Did Jesus Really Heal People?
Mike MacNeil · Tidal Church Moncton · April 7, 2024 · Did Jesus Really? series
Mike MacNeil explores John 9 and the healing of the man born blind, sharing stories of healing from Haiti, Central America and home. Jesus cares for the whole person, and He invites us to step out in faith and bring our needs to Him.
More from Mike MacNeil · The Did Jesus Really? series
Topics: Faith, Prayer, Holy Spirit
Transcript
[0:00] An ancient myth. And you know, even the Jesus story, His biography is completely unoriginal. He makes outrageous claims. He claims He has the authority to forgive sins and the power to raise the dead. You can debate about whether or not He actually lived and whether there's credible, objective evidence for that deity. So you do think He was a real person? Most of the scholars I've talked to say He probably was. The evidence is not great, of course, but there's lots of rules about slavery in the Bible. None of them are, "Don't do it." They never even thought to say that. Read about Jesus, seemed to be a really good guy. They killed Him. Just the nature of people. So what you have in the figure of Christ is an actual person who actually lived, plus a myth.
[0:46] And in some sense, Christ is the union of those two things. The problem is, I probably believe that. Do I believe it? Of course not. It was written by people in the Bronze Age who didn't know what a germ or an atom was. And Jesus healed everyone that He, and He couldn't walk. And now He touched, but He can't walk. I don't know what to do with that. The Jesus of the Gospels is either God in the flesh or a terrible imposter. There is no middle ground. Who do you think He was? Well, God is real. Jesus existed. He was of outlaw and has changed my outlook on life. And so in some sense, I believe it's undeniable. Hey, I'm Jeremy. I'm the teaching pastor here at Moncton Wesleyan. And for the next four weeks we're into this series called Did Jesus Really?
[1:33] And what we wanna do is give you an opportunity to investigate Jesus, the person of Jesus, who He was, what He claimed about Himself, what He might have for you. But we want to do it in such a way that if you're Joe Rogan, or if you're Bill Maher, or if you're Richard Dawkins and you've got thoughtful convictions and concerns and questions, that we could actually take those seriously and have an authentic, good conversation about it. And so for this week, my friend Mike MacNeil is going to start us off wrestling with this question: Did Jesus actually heal people? And so for all of us, we hope that this would be a journey of being thoughtful, about being interested, about wrestling with the truth, and wrestling with what happens. And I can think of no better person to share this than Mike.
[2:19] Mike, you've been a Christian leader in the Maritimes for a number of years. You're on staff at a great regional church, King's Church. But you've also traveled the world and seen this Jesus movement in places that I've never been, that lots of us have never been before. And you've seen Jesus's work in kind of profound ways. And so I'm really looking forward to you sharing some of those stories. I'm gonna come back in a few minutes, in a little bit, 'cause I want to ask you more about some of those experiences that you've seen. But why don't you start us off by inviting people to kind of open up the Scriptures together. And I'll make sure that people know too that Mike's actually written about a number of these stories. He's got a few books that are available for purchase in the lobby as well. But why don't you welcome Mike MacNeil as you preach for us today, Jeremy. Well, thank you. It's great. Great to be with you this morning. Wow.
[3:06] We're jumping in the deep end: healing. Nice, nice light, easy topic, right? I actually was one of those guys on the screen until I was 24 years old. I had no church background. My dad was like anti-church. He raised me to be skeptical and anti-church. I never went to church. I didn't like church. One Friday night, I got tricked into going to a church. It was a church plant down in Quispamsis called King's Church. They were meeting in just a, like a little c and a school there. And I walked in with a really bad attitude.
[3:53] I had a powerful experience with Jesus, and I walked out of there a different person. And honestly, I've never recovered from my conversion. Like I'm still, it's still with me, it's still with me today. And so yeah, I want to talk about, I wanna talk about Jesus. The book that Jeremy mentioned, it's a, it's a brand new one, and it's not about healing, but it is, it wrestles with a lot of the things swirling around in our culture and getting, like, biblical answers to those things. And so I try to price some really reasonable, it's like 20 bucks and you can pick it up. You can pick it up at the table outside if you want to.
