Epaphroditus - PH62-02

Advanced Bible Doctrine - Philippians 2:25-30

The charismatics, I do want you to understand, are generally born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, they even lead others to salvation. I had one lady mention to me the fact that she breathed a sigh of relief when she realized how close she came to being involved in the delusion (in the make-believe world) of the charismatic group because they led her to salvation. So I want you to understand that these people are believers, and they do tell a true gospel (generally). Sometimes they confuse it with other elements. Very frequently (generally), the charismatics do not hold to the security of the believer, which of course, again, is contrary to Scripture.

The charismatics do live in a make-believe world and non-existent miracle gifts. This, of course, is used by Satan as a monumental diversion from the exercise of genuine spiritual gifts which indeed do exist today, and which it is our business to be exercising. The exciting experiences to confirm the claims of the supernatural work, supposedly being performed by God the Holy Spirit, are in fact manufactured by the old sin nature within us. I cannot stress enough to you that the old sin nature can manufacture very great events–events which indeed are not supernatural.

For example, I have a little brochure here called Miracle at Notre Dame which was written by a local M. C. on a charismatic radio station who attended a gathering of Catholic charismatics in Notre Dame, the Catholic university. I want to read to you one of the great impressive moments that he found at that conference in the stadium at Notre Dame:

"There were thousands of people in the stadium. The service began with singing, mostly choruses of worship, punctuated with loud shouts of praises to God. It was obvious the people were enthralled with the joy of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Everybody seemed to enter in. I looked around and couldn't see one person who was not part of the spirit of the meeting. After only a few minutes of singing and worship, something happened.

"A silence settled across the stadium. The shouting and singing slowly subsided. Then it ceased. The people stood with folded hands and bowed heads–waiting. Out of the silence came a faint sound. You had to strain to hear it. I couldn't tell from which part of the stadium it came. It sounded like the beginning of a wind. The words from Acts 2 flashed into my mind, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

"As I stood there, transfixed, the sound grew steadily louder, coming from all sides of the stadium, drifting slowly, building in intensity, until suddenly it burst completely around me, as I heard 30,000 people lifting up their voices as one voice, singing in other tongues. All around me, I could hear the sound of other tongues being spoken–languages the people themselves did not know. These were languages spoken by the inspiration and utterance of the Holy Spirit. It was an ancient Christian practice endorsed by the apostle Paul himself, who said, I will sing with the spirit (1 Corinthians 14:15). The sound was as if it had been written by God and orchestrated by the Holy Spirit, as a praise to the Holy Name of Jesus Christ. Each person sang in his own prayer language, God blending it all together.

"The spiritual singing lasted for a minute or two. I'm not sure for how long, for I was caught up in the beauty of it. I was amazed and captivated–filled with wonder and awe. I had never witnessed anything comparable to it in all my life. My spirit was caught up, and I saw myself for a few brief moments, not as a participant, but as a spectator to a miracle. But then I became a participant again as my own hands went up with all the others in worship and praise to God."

I want you to think about this for just a moment. You will notice, first of all, the violation of 1 Corinthians 14:27, which says that in a church service, speaking in tongues must be done one at a time. Here you had a stadium of 30,000 people, all of whom were supposedly speaking in tongues at the same time. This man has no doubt that they were foreign languages. He calls them languages. If you had been there, you would have recognized it simply as straight outright babbling, which it really was. Also, this violates the principle of 1 Corinthians 14:28, which says there must be an interpreter who immediately does his job. The minute anybody speaks in tongues, immediately it must be followed by interpreter, or there must be silence in that auditorium thereafter. That was also violated.

However, charismatics, as you know, are not very accurate in doctrine, so that sort of thing doesn't disturb them. It doesn't bother them that a woman is in the position of spiritual leadership over men, as in the case of Kathryn Kuhlman. It doesn't bother them that everybody dabbles in tongues at once. It doesn't bother them that there is no interpreter present.

I want you to think for just a moment. Suppose that you had the experience that I had this summer when I was in Southern California, and I visited Knott's Berry Farm. At Knott's Berry Farm, they had one section where they showed you how they made a movie. They picked several of us out of the audience to be participants in the movie that they were going to shoot. They actually took a segment of the television program Adam 12. They had us re-enact portions of it, and then they interspersed our acting. I was part of the mob scene. Somehow, the director looked at me and said, "That looks like a guy who would be good in the mob scene." So he selected me for that. We got all excited while the gunmen that they had under attack was shooting at the policeman, and the policeman were crouching behind the car. All of us in the mob scene were hiding behind the squad car. All of this was being done on queue.

