DIVINE HEALING SERMONS
PART 2
By Aimee Semple McPherson
Is Jesus Christ The Great "I Am" Or Is He The Great "I Was?"
Shut in my closet of prayer today, with my Bible and the Spirit, my Guide, I muse a while o'er its pages, then pray for the world with its throngs who, in teeming millions, walk through this life in need of "The Great I AM."
As I ponder and pray Jn the stillness, I dream as a dreamer of dreams. A steepled church stands before me a church with open doors. Within it I see the preacher stand; hear his voice in earnest call. But 'tis the throng that flows through the street outside that holds my anxious gaze.
"Pit-a-pat! Pit-a-Pat!" say the hundreds and thousands of feet, surging by the church doors of our land.
" Pat ! Pat ! Pi t-a-p at!' 'hurrying multitudes, on business and pleasure bent.
From out the church door floats the voice of Pastor and Evangelist in an effort to halt the down-rushing throng in their headlong race toward destruction and attract their attention to the Christ.
"Stop! Stop! Giddy throng, surging by like a river, take your eyes from the bright lights of the gilded way," they cry. "Leave the paths of death, enter our open door and listen while we tell you the sweet though ancient story of 'The Great I WAS.'
"Eloquently, instructively, we will tell you of the wonderful power Christ 'used' to have, the miracles He 'used' to perform, the sick He 'used' to heal. 'Tis a graphic and blessed history of those things which Jesus did almost 1900 years before you were born. They happened far, far away across a sea which you have never sailed, in a country which you have never seen, among people you have never known.
"Wonderful, marvelous, was the power that 'used" to flow from 'The Great I WAS.' He 'used' to open the blind eyes, unstop the deaf ears, and make the lame to walk. He 'used' to show forth such mighty works, and even manifest them through His followers that the attention of the multitudes was arrested and gripped in such an irresistible way that thousands were brought storming at His door of mercy, to receive blessing and healing at His hand.
'Of course, these mighty works Christ 'used' to do are done no longer, for some reason. Perhaps Jesus is too far away, or is too busy making intercession at the Father's throne to be bothered with such little things as the physical infirmities of His children, else His ear may have grown heavy or His arm be short, or maybe these mighty works were only done to convince the doubters in that day, and since we have no doubters (?) in this civilized day and age, the miraculous has passed away and is no longer necessary.
"At any rate the fact remains that the signs and wonders which He once declared should accompany His preached Word (Mark 16) are seen no longer. The power He once displayed, till the glory of His majesty and love in coming to destroy the works of the devil, flashed and played through the gloom like the lightnings around Mount Sinai, is now dark, cold, dead. And, as for the visible manifestation of His power, we are left desolate as though the light which once shone in the darkness had gone out. "Come, come to this attractive feast, unheeding sinners. /Turn now from your Sunday golf, fishing, theatres and novels.! Come enter our doors that I may tell you the story of l The Great I WAS, ' and the power that 'used" to be." But
"Pit-a-pat! Pit-a-pat!" On go the thousands of feet ; on to the movie and on to the dance ; on to the office, the club and the bank.
"Pat! Pat! Pit-a-pat!" "Why don't you stop your wayward feet ? Do, you not know that you are headed for sorrow? Why is it that the theatre is o 'er-flowing whilst our pews are empty and bare 1 ' '
"Pat! Pat! Pat! Pit-a-pat!" "Oh, stop a moment, the maddening, ceaseless, pattering of multitudinous feet and tell me why you take such interest in the world about you and show such lethargy, carelessness and lack of active interest in my story of 'The Great I WAS/ and the power He 'used' to have
and the deeds He 'used' to do? Why is it that people grow enthusiastic over the ball-game, the boxing- ring, the movies and the dance, while we see no revival of interest or turning to the Christ ? ' '
On and on they go, paying no heed, neither turning their eyes from the glittering baubles beyond. "Why is it, dear Spirit of God," I ask, "they do not listen to that dear Brother's call? They do not seem interested in the power Christ 'used' to have. In a steady stream they pass by the church and on into the world of grim realities and the problems which they must face.
"Pat! Pat! Pit-a-pat ! ' 'there are young feet, old feet, light feet, heavy feet, glad feet, sad feet; joyous feet, tired, discouraged feet ; tripping feet, lonely, groping feet; straight feet, sick and crippled feet; eager, searching feet; disillusioned, disappointed feet; and, as they pass, a message is somehow tangled up in their pattering, which rises from the cobble-stones like a mighty throbbing from the heart of the world.
" 'Tis not so much what Christ used to do for the world in answer to prayer in bygone days," they seem to say, "but where is His power NOW? And what can He do TODAY ?"
"Ah yes! 7 ' sigh the crippled feet from the pavement, "we are not so vitally interested in the sick He 'used* to heal, the limbs He 'used" to make straight and strong. (Of course, we are glad to know that somewhere, sometime, in the distant past Christ healed the sick in far off lands). But we live in the great today and Ah me ! ! We are very worn and weary ! We yearn for healing, hope and strength today. We stand in need of succor NOW. But you say these mighty provisions for the healing of the body, (as well as the soul), which Christ promised in Psalms 103, Isaiah 53; Matt. 8; Mark. 16; Jas. 5were not at all lasting, but were mainly for the Jews who lived in other days. And in reality your teaching says Christ's healing of the sick, when He walked this earth, was not so much for the demonstration of the tender Saviour's love and sake of relieving the sufferers' pain and a pity for the sick themselves, as to build up His own cause and make the world believe and, accomplishing this, He withdrew the life line of hope and coiled it up again. So, as the church cannot supply my need, I must pass on in further search of help from another source."