[4:42] But I wanna jump into John chapter 9. And almost the whole chapter is really, like, I love the stories of Jesus encountering people and people encountering Jesus. The older I get, the more I find myself in the Gospels, just kind of looking at stories of Jesus. And this story is typical of the healing stories about Jesus in the Gospels. In John chapter 9, the basic story is, verses 1 to 7, as Jesus went along, as Jesus and the disciples were kind of wandering along the road, He saw a man that was blind from birth.
[5:28] And His disciples asked, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Because in their theology, if, you know, if there was something wrong with you, there was a reason for it, like a direct correlation. So it had to be somebody's fault. And Jesus kind of corrects them. Jesus says, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happens so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." And then this comes, Jesus.
[6:15] He doesn't, He doesn't use, like, cookie cutter techniques. It's all, each story is a little unique and a little different. And this one's a little bit weird. It says that after saying this, He spit on the ground and He made some mud with saliva, and He put it on the man's eyes. So this is fairly unusual if you, you know, if you come to your pastor and you say, you know, "I got this problem. Can you help me?" And he makes mud pies and puts it on your eyes. That's like weird, that's like an unusual thing to do. And so Jesus does this, and then He tells the man, "Go wash in the pool of Siloam," which means "sent."
[7:04] And so it says, so the man went and washed, and he came home singing. He came home seeing. So, uh, there's a lot of really, really interesting things going on here in, in the basic story. What can we say about the man? Well, the first thing is that he had an obvious need. His need was not hidden. It was kind of obvious to himself and to everyone else. And so this was not a case of something psychosomatic or something that was kind of internal that may or may not have been true, that nobody could see. He had an obvious need, and he was positioned in the right place.
[7:53] He just happened. And I don't really believe in coincidences, or at least since I started praying, more coincidences happen in my life. Lemme put it that way. But, you know, he's sitting along the side of the road where Jesus is coming by. And so he's positioned in the right place to have an encounter with Jesus. And let me just say that like church is, church is a great place to kind of position yourself. If you want God to move. Kind of showing up at church is, you know, it is true that God can work anywhere, but there seems to be some environments of faith, where it's more noticeable that God likes to work.
[8:43] And so we've kind of gotta get ourselves in the right place, in the right position sometimes in order to have an encounter with Jesus. And the man cooperated with Jesus. He didn't go like, whoa, mud, I don't do mud. Like, I don't do anything that's, you know, like, I'm already blind. You're gonna like, make me dirty too. Like he didn't object. He cooperated with what Jesus was doing. And that's kind of essential too, that we cooperate with God, that, and sometimes God works in unusual ways that it stretches, it stretches our theology.
[9:30] Now, there's nothing that God is gonna ask us to do that doesn't have a biblical precedent. But sometimes you know, we want things to work in a certain way, and God has other ideas, and we have to set our ideas aside, and we have to cooperate with what it is that Jesus wants to do. And Jesus gives him an act of faith to perform. He says, "Go to the pool of Siloam, and when you wash in the pool, then you will be healed." So this is something that, you know, he has to actually go and do something, and he's blind. So this is not an easy thing for him to do. And I find that in my own life, sometimes God will stretch my faith and teach me things by asking me to perform an act of faith, just because I know that He's good, and I know that I can trust Him.
[10:25] He will ask me to do something. And then the answer will come after I've performed that act of faith, after I've stepped out in faith. There's something about faith that Jesus really, really likes. If you want to get God's attention, if you want to get Jesus' attention, there's something about faith that just always, whenever Jesus encountered faith, He always stopped and He took notice of it no matter who it was, even if it was a Roman centurion, He would stop and He would note to people the faith that was present. And so faith really, it just draws God's attention. And then of course, He, you know, He goes and He washes in the pool and He receives His sight.