The director was a real professional, and it was kind of exciting just to listen to him as he'd come up and he'd explain to us, "Now here's what you're going to do. I'm going to tell you to do this. You do this." He went around to all the individuals. He told the policeman that was shot, "I want you to fall." He said, "Let's practice it and run through it once. Fall; twitch; twitch; harder; harder; more pain." He just talked them through it. Pretty soon, that policeman died right there in front of us.

He explained all of this. And he got us all set. Then he said, "Alright, quiet on the set. Scene four, take one." And a guy got up before the camera with that clacker that indicates that the sound is on now. He said, "Cameras rolling." Then he took us through it; he paced through; talked to us; gave us the signals; and, we did our thing. Then he said, "Cut." And they started rolling the cameras again. After it was all through, we all sat down. They were able to instantly interweave all of this. So they proceeded to weave all this together. Suddenly there we were–Adam 12. The program started just like it does on television, and all of a sudden, there we were interspersed in the action. There we were hiding and running in a mob scene. There was all the action.

But it was all make-believe. Suppose you were shooting the scene that we have just read here in Notre Dame Stadium. Could it have been reproduced exactly as was described in this brochure? To the letter. Because it was make-believe. What happened here was that everybody got quiet in this stadium, and suddenly one person, at one end of the stadium, let loose in that moment of silence with the jabbering gibberish of the charismatic tongues. Then somebody next to him picked it up and started doing the same thing. Pretty soon, people saw that this was being picked up, so they all joined in. Then naturally, it traveled down the length of the stadium, and naturally it grew louder and louder and louder. Then suddenly it was very awesome. He was surrounded by speaking in tongues.

You really got yourself psyched to something like Acts 2, as he referred to–that this is a repetition. (This was really wide stretch of imagination in any way to associate these two things.) When you associate what you have in Acts, and you're psyched to think in those terms, you can get awfully excited about it. I imagine it would be very exciting to stand in a stadium in an explosion of excited babbling.

Well, do you know how you would do that in Hollywood? Just like they did Adam 12. They would set it up. The director would say, "When I point to you, you start tongues. Then you who are standing around, you pick it up, and then let it roll through the whole stadium until it comes to the end." The camera would be at one end, and way down at the other end would be where the person is queued to begin. He would say, "Alright, scene one, take 3. Cameras rolling." And the person would begin the babbling, and the thing would start moving around, and others would pick it up, and the circle would expand and expand until the whole stadium was exploding. Then the camera, which had zeroed in on that individual at the far end, would pull back in wide angle. Pretty soon, the whole stadium would be in view, and there would be all these people–hands raise, and all of them speaking. Wouldn't you get excited to see a scene like that?

The moment of disillusionment would be when the director yelled, "Cut." And all the hands came down, and everybody got quiet. That's exactly what would happen. I'm telling you, folks, this is make-believe. And the charismatics live in a make-believe, out of a desperate sincerity to think that if they could only have these miracle gifts of the New Testament working today, they would somehow get close to God–not realizing that the approach to God is right available at hand. All you have to do is get a Bible, and somebody who knows his bananas to teach it to you, and you will go forward in your Christian faith in fantastic strides. And that's the only way you're going to get close to God–not by some manufactured emotional high.

If you were to bring up the fact that the identical sights and sounds and emotions could be created for a movie camera in the Notre Dame stadium, the charismatic would say, "Yes, we know Satan comes up with his counterfeits. We know that he could stage all that." They hide behind that excuse. Because, while Satan indeed could create counterfeits, the only way we know whether a thing is counterfeit or genuine is from matching it up to the Word of God. If you don't start with what the Bible says on these things, and then match your experience to it, Satan can indeed create a counterfeit. The charismatics do not realize that they themselves have swallowed one of Satan's most magnificent counterfeits.

We have pointed out to you that Dr. William A. Nolen, the medical man from Minnesota, has done an invaluable service in examining the charismatic healers' claims, and giving us an unbiased medical report. That's the reason we have gathered here–to hear the report of Dr. Nolen. He used Kathryn Kuhlman as his test case since she is fully representative of all that the healers are doing. The healers all act in basically the same way.

If you happened to turn on channel 39 after church this morning, as I did, you would have seen a healer in action, and everything I described to you in the previous session including being slain in the spirit; the women falling over; and the ladies standing there with the cloths to cover their legs for modesty. All that was taking place right there on television, and you would have seen it. Except this fellow had a twist that I hadn't heard recently. Several people, apparently, who had been alcoholics came up. He said, "How long have you been an alcoholic?"

