God Still Heals: Lessons From the Life of F. F. Bosworth

A doctor's referral, a disabled soldier who chose freedom, and why I keep praying for the sick

In the 1920s, many Christians believed the healing power of God had passed away with the apostles. Signs, wonders and miracles, they said, belonged to Bible days, not theirs.

One man stood up and said boldly that it wasn't so. His name was Fred Francis Bosworth, and his book Christ the Healer is still one of the books believers reach for when they want to understand healing. I've been going through God's Generals by Roberts Liardon, and his chapter on Bosworth stirred me so much that I want to share some of what I learned.

A doctor sent her to the meeting

In 1925, a young girl named Rafaela was playing on a swing with other children. She swung very high and hurt herself. There was no bleeding, nothing you could see, just pain. But the pain didn't go away, and when the doctor examined her, he found a cancerous lump in her left breast. Over time it grew to about the size of an orange. All the doctors could do was help the family manage the pain.

I'm not a medical doctor, and I can't tell you whether that injury had anything to do with the cancer. But I notice how often trouble starts small. Something harmless happens one day, and it becomes something no one can fix. Life is spiritual, and the only perfect covering a person can have is in Christ Jesus.

Here's the part I love. One Sunday afternoon, Rafaela's parents invited her doctor over for lunch. A simple act of kindness. At the table, the doctor looked at the girl and said, "Why don't you take her to the meeting? There's a man who prays for people, and they get well." He told them about one of his own patients, a woman with a goitre, who had been healed in one of those meetings.

A medical doctor recommended a healing meeting.

I say this because there's a narrative today that when you talk about divine healing, you're attacking medicine. You're not. Healing is a system God designed, paid for by the blood of Jesus, for everyone. That's why even people who aren't yet Christians receive healing: Jesus paid for all of mankind. And Bosworth welcomed doctors to come and confirm the healings for themselves. He took time to make sure people were truly healed. It wasn't about emotion or numbers.

Faith comes by hearing

At their first meeting, Rafaela's family simply heard the gospel and understood what Christ had done. Then they bought Christ the Healer and read it aloud together at home, mother, father and daughter.

When they went back, Bosworth prayed for Rafaela. That night, her mother reached for the salve and bandages, as she always did. Rafaela refused. "Where is your faith, Mom? Didn't you hear the man say Jesus healed me?"

The lump was still there. There was no evidence yet. But this young girl held on to what she'd heard. Her mother barely slept. By morning, the swelling from her collarbone and under her arm had gone down. Within five days, the lump had shrunk to the size of a hickory nut, and shortly after, it disappeared completely.

She held on to the Word, and the Word worked for her. "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

Freedom or convenience?

John Sprout was a soldier who lost his voice after an accident that killed a fellow soldier. He also lived with internal bleeding and chronic pain. His city's mayor sent him to hospitals in Washington, but they sent him home with a certificate of disability for life. The mayor arranged a monthly allowance for him for the rest of his days.

Then he went to a Bosworth meeting. After prayer, a brother in the congregation shouted, "Praise the Lord!" John thought it was an instruction to him. How could they expect a man who couldn't speak to praise the Lord? Then he thought, "Maybe that's me not walking in faith." So he tried. A pain shot through him, and it passed, and he shouted. His family had to calm him down. His three-year-old daughter heard her father's voice for the first time that day.

Here's what stays with me. John could easily have stayed away. He was being paid without having to work. The moment he was healed, the allowance stopped, because he wasn't disabled anymore. He lost his allowance and gained his freedom.

Think about that in your own life. What are you holding on to because it feels convenient? Sometimes it's money, sometimes it's sympathy and attention. The devil uses convenient things to steal from us. Whatever you don't want to let go of is tiny compared to what God has for you.

Not just word of mouth

Elizabeth Baker had cancer of the face, and her upper lip had been eaten away. At a Bosworth meeting she received a new lip. She said it felt like a rubber cap being drawn over her face. Her story was reported by the National Labor Tribune in Pittsburgh.

Ruth Piper had diphtheria, scarlet fever and a curvature of the spine. She had been abandoned and stayed in a home for children long after the other girls moved on. The matron took her to a meeting, and she stopped limping and her posture was corrected. The Chicago Daily News covered it.

Doctors, lawyers, financiers, merchants and professional people of every kind came to those meetings. Some came to mock. Doctors brought terminally ill patients they could no longer help, and they saw them healed.

There are false prophets. Jesus warned us about wolves among the sheep. But I ask fellow Christians: how many fake ministers have you actually met, compared with the many who sincerely trust God's power? We don't expect the world to understand the things of the Spirit. But we shouldn't help the world spread the idea that every miracle is staged. We should stick to the Word. Jesus said believers "shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover" (Mark 16:18).

And He hasn't changed. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8). What God did in 1925, He's still doing today.

Salvation is complete

The thing I admire most about Bosworth is that he believed salvation is total. It doesn't only touch our spirit; it touches our body and mind too. That's why his message covered Christ as Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer and soon-coming King.

God "hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3). That covers our health, finances, relationships and families. "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth" (3 John 2). That's the Father's will.

There's one place I see it a little differently from Bosworth. After he was mobbed and beaten in Texas for preaching to Black and white people together, he accepted it as what God had permitted. Persecution is real, and Jesus told us we'd face it. But not everything that comes our way is God's will. We live in a spiritual world with an enemy, and Scripture tells us to take our stand: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7).

I also don't believe God hands out more power to those who've suffered more. He's already given us His Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 8:11). Trials can stretch our faith. They help us grow into expressing the power we already have. But it's all already ours.

Keep on praying

One of the most important lessons in the chapter came from a question Bosworth asked God: "What if I pray for people and they aren't healed?"

God answered with a question of His own: "If you preach the gospel and some people don't receive it, what will you do?"

The answer is obvious. You keep preaching. And in the same way, you keep laying hands on the sick. God wants to heal everybody. He doesn't pick and choose, and we don't wait for a special atmosphere before we obey what Jesus told us to do. The same Spirit who was in Jesus is in us.

A takeaway for this week

If you need healing, start where Rafaela's family started. Hear the Word about healing. Read it aloud. Let faith come. Then hold on to what God has said, even before you see the evidence. And if you know someone who's sick, don't be shy about praying for them. Keep praying, whatever happens.

If you need healing right now, I speak healing over you in the name of Jesus. Jesus bore your sicknesses and carried your pains, so that the eternal life you have in Him would show in your body too.

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God bless you,
Michael Adegoke