[11:15] He goes home seeing. And so it's a physical healing. But let me just say, like kind of flat out, I'm like thrilled to hear about the number of people that came to Jesus over Easter here. Because ultimately what it's all about is our whole being like, God saving us, not just healing us physically, but healing the whole person and us getting in relationship with God. So that church that I told you about, like 40, what I that I got tricked into going 42 years ago, God has a sense of humor. I'm on staff there now. Like, so I've gone from like, it's kinda like, let's take this skeptic, let's shut him up, let's train him up, and then we'll make him a pastor.
[12:02] You know, it's that kind of thing that God seems to enjoy doing. But we have been in a period where we've seen physical healing. But the main thing is always like the whole person, like, how is it with your soul? And those two things are often connected. In the last four months, we have seen 154 people baptized, and we're having, yeah, you can clap for that. We're having, you know, another round of baptism at the end of this month. And so it seems to me like God is moving all over. We know that there are bad things happening in the world. We know that there's chaos and confusion and all kinds of evidence of the devil working.
[12:54] But I also want to testify today that we are living in a, like God is working. Jesus is on the move. Jesus is doing things in and through His church. And so we definitely need to celebrate that. And so the rest of the story, the rest of chapter 9 is, you know, the basic story is this, this man gets healed. And he is like, whoa. Like, it just blow. It blows his mind. But then we have we have some other people enter the story. We basically have four reactions to the healings. And what I've noticed is that like these four reactions are still around today.
[13:43] Healing is never, like, there's always a way out. There's always a way. You can be skeptical and you can say, well, this, maybe it was this that happened. Maybe it was that that happened. And so in verses 8 to 12, we have the neighbors, the neighbors of the man who has just been healed. You would think that they would just go like, man, hallelujah. Like, you'd think they'd be thrilled. But some of them are like, is that really him? Maybe somebody, maybe he's a body double. Somebody switched him out. That's not really him. That's 'cause we know he was blind. And we know that blind people don't just suddenly see. So I've gotta find some kind of explanation for this. And so the neighbors are having this, they're questioning, they're arguing back and forth, and they're questioning, because they're trying to find some rational reason in their thinking to explain this away.
[14:39] And so we have the neighbors kind of being skeptical and coming up with conspiracy theories about what happened. I don't know if you've noticed, but we live in we live in a culture where there's a lot of conspiracy theories to kind of explain things away. So we're kinda like the neighbors, we're kind of prone to that. So then what the neighbors do is they get the Pharisees involved. It's like the Pharisees are the religious police. So it's kinda like, okay, we don't know what happened here. We're calling the cops, we're calling the religious police. They'll come in and investigate and see what's really going on. And so the Pharisees come and the Pharisees, in verses 13 to 18, they kind of have their debate kind of going back and forth about what this might mean.
[15:31] And they're questioning the man. And the Pharisees are, their problem is that they're boxed in by their own theology, their theology only. It only allows for certain things to happen through certain people, through official means. Jesus is outside of their system, and it's very threatening to them. And so they're trying to figure it out within their theological box. But what just happened doesn't fit in that box. And then we have the parents of the man born blind. And so they are being questioned by the Pharisees and they're like, you know, is this your son?
[16:17] And that's the only question they will answer. Clearly, yes, he is definitely our son. But they play it safe because the Bible tells us that they're afraid that they will become outcast if they say too much. And so they know they're looking at their son, they know he's been born blind. They know he's now seeing, but this is what they do. They're like, yes, we can confirm that. He is our son. But as for anything else, we were not here. He's an adult, and you'll have to ask him instead of just saying like, yeah, he's our son. He was born blind. And like, he could see. This is amazing. Instead of doing that, they play it safe because they don't wanna be different than everybody else.
[17:07] And so they're like, there's an adult. He's an adult. Why don't you ask him? And then there's the man himself in verses 24 to 38. And I like this guy. He was a feisty blind man. Like, they're pressuring him and trying to get him to say bad things about Jesus. And he's having none of it. He's just giving it right back to them. He is not saying what they want him to say. And I find him very open, he's very teachable, and he's very honest. And there are some key verses in the story when they're trying to get him to say, you know, oh, well, this Jesus, He must be a sinner because He's not one of us.