People would say, "Two years; three years."

He said, you've got 27 devils. Out!" And they'd fall over. Another man came up, and the healer said, "You have 14 devils in you. Out!" He was healing people by casting out what he called devils. He didn't even know enough to know that there's only one devil. You can't use the word devils in the plural. That is the height of ignorance. There are many demons, but one devil. Keep your eye on channel 39. It will be an education in itself for you.

However, in the previous session we told you how Dr. Nolen was involved as an usher at one of Kathryn Kuhlman's meetings in Minnesota; the initial observations of the people that he dealt with who came into the meetings; and, how he had made contacts with some of these. One man, who had a cancer of the kidney and cancer of the hip, came forward, with a man carrying his wheelchair behind him. This was the man to whom Dr. Nolen had given a wheelchair just so he wouldn't have to walk back from the meeting to the elevator. That man came up on the platform to claim a healing. Kathryn Kuhlman had him walk around and bend over. This included, incidentally, all of the things that I saw on channel 39 this afternoon–the same sort of thing. This was all to the enthusiastic applause and commendation of those about–that God who performed a healing.

Continuing now from his book and page 58. "Occasionally, Miss Kuhlman would turn and say, 'Someone with a brace–a brace on your leg. You don't need that brace anymore. Take it off. Come to the stage and claim your cure.' The first time she called for a brace, there was a delay in the proceedings. No one came forth. The audience began to grow restive, and you could sense that they all felt this was most embarrassing for Miss Kuhlman. Finally, after what was probably a minute, but seemed an hour, a very pretty young girl limped up to the stage. She waved her leg brace in the air, stood with her pelvis tilted badly, on one good leg and one short withered leg. Kathryn Kuhlman questioned her. 'How old are you?'

"'Twenty.'

"'How long have you worn the brace?'

"'Thirteen years, since I had polio at 7.'

"'And now you've taken it off?'

"'Yes,' she said. 'I believe so much in the Lord. I've prayed, and he's curing me.' Everyone applauded. The girl cried. This scene was, to my mind, utterly revolting. This young girl had a withered leg–the result of polio. It was just as withered now as it had been ten minutes earlier before Kathryn Kuhlman called for someone to remove her brace. Now she stood in front of 10,000 people, giving praise to the Lord, and indirectly to Kathryn Kuhlman for a cure that hadn't occurred and wasn't going to occur. I could imagine how she'd feel the next morning, or even an hour later, when the hysteria of the moment had left her, and she'd have to again put on the brace that had been her constant companion for 13 years, and would be with her the rest of her life. She was emotionally high now. Soon she'd be emotionally low, possibly despondent.

"This case shook severely what little hope I had left that Kathryn Kuhlman was truly a miracle worker. I had accepted, as a misunderstanding, the deception that went with 'Not yours surely?'–referring to the wheelchair, even though I knew the man hadn't been in a wheelchair until that afternoon. I chalked it up to innocent error when the ability to take a deep breath was passed off as evidence of a lung cancer cure, even though I knew most patients with lung cancer can breathe deeply. I had assumed that it was simple over-enthusiasm that enabled Kathryn Kuhlman to call a multiple sclerosis patient cured, even though she obviously still walked with the multiple sclerosis gait.

"But this episode involving the girl with the brace was pure, unadulterated, flagrant nonsense. For Kathryn Kuhlman to really believe that the Holy Spirit had worked a miracle with this girl, it seemed to me that Kathryn Kuhlman would have had to be either blind or incredibly stupid, and she was obviously neither. Was she then a hypocrite or a hysteric? I don't know, but I had begun to seriously question her credibility, and that of her organization. Not once, in the hour-and-a-half that Kathryn Kuhlman spent healing, did I see a patient with an obvious organic disease healed. That is, a disease in which there is a structural alteration.

"At one point, the young man with liver cancer staggered down the aisle in a vain attempt to claim a cure. He was turned away gently by Maggie. When he collapsed into a chair, I could see his bulging abdomen, as tumor-laden as it had been earlier.

"One desperate mother managed to work her child's wheelchair down to the front of the auditorium. The little girl in the chair, about 5 years old; glassy eyed; and, hydrocephalic could barely sit upright. The mother, weeping, lifted her daughter out of the chair and attempted to get her to walk to the stage. The child, with the mother holding her, made two pitiful attempts to walk–both times nearly collapsing on the floor before the mother could catch her. Finally, weeping, the mother put her imbecilic child back in the chair and pushed her away down the aisle.

