Dear friends:

Below is an excerpt from Christian Darg's latest ministry magazine, Exploits. Peter and Christine are missionaries with their own ministry, primarily in the Middle East where they have a powerful outreach to both Jews and Arabs. They also represent the 700 Club in that part of the world and have served as 700 Club news correspondents. I have known them for more than 20 years.

Jim

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PETER DARG'S HEALING TESTIMONY THIS WEEK

Thank you for praying for all of our travels. Just yesterday my husband Peter returned from war-torn Kosovo, where he was negotiating for air-time for the 700 Club Christian talk show. Right before he was to make a vocal presentation to a TV manager, a wasp flew into his soft drink and stung Peter right in the middle of his tongue. It began to swell painfully to the point that he could not speak, but he resisted the attack in the Name of Jesus. "I just would not have it," he told our prayer meeting yesterday. "As I was walking up a short flight of stairs to meet the TV manager, the swelling was terrific, and I sounded like Elmer Fudd, but I kept believing and confessing my healing. When my foot hit the top stair, the pain and swelling were gone and I made the fastest presentation in my life as I had an airplane to catch." The TV manager, incidentally said, "The 700 Club sounds like a wonderful program. When can you start sending the tapes!" Pray for this wonderful door to open WIDER and wider! Peter said afterwards, "The healing was so great and instant, it was as if the sting never happened!"

I sent out a Psalm 91 prophetic word this week entitled BE NOT TERRIFIED concerning biological terrorism. But for years the Lord has also been speaking to me that soon certain kinds of staph infections will be resistant to drugs. Either we are going to embrace the HEALER now or we are not going to be ready for the many medical and biological calamities. In light of this I am reprinting below our latest healing article from our magazine, Exploits. How wonderful and peaceful life is when we live in Divine Health free of the fear of sickness and disease. Should you wish to receive our magazine, please send your full mailing address. (See below.)

BY HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED!

By Christine Darg

Recently I heard my pastor in Jerusalem preach that according to ancient rabbinical commentaries, the 39 strokes Jesus would have received at His Roman flogging would most likely have been administered in two sessions: 13 cruel stripes across the breast and the remainder across His back.

Imagine if you can, the shocking, excruciating pain of receiving the cruel flagellum blows on the extra sensitive skin of the chest. When I heard this, immediately I received a revelation that perhaps the 13 stripes across Yeshua's heart represented the tribes of Israel (Joseph being divided into Manasseh and Ephraim, thus the number 13), just as the High Priest bore the Israelites' names upon his chest and heart on the bejeweled breastplate. Indeed, the Gospel is to the Jew first.

Presumably, the "cat 'o nine tails," as the multi-strand flogging device was called, would have inevitably backlashed into His wonderful face.

Perhaps the Gentiles were symbolically laid upon His back, as we see in the messianic prophecy, "I gave my back to the smiters," (Isaiah 50 6) i.e., the Roman Gentile soldiers. What we know fur sure is that by His stripes we were healed! (1 Peter 224).

Throughout the history of the Early Church, the healing ministry of Jesus was upheld as was His teaching ministry. But eventually the Church fell into the scandal of doubt and unbelief from which it is recovering in our days as we contend for the faith.

In "City of God," Book 22, Chapter 8, St. Augustine testified to the reality of the work of healing in the church "...there are miracles at this day wrought by God, with what means He likes best, Who wrought them of yore.... "

The evidence of the 4th Century liturgies shows the expectation of supernatural cures. The Church claimed to be endowed with the charisma of healing, and her ministers regularly exercised the power to impart healing. One of the earliest known of these liturgies is the "Testament of Our Lord" (circa 350 AD):

"...O Christ...Who art the Healer of every sickness and of every suffering...send on this oil...the delivering [power] of Thy good compassion, that it may... heal those who are sick... for Thou art mighty and praised for ever and ever. Amen."

Notice, the above prayer did not include the doubt-inducing disclaimer, "if it by thy will."

There were many such liturgies, according to evidence outlined in "Anointing of the Sick" by F.W. Puller. And according to James Moore Hickson's booklet, "Healing in the Early Church," the form of consecration of the oil in the Gregorian Sacramentary, compiled by St. Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome from 590 to 604, was this "A means of protection for mind and body, for getting rid of all pains, all illnesses, all sickness of the body...."

Here are some of the healing references found in the Holy Communion liturgies (Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, Liturgy of St. Mark) "Let not, O Lord, the communion of Thy holy mysteries be to my judgement or condemnation, but to the healing of my soul and body...." [This survived in the English Office of Holy Communion.]:

"Furthermore, O Lord, heal the diseases of our soul, cure our bodily weaknesses, O Physician of souls and bodies, Overseer of all flesh, oversee and heal us by Thy Salvation."

Thus we see that for many centuries, our Lord's original command to heal the sick was obeyed and carried out in its literal sense. The ministry of healing was unqualified with the disclaimer "if it be thy will." The Church had learned from her Master that wholeness, or salvation of both body and soul, is indeed covered by the Will of God.

AND THIS CONVICTION FOUND UTTERANCE IN ANOTHER WAY BY THE FREQUENT ADDRESS TO OUR LORD AS "SAVIOUR OF OUR SOULS AND BODIES," OR, "PHYSICIAN OF OUR SOULS AND BODIES." The latter was an expression common to the ancient liturgies.

For example, in the Liturgy of St. Mark, the ministry of healing is honorably upheld:

"Master, Lord and our God, Thou Who didst elect the twelve-lighted lamp of the twelve Apostles, and didst send them into the whole world to preach and to teach the Gospel of Thy Kingdom. . .heal every sickness and every infirmity in the people. . . "