[18:01] And you know, the blind man goes, "Hey, you guys can talk all you want. Here's the one thing: I know I was blind, but now I see." I think somebody wrote a song about that, didn't they? I was blind, but now I, like, he's like, you, you guys can talk all day long. I don't care. I was blind. But now I, like, you could say whatever you want, but I was blind. But now I see. In verse 25, and in verse 33, as they're, you know, as they're pressuring him and try to get him to bend to their way of thinking, he says, "If this man were not from God, He could do nothing."
[18:47] He's like, this was real. This was a real miracle. This was something positive. This is something that God does. And so I can't let you attribute it to man or the devil or something else. And so after all of this, after all of this goes on, Jesus comes back, and He finds the man. And Jesus tells him, you know, like, do you believe in the Son of Man? And then he says, well, who is He so that I can believe? And then Jesus says, that's me. Like I'm talking about myself. And then in verse 38, it says the man says like, "Lord, I believe."
[19:37] And it says that he worshiped Him. So he really got the physical healing led to his accepting Jesus. And a relationship with Jesus. And the Bible is full of these kinds of stories. Nothing I said is terribly complicated. It's a matter of faith. It's a matter of what Jesus asked a man. Like, do we believe this? And we have to say, Lord, I believe so. I want to tell you, Jeremy's gonna come back up. And I want to tell you some stories of healing that I have seen. 'Cause we wanna go from the theoretical, did Jesus heal to like, does Jesus heal today?
[20:30] And so I'm gonna tell, like, a few stories and show you some pictures, and then we're gonna bring a friend of mine up as well. But Yeah, Mike, before you jump in, 'cause what I love about all of this, and for a lot of us, you know, the interesting challenge is that we have the stories from the New Testament and then the commandment to be able to pray these kinds of prayers, that the faith of the church, the faith of those that follow Jesus, that we're invited to participate in what God wants to do miraculously in our midst. And so it continues to happen today, but for many of us, and I know for me, even sometimes I'm like, but yeah, those are interesting stories to read about. But like, today, do people actually experience this kind of thing? And usually as you travel the world, you find that the movement of Christians in other parts of the world actually believe this a little bit stronger, perhaps.
[21:18] And so tell us, yeah, some of the experiences that you've I'll tell you a story that kind of, you know, 'cause I was kind of like your typical evangelical guy that was like, you know, I'm okay with spiritual stuff and salvation, but I haven't seen a lot of healing. So I was at Mother Teresa's home for the dying. Okay. Which does not sound like a happy place, right? And it's not a hospital. It's a place where literally people go and they just, you know, it's an end stage of their life. And they, there's some people to look after them, orderlies and stuff. But who In which country was this in? This Was in Haiti. Okay. Yep. And so there was a guy that I met there whose name was Lewis, and I want to tell you about him. And So, yeah, I think we have a picture of Lewis as well.
[22:06] Yeah. This is like us praying for Lewis. So we're in this ward where all the men are dying, and we're in there and we're with this translator, this Haitian translator named Boss. And Boss is like, Boss is like a Holy Spirit dynamo. He's just a really dynamic Christian. And so we're there and we sing some songs in Creole. And we're trying to minister to the men that are in this room. And, and there's one guy named Xavier who said, he tells Boss, like, I'm a Christian, but I need a Bible. So we get him a Creole Bible, and we pray with him and stuff. But there's a guy in a bed next to him, this man here, Lewis.
[22:53] And Lewis begins to speak to Boss and, and tell him that, like, I am not a Christian, but I am really sick and I need Jesus in my life. And so we're like, this is awesome. So we pray, we pray a prayer. We get him a Bible, we pray a prayer with him to lead him to Jesus. And at this point, I'm just like, this is, I can just go right now. This is great. But then Boss, our Haitian translator, says to Lewis, like, well, describe what's wrong with you. And he goes, like, nobody knows. Like, nobody's been able to tell me what's wrong with me, but I can't hold any food down. In fact, if I even drink water, like, I throw it up and there's something really wrong in my stomach, and I, nobody knows, you know, what it is.