"The stage was getting so flooded with people waving their arms to demonstrate bursitis cures, and touching their toes to show off healed backs, Kathryn Kuhlman could barely control them all. Fortunately, at that point, a mass miracle occurred. Miss Kuhlman turned to the audience and said, 'All of you with bad backs stand up.' 300 or 400 people stood up. 'Go into the aisles,' she commanded. They went. 'Now bend forward; bend to the side; touch your toes; and, do all the things you haven't been able to do.' 300 people ran through calisthenics. 'Oh God is so good,' she said.' Oh, God is so good,' said Miss Kuhlman, eyes raised heavenward. The audience applauded."

This afternoon, I watched the healers healing a child who had supposedly been deaf and dumb, which means you cannot speak. They then commanded the devils to leave, and pronounce the child healed. Then they said, "Say after me." He was motioning with his hands. "Baby." And the child said, "babba." He tried other words, and her response was obviously the mumblings of a child who had never heard, but who could make sounds with a mouth not intelligible. Then suddenly he said, "You've got it. Praise God, you've got it." And all the imbeciles in that auditorium went crazy, sincerely praising God. That happened more than once. Each time there was obviously no change and no improvement in the individual who had been healed.

So I want you to understand what you are hearing here under the observations of a medical man who knows what he's seen is no different than what takes place in every other charismatic meeting, barring none. What you see on television will confirm everything that Dr. Nolen observed in Kuhlman's meetings. Continuing:

"Finally, it was over. There were still long lines of people waiting to get onto the stage and claim their cures. But at 5 o'clock, with a hymn and final blessing, the show ended. Miss Kuhlman left the stage, and the audience left the auditorium.

"Before going back to talk to Miss Kuhlman, I spent a few minutes watching the wheelchair patients leave. All the desperately ill patients who had been in wheelchairs were still in wheelchairs. In fact, the man with the kidney cancer in his spine and hip, the man whom I had helped to the auditorium, and who had his borrowed wheelchair brought to the stage and shown to the audience when he had claimed the cure, was now back in the wheelchair. His cure, even if only a hysterical one, had been extremely short-lived.

"As I stood in the corridor, watching the hopeless cases leave, and seeing the tears of the parents as they pushed their crippled children to the elevators, I wished Miss Kuhlman had been with me. She had complained a couple of times during the service of the responsibility, the enormous responsibility, and of how her heart aches for those who weren't cured. But I wondered how often she had really looked at them. I wondered whether she sincerely felt that the joy of those cured of bursitis and arthritis compensated for the anguish of those left with their withered legs; their imbecilic children; and, their cancers of the liver. I wondered if she really knew what damage she was doing. I couldn't believe that she did.

"I waited in the corridor for about ten minutes until the flow of patients slowed to a trickle, and then went back to Miss Kuhlman's dressing room. I found her standing outside the room, sobbing loudly. Dino had his arms around her, doing his best to comfort her. When he spotted me, he waved me back into the corridor. Then a couple of minutes later, having led Miss Kuhlman into her room, he came out and spoke to me: 'Wait about 5 minutes, and then go on in,' he told me.

"'I wonder if I should. I hate to bother her when she's so distraught.'

"'Don't worry,' Dino assured me. 'She'll recover. She's always this way after a service, but she bounces back fast. She's expecting you.'

"'If you say so' I said. 'I really appreciate it.'

"When she let me into her dressing room five minutes later, Miss Kuhlman had indeed recovered. She was, in fact, bouyant, smiling, laughing, and talkative–on an emotional high. I apologized for bothering her. 'Not at all,' she said. 'I'm delighted to talk to you. I feel just wonderful. I have enormous energy, thanks to the Lord.'

"'I'd like to ask you some questions,' I began.

"'Ask me anything at all. I love to talk. Sit right here. Right there,' she said, 'pointing to a chair a few feet from her dressing table. Then she sat on the edge of the table, smiling radiantly. I'm not going to mention that smile again. Simply assume that when Miss Kuhlman is not crying, she is smiling–radiantly.

"'To save some time,' Miss Kuhlman, 'is it safe to assume that Alan Spraggett's biography of you is accurate?'

"'Yes,' she said. 'Except, of course, for one thing–my age. He asked me how old I was, and I gave him a figure. A joke, of course. But he used it. Aside from that, everything else is correct. I subsequently rechecked Spraggett's book, The Unexplained, in which he had made a facetious reference to Kathryn Kuhlman as being 84 years old. Some readers took it seriously. I'm not much of an age guessers, so let's just say, as they do in a popular song, that Kathryn Kuhlman is somewhere between 40 and death.

