MARK 11:23,24
23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, B e thou
removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall
believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever
he saith.
24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye
receive them, and ye shall have them.
However, immediately after I read Mark 11:23 and 24, the devil hopped on my shoulder and
said, "Yes, but divine healing has been done away with, you know."
I said, "Well, thank God, faith hasn't been done away with! This scripture says, '. . . What
things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe . . .' (Mark 11:24). I have never heard anyone
say that believing and faith have been done away with."
"Yes, but healing has. You know all that healing business has been done away with."
I said to the devil, "What about Mark chapter 5? In Mark chapter 5, Jesus said to the woman
with the issue of blood, '. . . Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole . . .' [Mark 5:34]. Mr.
Devil, if her faith made her whole, my faith will make me whole." And, thank God, it did!
At that time, I didn't know of anyone else in the whole world who believed in divine healing
besides me. There was no Full Gospel church in my town at the time, and I had never heard
healing preached. There weren't any Christian radio programs such as we have today; at least,
if there were, I didn't know about them.
After my healing, I began my ministry just as a young Baptist boy preacher. When I heard that
Full Gospel people preached on healing too, I began to fellowship with them because
fellowshipping with those of like-precious faith was just like getting a spiritual shot in the arm. It
built up my faith.
The Full Gospel folks preached some things I didn't quite understand or altogether agree with
at that time, such as the baptism in the Holy Spirit, but I put up with that to have a little
fellowship around the doctrine of healing!
God Is Not Nervous!
I wasn't used to church services where everyone would pray all together at one time, and this
bothered me at first. I started to say something about it a time or two to straighten these Full
Gospel folks out. In fact, I once heard someone else tell them, "Now God's not hard of hearing,
you know."
But the Full Gospel folks just replied, "He's not nervous either!"
When these Full Gospel folks invited Christians
to come and pray at the altar, I would go forward to pray with them. But I would get as far away
from them as I could because they bothered me all praying at the same time like that. I would
get off in the corner somewhere and pray quietly.