[23:46] And I don't have money to go to a doctor. And so Boss says this. Boss says, Jesus healed your spirit. Now He is going to heal your body. We are going to pray for you, and Jesus is gonna heal your body. And I'm smiling on the outside, but on the inside I'm going, we are like, what? Like, well, I don't know. I didn't know I signed up for this part. Well, That's terrifying to even believe that much, that that's actually gonna happen in that moment. It's one thing to be like, Hey, I'm gonna pray a secret prayer and, like, we'll see what happens. But to be that bold. Yeah. So this is what I observed. Like, we pray for this guy for his physical healing. Right on cue, an orderly comes into the room with a tray that has bowls of stew on it, right?
[24:35] And Boss waves the orderly over, takes a bowl of stew, hands it to Lewis and says, you've got Jesus now, eat whatever you want. Right? And again, I'm going, like, we're doing this. Like, really? He downs the whole bowl of stew, and he asks for another one. Oh my gosh. And so, so my theology got a little, like, I was like, oh, am I really perfect? Correct theology, apparently, like God likes Boss's theology better than mine. Yeah. Like, Well, I wonder if Boss's faith is sparking a movement and sparking people's. Yes. Yeah. Desire to meet Jesus in a profound way. Wow. Yeah.
[25:22] Okay. Give us another one. This is Why. Yeah. Another one is, there's another picture. And this is Valerio. He's a guy that I met on a dump in Central America. And so on the dump is kind of the poorest of the poor. And they just scrounge for metal and scraps and stuff to sell. We were feeding people. We were feeding people and doing a little church service off the back of a pickup truck at the dump. And I noticed him, you know, there was a language barrier there, but I noticed him hanging around that he seemed really comfortable with the gospel. And so I called the translator over and, and, you know, got the story of his life. And he told me that, he had been having trouble for four days.
[26:08] He had had, like, heart palpitations, and he was having trouble breathing. He was showing, like, all the signs of heart trouble, and he was too poor. He couldn't go to a doctor. He was too poor. He had no resources whatsoever. And so we were like, well, we can pray for you. And so through the translator, a couple of us prayed for him. And what are you actually praying in that moment? Like, what are you actually? It was, It was the simplest prayer in the world. It was just like, Jesus, like, You know what's going on in this man's body? Yeah. I don't have, like, a big fancy formula or anything. Yeah. We're just, we just, he doesn't have any other options. We're just asking that You would touch him. Wow. Yeah. And what he told us was that when we prayed, he felt heat go down through his whole body from his head down to his toes, and, and that suddenly he could breathe clearly.
[27:06] Mm-hmm. And that his heart was normal. There was no pain or racing in his heart. And he, so I asked, like, I wanna remember you and be able to pray for you. That's why I was able to get the, yeah, the picture with him. But I find that often in these places where there are not a lot of other options. Yeah. That we see God show up in those moments. Well, it's the desperation that actually prompts us to maybe take it seriously, that God could actually perform that miracle. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating. Okay. So these are, and, And I do want to, like, even though we're telling stories of healing, like my sister was diagnosed with cancer, very aggressive cancer, and was given six months to live.
[27:59] And we've had literally thousands of people praying for her. She was given six months to live like eight years ago. So God has been at work. But we have not seen her then. And so there is like a mystery to healing. It's not some kind of formulaic thing. And it's not something that we can, necessarily control. We just know that it's something, the Bible says, you know, if you're sick, call the elders together and pray. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a sense that we believe in the resurrection and the sense that, hey, there's ultimate healing available in the end for us all.
[28:44] And yet in the in-between, it's complex, it's mysterious, it happens sometimes, and yet we still move forward with faith asking and inviting God to move. Yeah. Now, those are examples in Central America. Have you ever experienced it more closer to home? Yeah. Well, the next picture is my wife, Colleen. We were, and this was out in California. We were already scheduled to go to a conference out there, But she got a very concerning diagnosis from a doctor, and it's like, "You need to get into a specialist right away. We're like seeing something here that's very, very concerning. And we need to go to a specialist, and they're gonna do a scope and all." And so, you know, and because we live in Canada, it takes a while for that to happen.