"'I'll skipped the biographical stuff then, and ask some medical questions. As a doctor, that's a particular aspect of your ministry in which I'm interested. How do you get along with the medical profession?'

"'Wonderfully well,' she replied. 'I have a great many doctor friends. You see, I have nothing against doctors, and I hope they have nothing against me. I don't cure people. As you know, the Holy Spirit happily cures through me. Doctors cure people, too. I think doctors are wonderful. I'm on their side.'

"'Do you think any of the patients you cure are simply hysterical people?'

"'Of course,' she answered laughingly. 'Aren't any of your patients you treat hysterical?' I admitted they were. 'But many of our cures are documented,' she continued. 'All those patients we show on television, for example.' Miss Kuhlman has a one-hour syndicated show on television every week which is shown in Minneapolis on Sunday morning. 'They are documented cases, and I always tell people who say they've been cured to go back and check with their doctors. I have nothing to hide.'

"'What about organic diseases–things like gallstones, for example? Do you cure these too?'

"'Oh, certainly: gallstones; cancer; arthritis; everything. But don't say I cure them. I cure no one. The Holy Spirit cures them."

I have explained that to you. I hope you understand the necessity for that repeated phrase. That prevents someone with a broken compound fracture from walking up and saying, "Heal me." It implies she has no control over it. Whereas the Bible says you have full control of your spiritual gifts.

"'Have you any idea why the Lord chooses to work miracles through you?'

"'I don't know why I've been chosen,' she said. 'In fact, I always worry that one day I will go out on the stage at a healing service and find that the Holy Spirit has decided not to use me as His instrument any longer. But I do know why miraculous healings are occurring. The explanation is in the Bible.'

"'I'm afraid I don't know the Bible as well as I should,' I apologized.

"She laughed and picked up her Bible, which was literally falling apart. It was apparent she'd been through it thousands of times.

"'Let me give you a little lesson,' she said. In the Bible, Christ says if you won't believe Me, believe My miracles. We are now approaching the millennium–the time when the Holy Spirit will leave us and the church. The elect will be taken up. All the signs point to this. For example, read Ezekiel 37-39. It says the ten greatest nations will re-form like the Roman Empire. We see what's happening in Europe: the Common Market; and, the loss of prestige of the United States. In the Bible, they speak of the "spoil." That's the oil in the Middle East. Make no mistake: the Second Coming is near. Miracles and miraculous healings are Christ's way of telling us to prepare for Him. There are more miraculous healings now in the 1970s than there have been at any other time since the days of the early church. Even in Bolivia, where miracle healings never occurred before, there was a boy in his early 20s who was curing people by the thousands. I'm proud to say that he received the gift of healing at one of our services at the shrine in Los Angeles. You know, don't you, that once a month we hold a healing service at the shrine, and it is always packed. We even have a VIP section. People like Robert Young and Merle Oberon often come to our services. Not because of me, of course, but because of the Holy Spirit.'

"It took Miss Kuhlman about 20 minutes to review the biblical explanation of miracles for me. She thumbed through her Bible as she spoke, and I kept busy taking notes, though I admit the explanation didn't seem very clear to me then. Probably it was my fault, but when I tried to check out these references, I was unable to find any of them in the Bible.

"Now, in the entrance way, just outside the dressing room, I could see Dino pacing back and forth. He didn't signal me to leave, but the message was clear, and justified. After all, the entire troop had been working hard for five hours, and they were probably hungry. So I stood up; shook hands with Miss Kuhlman; and, thanked her for her time and for the Bible lesson.

"'You're perfectly welcome' she said. The Bible is a wonderful book. You should really look into it.' I promised I would.

"Even if I hadn't felt obligated to leave, I don't think I would have found much more to ask Miss Kuhlman. It seemed obvious to me that she was a sincere honest woman who felt that she had been chosen to perform a mission for Christ, and that she was honored to have been so chosen. She believed without a doubt that she was helping the sick and the maimed as Christ wished her to help them–not personally, as she had pointed out endless times, but simply as His instrument.

As I was about to leave her dressing room, she stopped me. 'Let me give you my private address,' she said. 'Just write to me if there's anything more I can do to help you. I'm always happy to cooperate.'

"I put down the address in my notebook, and a few weeks later, when I wrote to her, I found, as I had expected, that her offer to help me in my investigation was a sincere one. Kathryn Kuhlman believes, as she told me, that she has nothing to hide."

