Billy Graham On Healing

"I have attended a number of healing meetings. Some sickened me because of the emotional hysteria present. I have also attended healing meetings where the services were conducted decently and in order. At those, I have witnessed the quiet moving of the Spirit of God in a way that could offend no one. In meetings like that, the Spirit used God's servants with special gifts to do His will."


"I believe that true faith involves a complete surrender of our life to the will of God, whatever it is, even when God does not choose to heal us. This means we are willing to be healed, or willing to remain afflicted, or willing to die - willing for whatever God wants!"


"But God does not always choose to heal us. As I have said, I can find no evidence in Scripture that it is the will of God to heal all people of all illnesses. If the Holy Spirit gives a sick person or someone who is praying for a sick person the gift of faith that the person will be healed, then we can be sure the person will be healed. But God does not always give the gift of faith. This means that sick people and their loved ones should certainly pray for the one who is ill, but in the absence of the gift of faith they must pray, 'If it be Thy will'."


"Prudence differs from presumption, and we ought not tempt God. If a sick Christian resorts to faith for healing, he should be certain God has given him that faith. Lacking it, he ought to seek the help of the physicians. And in my judgement it is normal for a Christian to use the medical help God provides. Medicine and physicians are of God, too."


"If medication is not available, or if doctors have pronounced a case incurable, and God lays it on our hearts to look to Him in simple faith for the impossible, then we must follow His leading. But this leading must come from God, not the urging of fellow Christians. However, if medication and doctors are available, to ignore them in favour of asking God to heal seems to me to border on presumption."


"Yet sickness and infirmity are a part of life: no one can escape them at last. All people, including the most famous faith healers, get sick and all eventually die. Kathryn Kuhlman, the famous faith healer, died early in 1976. For years she had suffered from a heart condition, and late in 1975 underwent open heart surgery from which she never recovered. People were healed under her ministry. She was not. Sickness brought death to her at last."


"I know the Lord has used physicians and medicine to cure illnesses I have suffered. Furthermore, we must be open to the idea that it may not be the will of God for us to be cured of all our infirmities, something true of the apostle Paul (see 2 Cor. 12: 7-10). I think Christians should therefore use God-given wisdom to determine whether they should seek the use of natural means or rely solely on prayer or those with the genuine gift of healing."

Taken from Billy Graham's 'The Holy Spirit"