[29:30] Mm-hmm. We did know some people and kind of pulled some strings, but we were in California and we were set to go to this conference, but we were there. It was a comfort zone healing, but suddenly we weren't just there as learners. Suddenly we were there with people that were carrying the kind of this in the back of our mind, like, what's really going on? And so, yeah, in between one of the sessions, Colleen just, we're at Bethel Church, and, and Colleen was like, "I'm just gonna go up and I'm gonna see if Bill Johnson will, you know," people were lining up. "And so I'm just gonna see before the service starts if he'll pray for me." And it was a really, like, quick prayer because the service started soon after that.
[30:16] The prayer was, she told him what was going on, and, you know, and our concern about it. And the prayer was like, "God, when she goes to see that specialist, we just pray for a good report." He said that like three times. He just emphasized it. A good report. A good report. So after this, we had to change our plans a little bit, which was Is kind of, just to note again, a pretty simple prayer. Yeah, absolutely. Not magic words, not like, you know, it was just, it's just, we can pray for that. That's very straightforward. Yeah. So I'm like flying off to Guatemala to meet a mission team. She's now, like, changed her plans and she's flying home to get this test. And so I'm in Guatemala leading a team, but I've got this on the back of my mind the whole time. And anyway, she goes to the specialist and the specialist just says, "I don't see anything.
[31:07] Like, it's just, there's just nothing there. There's nothing wrong." Yeah. And so It's a lot of coincidences. Well, yeah. And so those are the kinds of things where you can go, well, you know, maybe they misread the first thing, or like, there's always like the people in the story. There's always other, yeah. Other ways you can think about it. Yeah. But I am convinced that God is good and in that moment, like, yeah, something happened. Why don't you introduce people to your friend Tom? 'Cause Tom's here, and that is, he's got a story actually that is very current. And from here even. Would that be all right? Yeah. If we jump to there. Yeah. I, like, one of the things we do at, Tom is from Kings. Yeah. And one of the things that we do at Kings, like, we pray, we just started a couple years ago.
[31:59] Like, we literally pray. We pray about a lot of things, but we pray for healing, specifically for healing. Like every week, we have a prophetic prayer team that is kind of praying during the service. And if they get a word from the Lord about, like, somebody, they'll, somebody at the end of the service will call it out. And then someone might come forward with a sore shoulder or whatever. And we kind of keep a record of those. We share with one another just so that we know what the Lord is up to and what the Lord is doing. And so in some ways, when we talk about, like, healings on the mission field, it can seem as distant as the Bible.
[32:44] Right? And so one of the things I asked Jeremy when he asked me to come and speak today, I was like, "Can I bring an object lesson with me? And I bring somebody that has, like, this story of healing that I think everybody needs to hear." And my friend Tom Daly is that guy. And so we're just gonna let him tell his story for a few minutes, and then we'll kind of go on from there. Yeah. But, Tom, tell us what what the Lord did in your life. First of all, I just wanna say how blessed I feel just to be here and to be able to share my story and, more important than who I am, it's whose I am.
[33:31] I'm gonna give you a little background. Thank you. It's true. It's true. So, just a little background of who I am. My name's Tom Daly. I've lived in Quispamsis my entire life. We run a family business, gas station and convenience store. I grew up as a typical young man, ran into some problems in school. Academics was not my strong point, more interested in fitting in and kind of clowning around. So my parents decided in junior high to put me in a Christian school in the valley. And, you know, that's where the seed was planted in me at a very young age. And I answered an altar call at a youth event.
[34:17] And I came to the front and I had a youth pastor pray over me. And I had a moment, and I knew I accepted Jesus at that point. But I turned to live a typical young man life. And I tried to run my own life and do my own thing my own way. And I fell away. I fell away from the Lord. And, you know, fast forward, I met a beautiful lady, my wife, Angie. And we have a wonderful family together. And everything seemed to be going fairly smooth, you know, bumps in the road, of course. But then I started having problems with my ear. I started having problems with hearing.