In the next section, Dr. Nolen proceeds to report to us what he found as the result of his examination of the people that he had kept a record of, through a legal secretary, as they came off the platform, concerning what had happened to them in the healing service. Now we come to the crux of what we are interested in. This is what we are trying to find out from a totally unbiased viewpoint. Is this real or is this not? If Dr. Nolen says to us, "The man with cancer in his kidney was cured," and "The lady who took the brace off has been completely restored," then we must recognize that something is taking place. We have one more problem of concluding whether this is of God or of Satan. But the preponderance of evidence then is on the side of the charismatics, and we must back off. On the other hand, if Dr. Nolen comes and discovers that nothing really took place, and perhaps that even damage was done, then the charismatics have to back off and admit to themselves that they have created a dream world. Continuing:

"During the healing service, as patients who had claimed a cure came down off the stage, two legal secretaries wrote down the names, addresses, phone numbers, and diagnoses of all those who said they would help in a follow-up study. These girls had been recruited by Mrs. Ryan (a friend of his), as she had promised when she suggested that I participate as an usher, and Kathryn Kuhlman had raised no objection to our study. As it turned out, almost every patient who was approached expressed a willingness to cooperate. We got 82 names. The only reason we didn't get more was that the flow of cured patients was so heavy that the secretaries simply couldn't get to them all.

"I had mixed emotions about the follow-up study. On the one hand, I felt that Kathryn Kuhlman was a sincere, devout, dedicated woman who believed fervently that she was doing the Lord's will. I didn't want to hurt her. On the other hand, I wasn't sure that whatever goodness Kuhlman was doing wasn't outweighed (far outweighed) by the pain she was causing. I couldn't get those crippled idiot children and their weeping broken-hearted parents out of my mind. I decided to go ahead with the investigation.

"First, George and me (he with his heart problem, and me with my bursitis)–both of us had been caught up in the magic of Miss Kuhlman's performance. (Listen carefully.) Seeing her out on the stage in her flowing white robes; listening to Dino play his marvelous music; hearing Jimmy McDonnel and the choir singing their inspirational hymns; and, above all, listening to Kathryn Kuhlman call loudly, clearly, and emotionally on the power of the Holy Spirit: all these things created a mood that was almost impossible to resist. You wanted to believe so badly you could hardly stand it. You didn't want a reason. You wanted to accept.

"'I'll tell you,' George said, 'I was darn near ready to go up on that stage myself. It's funny, but whenever she said someone is being cured of a heart condition, I'd get a sort of burning sensation in my chest. If no one else had gotten up to claim a heart cure, I think I'd have claimed one, but someone else always did, so I stayed in my seat.'"

It is characteristic, as you may remember from our studies of Edger Cayce, in the healings through the demons, that heat, redness, and electrical shocks accompanied the workings of the healings. It is interesting that he should have described it here in the identical way that the demons work.

"I had the same sort of experience. At the time of the meeting, I had a moderately severe case of tennis elbow, a form of bursitis. When Kathryn Kuhlman said, as she did several times during the service, 'Someone is being cured of bursitis,' I'd find myself moving my elbow back and forth, trying to see if the pain was gone. A couple of times, for a few seconds, I thought it was. Then I'd exercise a bit vigorously, and find the soreness still there.

"Remember, these were the reactions of a skeptic, George, and an M.D., me. We hadn't come to the service hoping to be cured; praying to be cured; or, trying to be cured. We had come as cool, dispassionate observers. After watching Miss Kuhlman in action, it was easy for me to understand how, when I reacted as I did, those afflicted who had come seeking help would become believers. After five hours at the service, the wonder to me was that everyone in the audience hadn't claimed a cure.

"But at least one answer to that was apparent: the spastic idiot child, the man with the paralyzed arm and leg; and, the young man with the gigantic swollen abdomen. They could hardly claim cures. The evidence of their appearance precluded such claims. If you were suffering from an ailment or a deformity that was self-evident, then you could hardly climb onto the stage and give testimony to the Holy Spirit and Miss Kuhlman. When you did, as in the case of the girl who stood there with a withered leg, waving her brace, the situation became extremely embarrassing.

"The day after the meeting, George came to the clinic, and we ran an electrocardiogram. Skeptical as we both were, we hoped, and perhaps even slightly expected that there would be an improvement. I know George was disappointed, as was I when we found his EKG unchanged. The scars, the result of his two heart attacks, were still there.

