Posted: 08/09/2005 at 12:59pm | IP Logged

Healing Evangelist Calls Loveless Faith Absurd

 By Steve Eastman

OpenHeaven.com

(OpenHeaven.com) It is one thing to believe in healing, but totally another to see healings frequently in your ministry.  Canadian evangelist Bob Brasset, of Victoria, British Columbia, used to be in the first category.  Since he visited a Connecticut church a few years ago, he’s been in the second.  Bob is associated with Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship’s Partners in Harvest Churches and oversees Extreme Healing Ministries.  Recently he spoke with OpenHeaven.com about the joys and pitfalls of healing ministry.

      How would you describe your spiritual life and ministry before your visit to the Norwich Worship Center in Connecticut in 1998?

      I was , for several years prior to our visit to Connecticut in 1998, very hungry for God.  My ministry was that of pastor for about 20 years.  Rather a very ordinary pastor, I’d say.  Nothing spectacular.  I wasn’t being heard by thousands.  In fact, we never had more than 900 people in our church, but I just tried to love people and to feed the flock of God.  I’m sure I made lots of mistakes and almost every Monday morning I felt like quitting the ministry.

      We went to Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship in April of ’94.  It impacted our church and it impacted my wife and I.  It  made us more hungry for God.  It also made me spend time searching for more intimacy with Jesus.  I feel like it laid the groundwork for a healing ministry.

       What happened at the Norwich church that propelled you into a new level of ministry?
      

It was originally a Southern Baptist church.  After renewal started hitting there, they were eased out of the denomination.  I saw and experienced miracles.  The leaders of that outpouring spent time with me.  We went out for dinner after each meeting and they said, “Bob, we’re going to anoint you with oil and expect that that (anointing) will be with you.”  They involved me in the healing team there.  We saw things happen.  The report was that in a period of 80 days about two or three thousand people were healed, incurable illnesses and so on.
 

      When the five of us who had been to Connecticut came back home, after the Sunday sermon, we immediately called the sick up.  On that very same Sunday we said, “All the sick people that would like to be healed by Jesus, just come to the front.”  The altar area was full of people.  At that time we had five medical doctors as part of our congregation and many other health care professionals.  And so we said, “All the medical doctors and health care professionals come up with the healing team and you tell us if indeed they have incurable illnesses and what happens after we pray as far as you are able to discern.”  Person after person said, “I’m healed.  I’m healed.  I can tell.  I can test it out.”  The doctors verified it as much as they were able.  A substantial percentage was healed.  That was the result of our visit to the Connecticut church.  We just kept going from there, especially my wife and I.
  

      Did it take awhile for your understanding to catch up with your new anointing and, if so, could you describe the process?

       Yes, it did.  We saw things that were hard to process intellectually.  Instant and gradual healings of incurable illnesses. So I started studying and asking the Lord for wisdom.  I got all the books I could, all the tapes I could to study. I looked at different healing revivals and different healing ministries and models, and tried to understand as much as possible.  Of course, the testimonies that came at each meeting were really helpful.  I prayed, “Father, please explain what is happening.”  The Lord was faithful to give me understanding as we went along.

       How would you compare anointed believing with positive confession?

       I feel like there’s a real difference.  First of all, I think positive confession is wonderful, scriptural, powerful and good if it’s under the direction and leading of Jesus, if the Holy Spirit leads you and directs you how to do it.  Anointed believing, I describe as when God’s favor or His manifest presence comes upon our ability to believe.  As it says in Hebrews 12:2, Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith, and so we need to look to Him.  It’s always a response to a person; it’s never a process, as far as I’m concerned.

       I feel that a segment of the church has perverted this wholesome practice of confessing the Word into presumption and arrogance.  What they say and what it comes down to, sometimes, is this, “By my ability to confess the Word positively one thousand or two thousand times a day a scripture like by His stripes I was healed, then I’m healed. It gets to be my ability to confess instead of by what Jesus has done.  Or that I accomplish getting prosperity or whatever it is.”  What I’ve noticed, sometimes, for this segment of people, is it turns into driveness.  They’re driven to do this and there’s no peace.  They’re not looking to Jesus as the author and finisher of their faith.  They say, “I have a measure of faith and I'll work it myself.  I don't necessarily have to look to Jesus moment by moment."  I can make my faith happen by my own ability to confess.  I’ll make my faith increase.”  What I have observed is that instead of increasing, it gets less and less.  Why?  Because it has become a legalistic observance.  They don’t really see results, but they get into a mindset and, really, it’s a mental thing.  This can, on rare occasions, even degenerate into “Christian” witchcraft.  It can actually be “Christian” witchcraft because it’s separate from the manifest presence and anointing of Jesus and separate from the leading of the Holy Spirit.  It gets to be another spirit.

