Martin Luther saw that the church of his day had veered far off course from the original pattern set up in New Testament days. He pointed out at least ninety-five areas that needed redirection and daringly posted his list on the town’s church door before a major holiday.
F. F. Bosworth (Fred Francis Bosworth, 1877-1958) does a similar thing in his book Christ the Healer. He challenges his contemporaries’ views on (1) what exactly was Paul’s thorn in the flesh, (2) whether it is God’s will be heal all, and (3) whether healing is in the atonement, (4) whether the days of miracles are over, (5) whether Christ’s compassion has diminished since reaching heaven, among other controversial topics, such as the notion that sickness glorifies God. Bosworth’s table of contents (Sermons I-XIV) could serve as his theses, not to mention his pointed thirty-one questions in Sermon XIV.
Luther paid a price for taking his stand almost 500 years ago. Succeeding generations have felt either gratitude or hostility toward him, depending on their own views. Bosworth also paid a price for being outspoken on his “new ideas” about whom and what should be included or excluded from the gospel message. On one occasion in Texas, he was severely beaten by some angry men with two-by-fours because he had preached to a black audience. He persevered and eventually became a healing evangelist with thousands attending his meetings in the U. S. and Canada.
While Bosworth did not see himself on the level of Martin Luther, he did believe the Pentecostal and healing revivals to be part of on-going Reformation with God as its architect. In his introduction, he writes:
Many men of God have been aware that the Reformation has never been completed; that God seems to be systematically working toward a return to New Testament faith and simplicity so as to eternally silence man’s excuse of ignorance of God’s message. Fundamental Christianity has suffered great damage through the efforts of some theologians to excuse their own spiritual impotence through relegating everything supernatural into an imaginary transition period of dispensational truth which cannot be scripturally proven. It can only be substantiated through their own interpretation of isolated passages, and is perpetrated through blind traditionalism not unlike that which Christ faced. Yet, deep within the hearts of sincere men there is a longing to rescue the Book of Acts from becoming nothing more than an historical record and to put it back in its proper place as a pattern for the modern church whereby God can continue to confirm His Word and give proof of the Resurrection of His Son in this day of universal unbelief. (p. 3)
Aimee Semple McPherson, a Bosworth contemporary, has an entire sermon outlining various stages of God’s restoration of New Testament truth in her autobiography called This Is That, written in her early twenties. Long before the healing message was hijacked by TV personalities, McPherson and others pointed out that man set healing outside the church, but God set it in the church. “And God hath set some in the church…gifts of healings….” (I Cor. 12:28 KJV)
Christ the Healer is a classic book, originally published in 1924, outlining healing promises. I was excited to learn this week that a free audio version of the book is on Youtube, read by Bosworth’s son Bob Bosworth. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyheruUM-2A&list=PL4ATecYQBfHwoBDWC8m8p_3UdMsDtkByu.
While I won’t take time to quote extensively from the book, I will say that Bosworth does a masterful job in showing the compassion of the Lord to all who seek him in obedience. He would have been a skillful lawyer in building a case. For example, in Chapter 3 “Is Healing for All?” he puts words in Italics that say all, everyone one, etc.
Ps 86, …plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee.
Ps. 103 ..healeth all thy diseases.
[Jesus] He laid His hands on every one of them, and healed them.
Matt. 4:23-25 …healing all manner of sicknesses, and all manner of disease among the people. All sick people…and He healed them all.
Matt. 9:35…and healing every sickness and every disease…
Matt. 10:1 …to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.
Matt. 12:15 …and He healed them all.
Matt. 14:34-36…all that were diseased.
Luke 6:17-19…healed them all.
Acts 10:38…healing all that were oppressed of the devil….
James 5:14…any sick in the church.
Other chapters are just as convincing. His refutation of Paul’s thorn in the flesh being an eye disease is almost comical. (Chapter 14)
In my own life, this book has been invaluable in my recovery from a brain hemorrhage and brain surgery as I have faced setbacks in my slow healing. If my head droops a bit, I have only to open the pages of Christ the Healer and my faith is renewed as Jesus, the lifter of my head, becomes my focus. (Psalm 3) I relate to Andrae Crouch in his recovery from sickness and the song that was birthed from it, “Through It All,” and get a little misty on the line,
“but right there in that lonely hour, it became a precious lonely hour, but Jesus let me know I was His own.”
Andrae gives a touching testimony of how he came to know Jesus as his healer in an old Billy Graham classic 1975 video on Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvIxwc90BEI.
Wikipedia has a complete biography of Bosworth, and Youtube has many videos on his life. In his latter years, this pioneer and patriarch of the 1920s mentored younger healing evangelists of the late 40s healing movement, such as Oral Roberts and T. L. Osborn. His message lives on.
Why not check it out?
Christ the Healer, by F. F. Bosworth. Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1973.