"The second patient followed up was me. I have hypertension. Not bad, but not good either. I have no symptoms, and I lead a very active life, but I have to take pills every day to keep my blood pressure at respectable levels. Even with medication, my pressure runs above normal. Before the miracle service, I'd had my blood pressure taken. I was 155 / 90. The day after the service, I had it taken again: 160 /95. Not enough of an increase to be of any significance, but certainly evidence that the service hadn't helped me.

"I might add here that neither George nor I derived any delayed benefits from the service. As this book goes to press, 18 months after the service, George's heart is still scarred, and my blood pressure remains elevated. Since neither George nor I had claimed a healing, we weren't really a fair test of Miss Kuhlman's results.

"However, a few weeks after the service, we sent letters to all those on our list who had claimed healings, inviting them to come to Minneapolis on Sunday, July 15th, and tell us about their experience, when I would be back from the Philippines. 23 people showed up, and I interviewed them all. I'm not going to give all their case histories, though I have them on file. There are many cases alike in almost every detail but name. Nor am I going to use the real names of these patients, though most of those who attended the meeting signed releases allowing me to do so. I am wary of the mail that some of these case histories might attract. In the past, I have received hate mail, and I have little doubt that I'll receive more in the future. But that is one of the prices you pay for writing about controversial emotionally-charged subjects. It's a punishment which I think should not be inflicted on patients.

"The following five cases are typical of the patients who were willing to reaffirm their cure.

"Case number one: Marilyn Rogers is 18 years old. She is a tall pretty girl with long black hair; blue eyes; and, dark complexion. She is intelligent, and told her story fluently. Marilyn graduated from high school in 1972. She wanted to go to college, hoping to get a degree in special education so that she could work with retarded children. Unfortunately, her parents weren't able to pay for her education, so she went to work as a sales clerk. She had expected to earn enough money so that she could start school in the fall of 1973. Shortly before going to work, eight months before the Kathryn Kuhlman meeting, Marilyn had an acute attack of dizziness and vomiting. At first she attributed the episodes to something she had eaten. But when the attack persisted for three days, she went to a family doctor who referred her to a neurologist. The neurologist admitted to the hospital and kept her there for two weeks while he ran a series of blood tests. He then started her on cortisone. Her symptoms subsided, and she went home and back to work.

"At the time of her discharge, the neurologist told Marilyn she had inflammation of the blood vessels of the brain. Two weeks after returning to work, Marilyn suddenly developed numbness in her left arm and leg. She went back to the hospital, and this time the neurologist told her that his initial diagnosis had been wrong. Marilyn did not have inflammation of the blood vessels of the brain. She had multiple sclerosis.

"He transferred her to a hospital associated with the medical school where there were specialists doing research in this disease. Marilyn spent the next six weeks at the University Hospital. She was treated with massive doses of cortisone and with a new drug "antithymocytic globulin." "ALG," as it is called, is obtained from the tissue of animals. In Marilyn's case, it came from goats. ALG has proved very helpful in preventing rejection after organ transplants. Since there is a resemblance between the disease process and multiple sclerosis in a rejection reaction, some research doctors are hopeful that AIG may be effective in controlling multiple sclerosis. The antithymocytic globulin was given intravenously. Marilyn received 16 bottles over a period of 38 days. Shortly after Marilyn entered the hospital, her weakness and numbness progressed to the point where she lost the use of both legs. For a while, she was confined to a wheelchair, but gradually, as treatment progressed, she was able to get around–first with a walker; later with a cane.

"Multiple sclerosis is a terrifying disease. No one knows what causes it. No one knows how to cure it. Hundreds of drugs, alone or in combination, have been used to treat this disease. None, so far, have been consistently helpful. In the short run, however, almost any treatment will seem to work. There are two reasons for this:

"First, the disease is cyclic. That is, its symptoms may come and go. One day the patient may be blind in his left eye. The next day, his vision may be normal. He may lose bladder control for three months, then regain it; or, have perfect control for a year, and then lose control again. He may develop paralysis in his legs, which becomes so bad that he can get around only in a wheelchair. Gradually, his strength may return so that he can walk unaided. It is only by studying large groups of patients over a long period of time that an investigator can tell whether improvement in a patient with multiple sclerosis has been produced by the medicine under investigation, or is just another condition for some unfathomable reason. So far, in all the studies that have been done, no one has found firm evidence that any medicine will cure multiple sclerosis.