       I fell like God is getting us back to the simplicity of child-like faith.  I feel like God has given a prophetic Word. True humble, authentic, anointed faith is coming back to the church, with an emphasis on that word “humble.”  It is humility to submit to Jesus and let Him lead us into realms of faith, into ever increasing faith.  It has to have the humility and simplicity of Jesus.  For some it’s like the emperor with no clothes.  Sometimes people just confess and confess, but they’re naked spiritually.    Often it is not a question of faith, but of love. It is not a question of, “Do you have enough faith to be healed?”  Often it is a question of, “Is there enough love in this room tonight to see this person healed?”  Never one time does it say Jesus was moved by faith.  It doesn’t even say Jesus was moved by power.  Again and again it says that Jesus was moved by love.  Loveless faith is an exercise in absurdity.

       Jesus obviously paid a price for our healing, but in a sense, is there a price we must pay as well?

       It’s free.  Here’s an example. Let’s say my earthly father lives 3,000 miles away on the other side of the continent.  He contacts my brothers and myself and says, “I’ve decided to give most of your inheritance to you early.  I want to give it to you before I die.  It’s available to you.”  Some of us may have to pay a big price to get there, but once we arrive at his home we don’t have to say, “I demand that money.”  No, it’s ours.  He wants to give it to us.  He delights.  It’s free, but it may be a big price to get there.
 

      As for healing, it’s free from the Father and is an easy thing, but satan opposes it.  We may have to pay a price to bust the power of satan off and to come into that realm where healing is available.  I feel that healing is sometimes spiritual warfare.  Jesus always treated sickness as an enemy.

       How much time do you spend in God’s presence each day and what would you recommend for someone wanting more of Him?

       I feel like I need to take time when it’s just God.  I’m not doing anything else, not even prayer walking, which is good and which I do also.  I try to take a segment of time and make it a top priority.  I lock the door of my room and say, “God, I have no other agenda than to be with You.”  I try to take at least one or two hours a day and work to increase that amount. It's soaking and intimacy.

       What would you suggest for someone who wants to start moving into that but doesn’t want to bite off more than he can chew?

       I’d say to start out with 15 minutes.  Maybe it’s 10 minutes, maybe it’s 15 minutes.  Say, “God, I just want to be with you.  Lord, I trust that I’m meeting with you in the secret place of the Most High.”

       What can we learn from the healing revivals of the 1950s, both from their victories and their mistakes?

       The lessons that I feel that we need to learn are lessons of humility and simplicity and to try to replicate the ministry of Jesus and the early church.  I feel, from studying the ministries of the 1950's, that  most of the healing ministries, ended up in moral or financial failure or in areas of pride or deception.  The way to counteract that is, number one, intimacy.  There's no fruitfulness without intimacy.  Number two is humility, humility, humility.  I cannot emphasize that enough.  Number three is child-like simplicity.

       Without naming any particular minister, could you identify an example of arrogance that we would want to avoid?

       You can see it today.  Just turn on the television on a Sunday morning and sometimes you just see preening pride.  You see incredible pride.  I’ve spent time personally with people in the healing ministry.  Sometimes, I sit down with them for two hours and all they can talk about is themselves, what they did, how they did it.  How great they are. They never even ask me, “How are you doing, Bob?  Tell me what you think or how you feel?”  It’s just self, self, self, self, self.  You see driveness there and a desire to build their own kingdom.

      Is it easier for a believer or a non-believer to get healed?

     It depends on the method.  I’ve seen believers, who have been believers for 25 or 30 years come to be healed and they’re depending on a spiritual gift.  What I feel sometimes in my spirit is that God is saying to them, “Look.  Please.  You need to trust your relationship with Me.  Press into Me yourself for the healing.  Don’t just come for a magical fix of a spiritual gift coming down and—wham—you’re healed. Let it flow out of your relationship with Me.  You’re a believer.  You’re a Christian.  Press in.  Develop intimacy.”  Some of them have never developed any intimacy whatsoever.