[35:05] And so during the investigation going to doctors, I got put onto a specialist and, working with the specialist through a number of appointments and tests, I was sent for a biopsy. And we come to find out that I had a tumor in the middle of my face and head. So I was instructed to start going to, oh, I was instructed to start going to the oncology unit in St. John Regional Hospital, which is one of the best cancer units around. And through all the testing, MRIs, through CAT scans, through PET scans, through blood work, my chemo doctor sat me down and said, "What do you understand about what's going on here?"
[35:53] And so I said, "Well, I've been told I have this cancerous tumor in my face, in my head." And she said, "Okay, do you have anybody that can be with you when you get this news today?" And I said, no. She said, well, do you wanna call anybody and have somebody on the phone, to listen in while you're, while I'm explaining what's going on here? I said, no, no, I'll be fine. You know, go ahead, doc, tell me. So the doctor told me that, yes, you have a tumor that's in your head and your face, and it's high up. It could attach to your optic nerve, which takes it to your brain. She explained to me that had it moved into my lymph node system, which was not uncommon, then to my absolute shock, she said, you know, we found spots on your lungs, both of your lungs.
[36:46] And some of them are quite significant. On top of that, she said, it's actually, it's moved into one of my testicles as well. So I took a breath and I said, okay, doc, so you're telling me it's here, it's here, it's here, it's here. I said, okay, I do math really good, and this doesn't sound good. So she assured me, she said, I don't want you to hit the panic button just yet. So I left, and I didn't share all the information with my family because I was processing. I started to feel hopeless. I started to feel very dark. And I actually thought, brothers and sisters, I thought I was dying. I thought I was gonna die, and I was gonna leave my beautiful family.
[37:32] And I found myself telling my kids things like, preparing them for my death. Like, you guys are strong. No matter what happens, you'll be okay. Just love each other, support one another, you know. And so I got told that I need to go in for a procedure and stay the night at the hospital. They were gonna insert a feeding tube into me, because they would be shutting down my mouth and my throat for a number of months. I wouldn't be able to eat. So while I'm in the hospital, receiving this feeding tube, I met up with a couple brothers and we're watching a Blue Jays game in a room. And I see my cancer doctor coming again. And I didn't want to see this lady. Every time I spoke with her, the news was traumatic and devastating.
[38:20] And I didn't know how much more bad news I could handle. She walked by and then she came back and she come right to me, and she kind of knelt in front of me, and she said, I gotta backtrack here, ladies and gentlemen. I'm really sorry. During this time of hopelessness, I went to a church that my family had had connections to through baptism, some marriages, and funerals and such. I went to this church, and I went to the altar during this dark time when I was feeling hopeless. And I got on my knees and I got in a posture of complete submission to the Lord.
[39:06] And I was on my knees with my hands up begging and crying. I thought I needed a pastor or a priest to pray for me. And I couldn't find one anywhere in the whole building. And I had searched the building. I was in the back rooms. I had, I'd been through this place. So I went to the front on my own, and I give it back to Jesus. I give Him my life again, and I fully submit it and commit it to the Lord. And I asked Him, I didn't ask Him for a miracle. I asked Him to give me more time with my family, allow me to continue to be blessed and to bless, to be loved and to love. Back to the interaction with the doctor. She comes to me and she kneels in front of me and she says, I don't know what to tell you, but you're less chesky. And just came back. And it's gone. There's 10 days after I gave myself to the Lord at the front of the altar.
[39:54] Ooh. So I'm here today to encourage you. You just have to believe it. You just have to receive it. I can't explain it all. I'm like the blind man. I don't know how it all happened. I just know who did it for me. I had cancer, and now I don't. Come on, man. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. So I was just in to see my cancer doctor again Friday. They still can't believe it. They still continue to send me for chest x-rays. There's nothing. There's nothing.
