The next day, Sunday morning, I pressed a memory button on my
radio for a station that does a lot of Christian broadcasting on
Sunday mornings.  Most of the Christian stations around here on
Saturday and Sundays play so many of these 30 minute info
commercials selling vitamins, half of which I have purchased, or
just about anything else you can think of.  I wish they'd get back
to preaching and teaching more but that's another hobby horse of
mine, too, which I won't get into right now.  Here is the second
story and you won't like it but you need to hear it for the first
one to make sense.

     This pastor had been pastoring in a small church in a small
town in Mississippi.  I didn't get his name.  They had two
daughters and a boy on the way.  The girls were like 3 and 6 years
old.  The six year old stopped growing, it seemed to the parents,
so they took her to the doctor.  Nothing was detected.  She grew
worse in a short period of time.  They were referred to a
specialist.  Several tests were run.  Other specialists were
called in.  They made their diagnosis.  I can't tell you the
disease she had because I had never heard of it before and it went
by so quickly, I just didn't catch it.  However, only 250 children
in the United States, at that time, had this disease.  The doctors
said, she has 6 months to a year to live.  Do what you can for her
because there is nothing medical science can do.

     This pastor began to tell what stress descended upon the
family.  He said he could not pick up a Bible for literally months
he was so depressed and despondent.  He said that he and his wife
believed in healing but God does not heal everybody.  I'm just
telling you what he said.  they took her a thousand miles to a big
church and had several people lay hands on her.  They all tried to
encourage them and told them to keep their faith up because she
was healed.  At that moment in his story, he made it clear that he
didn't appreciate their attitude.  He talked for awhile about all
the things people said during the next few months and how nothing
helped or made them feel better.  Let me stop right here and ask
if you happen to be getting suspicious about how he believed?  I
mean, God can heal but He doesn't always heal everybody, and,
nothing anybody said or did encouraged him.  Nearly four years ago
now, when I was having back to back anxiety attacks, and extra
panic attacks, and hearing voices, and having nightmares, many
people, some on this very list, did and said and spent hours,
writing me emails, in attempts to encourage in every way they
could.  As bad as I was, and I was so bad, I could sometimes not
even function long enough to read my email, I listened to
everything everybody said.  They did encourage me.  Yes, I still
suffered but I had friends, and I reached out to everybody I could
find, and their words, I'll say it again, even just their words,
coming from the Word of God, did help and I appreciated it more
than they will ever know.  I felt such sorrow for this pastor as I
listened to him speak because he said nothing helped.  Back to the
story.

     They went home after talking with all the specialists and
listening to what they said and to their advice.  she did not get
better but grew worse until she died.

     The man began to preach about suffering and what the Bible
has to say about it.  I was very interested in what he was saying
because of the sorrow he and his wife must have suffered during
those months, not to mention the death of their little girl.  He
stopped in the middle of his sermon and apparently remembered he
had forgotten to finish his story about his little girl.  He said
the following.  "She progress just about the way the doctors said
she would."  I sat up in my chair and said, to myself, "She
progressed about the way the doctors said she would?  Who the hell
are they?  they are just doctors.  they are just medical
scientist.  What do you mean, she progressed just about the way
the doctors said?  What authority do they have?  They are just
reporters of what they find.  They aren't creators.  Did anybody
bother to find out what God says about this little girl?  Didn't
anybody feel they should put a stop to what was going on since we,
as Believers, do have authority that no doctor has?"  I felt anger
inside like I have felt only once before in my life.  The first
time it happened, I had just finished teaching to a group of
people and we finished with prayer.  Several people prayed and
then I closed in prayer.  God spoke to me to pray about a
situation which I won't describe right now because it would take
too long.  It turned out to be a miracle, too, but I'll save that
for another time.  I didn't want to pray about what the Holy
Spirit brought to my mind but I did anyway because I felt it so
strongly.  I felt like someone, as I prayed, picked me up by the
collar from behind, and shook me like a rag doll.  Anger, more
powerful than I had ever felt in my life, blew through me like a
category 10 hurricane.  I yelled so loudly, and said things people
had to tell me I said later, that my voice was hoarse, for about
four days.  This anger was not mine; it was God's.  His words, in
this case, were against a certain church and what he would do if
they did not turn to Him and do what He commanded them to begin
doing.  Two weeks later, the church was shut down by the local
health department and that church no longer exists today.

     The anger I felt Sunday as I sat and listened to this still
grieving man, was quite similar.  Fortunately, I wasn't preaching
and I wasn't praying at the time but God as my witness, I can tell
when God gets mad about something.  I've also learned, by
experience, you don't want to be any place around where God is
when He gets angry.  Now, in my next message, let me tell you my
story.  I am attempting to draw comparisons and to see if you can
see what made the difference.

Phil.


And God Divided The Light From The Darkness
www.SafePlaceFellowship.com