      It seems sometimes it’s easier for unbelievers.  That’s who it’s for.  It’s like power evangelism.  The miracle is a sign to unbelievers.  The healing really seems to be part of the gospel message.

      The late John Wimber, of the Vineyard Movement, popularized that term “power evangelism.”  Could you explain more about how that works on the field in foreign countries?

      It doesn’t just work on the field.  It works in my own home city, in my neighborhood.  It seems that in the last 12 months something has happened in the spiritual atmosphere of North America.  You know the story in the Bible (II Kings 7: 3-16) where the city of Samaria was under siege and the people were starving?  There was no more hope.  Four lepers decide that since they’re going to die anyway, they might as well go outside the city to the enemy.  They did and there was a feast!  I feel like I’ve gone out into the street and there’s a feast of healings and miracles there.  10 years ago it wasn’t that way.

      I was just in the bank a couple of days ago.  I went up to a new teller and I noticed her accent.  I said, “Where are you from?”  She said, “I’m from Cuba.”  I said, “Atheist, huh?”  She said, “Well, that’s the official thing.”  I said, “Are you sick or in pain.?”  She said, “I have kidney disease.  For three months I’ve been in non-stop pain.”  I said, “Would you like Jesus to heal it?”  She said, “Would I ever!”  I said, “Well, be healed.”  She said, “The pain is gone!”  I came back a few days later.  She said, “It’s you.  I am healed of kidney disease.”  She told every employee in this bank and they are all blown away.  She said, “Please, please.  Could I please come to church with you.  I want  this Jesus.”  This has been happening wherever I go on the airplane and in the streets.  It’s power evangelism, because they want Jesus.  People are kneeling down in the streets weeping.  I am thrilled by power evangelism.

      Is it easier to see God’s power flow in third world countries than in North America, Europe and Australia?

      Marin Luther came along, and the reformers, and they did a wonderful thing. They declared, "The just shall live by faith".   They threw out a lot of superstition and superstitious practices, but they also threw out some of the baby with the bath water, because they tended to deny all supernatural manifestations.  As a consequence, into that vacuum came rationalism and scientism and humanistic philosophies. They have dominated the church and so there has not been that much receptivity to the supernatural, but I feel that’s changing rapidly.  Once more Christians want Jesus and everything He has.  10 years ago miracles were happening on the mission field, but not in Canada and the United States so much.  Now I’m seeing almost as many miracles in Canada, Europe, the US, and definitely in Latin America, as in Third World countries.

      What is the greatest physical healing you have witnessed?

      One was a 92 year-old woman in my home city of Victoria, British Columbia.  The family phoned and said, “Would you come and do last rites for our grandmother.  She is 92 years-old.  They don’t expect she’ll live the night.  She’s blind and she’s deaf.  She is ridden with cancer and tumors and she has arthritis and other ailments.”  I went there and didn’t know what to do.  They were saying good-bye and they asked me to pray a blessing and God’s manifest presence came into the room.  So I said, “Let it come, God.  Anything she needs.”  The next morning they phone me, “Bob, Bob.  They wanted us to take her home because now she can see and read.  She’s not blind and she’s not deaf and there are no more tumors in her body.  The arthritis is gone and she’s up and walking around and praising Jesus.”  She lived for two more years and then went peacefully home.

      I’ve seen creative miracle—God putting a new lung in a person and it was verified by the doctors.  My friend was doing the speaking one night in Africa and a woman who had had a double mastectomy, got two brand new breasts.  Creative miracles are very powerful.

      Where do you see the healing movement leading now?  What can we expect in the next few years.

      My feeling is we’re headed to do the very works of Jesus.  I think it will be short time.  We’re headed to harvest and it will be the greatest and the last.  Jesus said that the harvest is at the end of the age and we’re coming toward the end of the age.  If you’ve studied natural harvest, harvest is short.  You just have to take in the harvest when you see the harvest is ripe and I feel like the harvest is ripe now.  Jesus paid an enormous price for huge harvest, and I, for one, want Him to get everything He paid for.

For more information about Bob Brasset, visit his webpage:
www.extremehealing.ca

Steve Eastman

OpenHeaven.com

Read Steve Eastman's review of Bob Brasset's book "All Things Are Possible".