"The second reason why, in the short run, any treatment may help such a patient is that multiple sclerosis is one of those diseases in which the psyche plays a major role. During the healing service, when Kathryn Kuhlman said, "Go into the aisle, you people with spine injuries–don't come up on the stage until you know you've been healed,' Marilyn felt a burning sensation in her spine. She left her wheelchair and walked to the stage. An usher brought the wheelchair to the front of the auditorium and passed it up onto the stage. Kathryn Kuhlman turned to Marilyn, and asked, 'Whose wheelchair is that? Not yours surely?'

"Marilyn didn't want to go into a complex explanation about how she had borrowed it, so she simply said, 'Yes.'

"Kathryn Kuhlman asked her, 'And now you're walking?'

"'Yes, I am,' Marilyn answered.

"'Praise the Holy Spirit," Kathryn Kuhlman said, looking up to the ceiling. The audience applauded vigorously. Then Kathryn Kuhlman had Marilyn walk back and forth across the stage, demonstrating her new ability to walk. Since it was obvious to everyone that Marilyn's gait was not completely normal, Kathryn explained."

Now, get this: the limitations upon God's healings. Compare this now to the New Testament. Continuing:

"'Of course, since these muscles haven't been used for a long time, it will take time to get them back to normal. But isn't she doing wonderfully well? Isn't God wonderful?"

When I first read that, I couldn't help thinking of Peter and John and the man at the temple gate begging for alms that they healed who didn't even ask to be healed. Then the Scripture says his ankle bones were so completely healed that he went away leaping and jumping. All healings in the Bible under the gift of healing were complete–no progressive healings; no progressive retrogression. Continuing:

"And of course, there was more applause. Marilyn then walked down the aisle to her wheelchair, which had been returned to its place. All of the audience applauded. Many wept with joy as Marilyn walked by them. Marilyn wants so badly to get better that she will interpret anything that happens to her as evidence that she is improving–that she is being cured. She may even function better physically if it is suggested to her that she can do so. Sometimes when Marilyn is tired (not really trying), her muscle weakness and her waddling are severe–easily apparent. But put Marilyn up on the stage with 10,000 people watching her with a woman in flowing robes and a close relationship with the Holy Spirit, and say to her, 'Walk, Marilyn, walk–I rebuke your multiple sclerosis,' and Marilyn will walk–not perfectly, but better perhaps than she has walked in months. And Marilyn's heart will leap with joy, and she'll say to herself, 'I'm cured,' and she'll give praise to Kathryn Kuhlman.'

"One final note before we move on. Multiple sclerosis is a diagnosis no one wants to make. The first time Marilyn went to the hospital with weakness, she says her doctor made a diagnosis of inflammation of the blood vessels of the brain. The chances are excellent that even then the doctor suspected that Marilyn had multiple sclerosis. Inflammation of the blood vessels of the brain is an almost unheard of diagnosis. But it's an unspoken regularly-observed rule in medicine not to make a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis unless it's unavoidable. Most doctors try not to make it until the patient has had a second (and possibly a third) attack of suggested symptoms. The reasoning is, why make a diagnosis which will only depress the patient, when after you've made the diagnosis, there is little you can do anyway? You will find, however, that because multiple sclerosis patients are always understandably looking for miracles, and because it is a cyclic disease and responsive to suggestion, it is one of the diseases charlatans most like to treat. No matter what nonsense the faith preaches or practices, he invariably finds it easy to persuade his desperate victim he has been helped.

"In the two months since the meeting, Marilyn felt that her gait had improved steadily, and that her headaches had decreased in frequency and intensity. She was sure Kathryn Kuhlman had cured her, and that it would only be a matter of time until she was perfectly normal. True, her doctors at the University Hospital had been unable to find and measure any real change in her muscle strength, but they agreed that she walked very well, and had no explanation for the improvement in her headaches. They were very happy for her.

"I thanked Marilyn for telling me about her case; wished her well; and, watched her leave my office. She walked with a wide-based waddle to which victims of multiple sclerosis often resort. To my eye, there was no discernible improvement in Marilyn's gait, but I was glad her spirits were high."

We will continue next time. I remind you that healing takes place in the meetings of the healers, and there is an explanation for that. When you understand that, then the whole charismatic picture will be clear to you. Your heart will go out to these pathetic people playing a make-believe world, and imposing upon themselves deliberately a self-delusion, all motivated by the desire to honor God; to praise him; and, above all, to feel that they have approached Him and come close to Him. There is nothing so dangerous in the human soul like emotion dominating that soul under the control of the old sin nature. The charismatic movement is based upon such domination of the soul by the old sin nature. So credit to God is indeed credit which his majesty the devil deserves.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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