They finally took the X rays, and they confirmed that something had indeed happened! "Your
lungs have cleared up!" they said. "There's no more cancer!" The doctors wanted to run more
tests, and after they did, they said her lungs were completely clear and all the other tests also
proved negative.
The doctors asked her, "What happened to you?" When she told them how God had healed
her, they said, "We don't know how it happened, but we know what has happened. The cancer
was there, but now it is gone."
The doctors said they would give her a written affidavit that she had had cancer of the lungs,
but that she no longer had it. These doctors were not against healing; doctors are in the
healing business. And they are glad to see people delivered.
Three weeks later the pastor told me that his niece had gained sixteen pounds. That was many
years ago, and in talking to this pastor years later, I found she was still well.
Howard Carter also said concerning this subject of a spirit being revealed through the word of
knowledge versus the discerning of spirits:
If one was informed about a spirit but had no vision of the spirit, he would not discern it. By the
discerning of spirits we see beyond the sphere for which we have been created, since we are
natural beings. It is only by the revelation of the Holy Spirit that we can perceive the beings
that live in the spirit world.
The realm of the spirit is very real, although we cannot perceive it with our natural senses. God
has provided the gift of discerning of spirits to give the Church supernatural insight into this
spiritual realm, as His Spirit wills.
Questions and Answers on Spiritual Gifts, pp. 101,102.
Chapter 15 The Gift of Faith
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the
same Spirit;
TO ANOTHER FAITH by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to
another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:
But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he
will.
— 1 Corinthians 12:7-11
As I've mentioned in a previous lesson in this series, the nine manifestations or gifts of the
Holy Spirit can be divided into three categories: Three spiritual gifts reveal something. Three
spiritual gifts do something. And three spiritual gifts say something.