Mrs. Armstrong Stricken
I was now beginning to grow in Christ's knowledge and in His GRACE. His Holy Spirit had renewed my mind. I could now UNDERSTAND God's TRUTH as I studied His Word.
I had come to understand, the hard way, the truth about Law and Grace. I had come to understand the Bible teaching about water baptism. I had come to see that I could not help others unless I, myself, were obedient and practicing what I preached. I had come to see the truth about tobacco. Now God saw fit to teach my wife and me another most important and useful truth. He let us learn it through severe experience, coupled with Bible study.
Along about early August, 1927, a series of physical illnesses and injuries attacked Mrs. Armstrong.
First, she was bitten on the left arm by a dog. Before this healed over, she was driven to bed with tonsillitis. She got up from this too soon, and was stricken violently with a "backset." But meanwhile she had contracted blood poisoning as a result of being stuck with a rose thorn on the index finger of her right hand.
For two or three days her sister and I had to take turns, day and night, soaking her right hand in almost blistering hot Epsom salts water, and covering her wrist and forearm with hot towels, always holding her right arm high.
The backset from the tonsillitis developed into quinsy. Her throat was swollen shut. It locked her jaw. For three days and three nights she was unable to swallow a drop of water or a morsel of food. More serious, for three days and three nights she was unable to sleep a wink. She was nearing exhaustion. The red line of the blood poisoning, in spite of our constant hot Epsom salts efforts, was streaking up her right arm, and had reached her shoulder on the way to the heart.
The doctor had told me privately that she could not last another twenty-four hours. This third sleepless, foodless and waterless day was a scorching hot summer day in early August.
Does God HEAL Today?
On this late morning, a neighbor lady came over to see my wife.
"Mr. Armstrong," she asked, out of hearing of my wife, "would you object if I ask a man and his wife to come and anoint and pray for your wife's healing?"
That sounded a little fanatical to me. Yet, somehow, I felt too embarrassed to object.
"Well, no, I suppose not," I replied, hesitantly.
About two hours later she returned, and said they would come at about seven in the evening.
I began to have misgivings, I began to regret having given consent.
"What if these people are some of these wild-fire shouters," I thought to myself. "Suppose they begin to shout and yell and scream like these 'holy roller' or 'pentecostal' fanatics do? Oh my! What would our neighbors think?"
Quickly I gathered courage to go to our neighbor who had asked them to come. I told her I had been thinking it over, and felt it better that these people did not come. She was very nice about it. She would start immediately, and ask them not to come. Then I learned she would have to walk over a mile to contact them. They were living in some rooms in the former Billy Sunday tabernacle that had been built for Billy Sunday's Portland campaign some years earlier. This tabernacle was out beyond 82nd Street, near Sandy Boulevard.
It was now in the heat of the day — the hottest day of the year. I began to feel quite ashamed to impose on this woman, by asking her to make a second long walk on that sweltering afternoon.
"I do hate to ask you to make a second trip out there," I said apologetically. "I didn't realize it was so far. But I was afraid these people might yell and shout, and create a neighborhood disturbance."
"Oh, they are very quiet people," she hastened to assure me. "They won't shout."
After that I decided not to impose on this neighbor who was only trying to help us.
"Let's let them come, then," I concluded.
The Meaning of FAITH
That evening this man and his wife came, about seven. He was rather tall. They were plain people, obviously not of high education, yet intelligent appearing.
"This is all rather new to me," I began, when they were seated beside my wife's bed. "Would you mind if I ask you a few questions, before you pray for my wife?"
He welcomed the questions. He had a Bible in his hands, and one by one he answered my every question and doubt by turning to a passage in his Bible and giving me the Bible answer.
By this time I had become sufficiently familiar with the Bible to recognize every passage he read — only I had never thought of these Biblical statements and promises and admonitions in this particular light before.
As these answers continued coming from the Bible, I began to understand, and to BELIEVE — and I knew the same assurance was forming in Mrs. Armstrong's mind.
Finally I was satisfied. I had the answer from the Bible. I believed. My wife believed. We knelt in prayer beside her bed. As he anointed my wife with oil from a vial he carried, he uttered a quiet, positive, very earnest and believing prayer which was utterly different from any prayer I had ever heard.
This man actually dared to talk directly to God, and to tell God what He had PROMISED to do! He quoted the promises of God to heal. He applied them to my wife. He literally held God to what he had promised! It was not because we, as mortal humans, deserved what he asked, but through the merits of Jesus Christ, and according to God's great mercy.
He merely claimed God's PROMISE to heal. He asked God to heal her completely, from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.
