened to him preach and watched the healing line. This was one of those old-fashioned Pentecostal early charismatic healing lines where they would line up and go through and he'd lay hands them and slap them on the head and they'd be healed.

So, this Presbyterian lawyer was deaf—had been all of his life— in one ear. Doctors looked at it and said there wasn't anything they could do. And so, he just decided he'd just go through that healing line, just give it a try. He didn't have any great faith and he wasn't emotionally moved. He just said, “Well, if this guy really has gifts of healings, I'll check it out.”

So, he went through the healing line. Shamrock just— he comes through— [slap noise],"Be healed!" And, he walks on by. He comes back and he says, "I can hear out of that ear." And, he could still hear out of it years later. It was perfectly healed, perfectly whole. I don't know if he gave Shamrock an offering or not. I would have. I would have been sending him money every month thereafter.

But, old Shamrock, I think he's still alive. He's pretty much close to dead now. I don't believe everything Shamrock taught and I don't necessarily approve of all of his methods. But, you ask  the question does God give some people the gifts of healings, and the answer is, “Yes, he still does.”

Now, there are a lot of fakes, that's the problem. There's a lot of fakes. There's people that have these healing meetings and try to get big crowds with it and draw big groups of people in and they try to raise money and offerings. And, that's all sick.

When you see a real man of God who's got the gifts of healings, he kind of does what Jesus did. Do you remember when Jesus healed people—what he'd say? He'd say, "Go on, don't tell this. Shhh, shhh. Don't tell this." Why? Because he didn't want to create an imbalance between preaching the truth and people coming because they saw the miracles. He wanted people to respond because of the miracle of the Word of God, not the miracle that was healing of the body.

When you see people promoting ministries based on signs and wonders, they put themselves in a place where they have to generate signs and wonders. And so, unfortunately, there are a lot of people who will have people follow them around in wheelchairs, somebody will come to a meeting and say they want to be healed and they'll have to say, “I've got some back trouble.” And I've got back trouble right now. My back's hurting me and I can't hardly tie my shoes, but it will be alright in a few days.

But, if I walked in and said, “I want prayer; my back's hurting,” they'd stick me in a wheelchair. And then, somebody would stand there and watch over me, and then when it was time for healing, they'd roll me up in that wheelchair and they'd say, “His back is gone; his back is out,” and they'd pray for me. And, I'd jump up in all excitement and people would be excited, or the same thing with crutches.

And, there are a lot of fakes. There's a lot of pretense. Now, what they'll say—these Evangelists will tell you they need to stimulate the faith of the crowd so they have a few fake healings to try to stimulate the faith. And, it does, it works to stimulate the faith. And, there are people who will claim to be healed, they might think they're healed, they'll get emotional and they won't feel their pain for the moment.

I know there have been times when I've been in pain and a situation arises to where it requires quick action and my pain's all gone. I can kick and fight and run and go rescue a child and then all the pain comes back after it's over with. I can have a severe headache and have a big crowd to preach to and I get to preaching and I don't have any headache and it's all gone and it goes away, and then after I get through preaching, about a half hour later that headache comes back; migraine; lasts a couple of days.

Now, it's just a phenomena of the human physical body that when you get all caught up emotionally and you get intense that the endorphins are released and it kills the pain and you feel better.

So, there could be a lot more healings in the church than there is. There could be a lot more people healed if we just asked God. He said, "…ye [receive] not, because ye ask not." But then he said, "…ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts."

And, many people are asking for healings just based on their own lust: lust for power, lust for recognition. That's sad because if the church, in it's simple way, without trying to be showy,  would just ask God for healing, there would be more healings.

Now, I don't believe that all we lack is faith—in other words, if every one of us has faith, that we would be healed every time. The gifts of healings are given out as God sees fit. I think there's—when we get to Heaven, we'll find a whole big warehouse full of boxes labeled, and say, "God, what are these?" And, you go up and there's a label that says, "Healing for a six year old girl. Well, what was this?”

“Well, it never got delivered; that healing never got delivered. They didn't pray. They didn't ask me.”
"Healing for a 45 year old man. Well, where did that come from?”

“Well, it never got delivered.”

And, I think there are a lot of gifts of healings that never get delivered because we don't pray. But then, there's 99 fakes down here for every one that's true.

So, when you get sick, call for the elder of the church and let them pray over you, anointing you with oil, “and the prayer of faith shall save the sick,” he says—book of James, last chapter.

Announcer: If you would like to ask a Bible question, email us at [email protected] or call at 931‑805‑4820.

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2 comments on “Does God give people the ability to heal others?”

  1. Thank you so much for answering this question! I appreciate the wisdom God has given you and you're wife over many areas, you have impacted our family for the good in so many ways. I couldn't begin to thank you enough.

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