[40:40] I'm over a year clear now. And I owe it all to the Lord. And if that's not incredible enough, I ask the Lord to make me a better spiritual leader. So through this, He brought my family closer together. My little girl who believed when we died, it was just dark, has given her life to the Lord. My other daughter, Taylor, followed suit and gave her life to the Lord. She in turn, led her little sister and two cousins to the Lord. And then one night, while borrowing an iPhone charger, my, at the time, 19-year-old son said to his sister, do you have a charger?
[41:32] And she said, well, let me ask you this. Do you believe in Jesus? He said, yeah. Do you believe He died for our sins so we could go? Yes. I said, well, you're ready. Ready for what? She said, you're already accepted. Jesus. My 6-year-old little girl led her 19-year-old brother to the Lord. My beautiful wife has given her life to the Lord. We've had up to 31 of my family and my friends sit together with us in the church. So the Lord doesn't just heal physically, mentally, He spiritually saved my entire family. And it just keeps on rolling waves of salvations, waves of baptisms. Thank You, Jesus.
[42:20] Tom, we love your story. And we love how it kind of highlights the fact that oftentimes it seems like God uses these opportunities of healing to do a deeper work than just the healing. And so we wanna be the kind of place that just makes space for that. And there's no guarantee, Mikey, you know, you shared, there's no guarantee when we pray that God is going to perform miraculous things in our midst, this side of eternity. We know for sure it happens because of the resurrection, but we're compelled to pray and we're compelled to pray as people of faith who have faith. If you're in this room and you don't have the faith, you're like, I don't know if that's real. I don't know if that's a thing. It's actually, and we learn this in James, the brother of Jesus writes that it's actually the faith of the church, the elders, the people that gather around. And if we could have faith for you, we would love to pray for you, if you'd be willing.
[43:08] We're gonna just make some space here for the next little bit. You guys are comfortable being down front, praying for people. We've got our prayer team. We'll be in each of these corners, and we just wanna make a space, hey, this is the God that we believe in. If you would like to pray about anything for you, for somebody near you, for something tangible, for something physical, for something emotional, for something spiritual, this is just the best time and it's the best space. And today can be a day that you can take that step out and let perhaps even just our faith step in the gap for you and invite you to participate. Mike, is there anything that you would give in terms of instruction, and then I'd love for you to pray for us as we head into this moment? Yeah, I would just say that, that what I have found, found through experiences, whatever I bring to God, He will either display His power or, or He will give His peace.
[43:59] And, you know, and sometimes that's, sometimes it's something powerful that happens to us. And sometimes it's just an overwhelming sense that like, I don't know if circumstances have changed, but because of the presence of God in my life, I have peace with what's going on. And so with whoever is called to pray today, we don't know exactly what God's gonna do, but we know that God is good and He's going to do something. Yeah. He's gonna answer prayer. Before Mike Praise. Why don't we stand together and the band's gonna lead us in one song. And whether you're coming forward or you're singing these words, or just listening to these words and recognizing the power of the moment. Mike, why don't you pray for our time for this next bit? Yeah. We're gonna have prayer teams on both sides.
[44:45] And I would just encourage you if there's any need, whether it's physical or spiritual or emotional or whatever it is, like any, anything, the Lord, the Lord wants to make us whole. He cares about us as whole people. And I know in a room this size, there's probably a lot of issues, a lot of things going on. And so I would just encourage you to be like that man who performed the act of faith and like, step out in faith today. Bring whatever you're dealing with to the Lord, and let Him work in that situation. So let me pray for us before we go into this song. Jesus, thank You that You are so good, God. And there were times in the New Testament where it just says that the power of God was present to heal.
[45:39] And I believe that this is one of those times, Lord. I believe that there are some people in this room that You are kind of calling out and, and You're saying, just bring it to Me. Whatever it is, just bring it to Me. And so I just pray for grace for us today. Lord, I pray that You would impress on people's hearts and draw those who need prayer forward today, and in whatever way that You want to answer what we pray, God, that You would just be free, in this place to work, and to do whatever it is that You want to do. In Jesus' name, amen.