"You have promised," he said to God, "and you have given us the right to hold you to your promise to heal by the power of your mighty Holy Spirit. I hold you to that promise! We expect to have the answer!"
Never had I heard anyone talk like that to God!
It was not a long prayer — perhaps a minute or two. But as he spoke I knew that as sure as there is a God in heaven, my wife had to be healed! Any other result would have made God out a liar. Any other result would have nullified the authority of the Scriptures. Complete assurance seized me — and also my wife. We simply knew that she was released from everything that had gripped her — she was freed from the sickness — she was healed! To have doubted would have been to doubt God — to doubt the Bible. It simply never occurred to us to doubt. We believed! We knew!
As we rose, the man's wife laid a hand on Mrs. Armstrong's shoulder. "You'll sleep soundly tonight," she smiled quietly.
I thanked them gratefully. As soon as they had left, Mrs. Armstrong asked me to bring her a robe. She arose, put it on, and I walked slowly with her out to the street sidewalk and back, my arm around her. Neither of us spoke a word. There was no need. We both understood. It was too solemn a moment to speak. We were too choked with gratitude.
She slept soundly until 11:00 a.m. next day. Then she arose and dressed as if she had never been ill. She had been healed of everything, including some long-standing internal maladjustments.
We had learned a new lesson in the meaning of faith. Faith is not only the evidence of that which we do not see or feel — it is not only the ASSURANCE of what we hope for — it is definite knowing that God will DO whatever He has promised. Faith is BASED on God's written PROMISES. The Bible is filled with thousands of God's promises. They are there for us to claim. They are SURE. God can't lie.
If there is any one attribute to God's character that is more outstanding than any other, it is God's faithfulness — the fact that HIS WORD IS GOOD! Think how hopeless we would be if God's word were not good! And if a man's word is not to be trusted, all his other good points go for naught — he is utterly lacking in right character.
A Dumbfounded Doctor
Shortly before Mrs. Armstrong had been confined to bed in this illness, she had taken our elder daughter Beverly to the doctor with a felon on her finger. It had not been bandaged for some days.
The morning after her miraculous healing, my wife arose about eleven, ate a breakfast, and then took Beverly to the doctor's office to have the bandage removed. Incidentally this was the last time we have ever called a doctor for any illness in our family.
"WHAT are you doing here!" exclaimed the doctor, looking as if he had seen a ghost.
"Well," answered my wife, "do you believe in divine healing?"
"I don't believe Mary Baker Eddy has any more 'pull' with God Almighty than I have!" asserted the physician.
"But I don't mean that," Mrs. Armstrong explained, "I mean miraculous healing direct by God as a result of prayer."
"Well — yes — I — do!" replied the astonished doctor, slowly, incredulously. "But I never did before."
Studying a New Subject
This awe-inspiring experience brought a totally new subject before me for study. And remember, I had plenty of time on my hands for Bible study. Only one laundry client remained. We were now reduced to real poverty. Although I had been beaten down and had made a complete surrender to God, giving myself to Him, yet without realizing it much of the self-pride and vanity remained. Of course God knew this. He was yet to bring me down much lower. I was yet to be humiliated repeatedly and thoroughly chastened before God could use me.
In those days we were constantly behind with our house rent. When we had a little money for food we bought beans and such food as would provide the most bulk for the least money. Often we went hungry. Yet, looking back over those days, Mrs. Armstrong was remarking just the day before this was written that we were finding happiness despite the economic plight — and we did not complain or grumble. But we did suffer.
From the time of my conversion Mrs. Armstrong has always studied with me. We didn't realize it then, but God was calling us together. We were always a team, working together in unity.
And now came a new subject to study, and new enlightenment. We entered into it with vigor and joy. We searched out everything we could find in the Bible on the subject of physical healing. We discovered that God revealed Himself to ancient Israel, even before they reached Mt. Sinai, under His name "Yahweh-Ropha" which means "The Eternal our Healer," or "Our GOD-HEALER," or, as translated in the Authorized Version, "The LORD that healeth thee."
He revealed Himself as Healer through David: "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who HEALETH all thy diseases" (Psalm 103:3). And again: "Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner of food; they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Eternal in their trouble, and ... He sendeth His word, and HEALETH them (Psalm 107:17-20).
Then I made a discovery I had not read in any of the tracts and literature we had been sending for and gathering on this subject. Healing is actually the forgiveness of transgressed physical laws just as salvation comes through forgiveness of transgressed spiritual law. It is the forgiveness of physical SIN. God forgives the physical sin because Jesus PAID THE PENALTY we are suffering IN OUR STEAD. He was beaten with stripes before He was nailed to the cross.
