© 19 Colin Melbourne
Dying from Acute Appendicitis
When they brought me home helpless, we prayed all night.
We did all we knew.
At ten o’clock the next morning I said to my wife, “This must be my last roll-call.”
We had five children around us.
I tell you it was not an easy thing to face our circumstances.
I told my poor wife to do as she thought best, but the poor thing didn’t know what to do.
She called a physician, who examined me, shook his head and said,
“It is impossible for anything to be done for your husband: I am absolutely helpless. He has appendicitis, and you have waited too long. His system will not stand an operation. A few hours at best will finish him.”
What the doctor said was true. He left her, and said he would come back again, but he couldn’t give her any hope.
The Physician Who Never Fails
When he was nicely out of the house, an old lady and a young man, who knew how to pray, came in.
The young man put his knees on the bed and said:
“Come out, you devil, in the Name of Jesus!”
It was a good job we had no time for argument [1], and instantly I was free. Oh Halleluia!
I was as free as I am now.
Back to Work
I never believed that any person ought to be in bed in the daytime, and I jumped up and went downstairs.
My wife said, “Oh, are you up?”
I said, “I’m alright now Wife, it is alright now.”
I said, I had some men working for me, and she said none of them had turned up that morning, so I picked up my tools and went to work.
Then the doctor came. He walked up the stairs and my Wife called, “Doctor, Doctor, he is out!”
“What?” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “he is out at work.”
“Oh,” he said, “you will never see him alive again. They will bring him back a corpse.”
Am I a corpse?
Oh, when God does anything, it is done forever. I have laid my hands on people with appendicitis when the doctors were in the place, and God has healed them.
I will tell you of one incident before I pass on.
It will stir up your faith. I am not here to be an exhibition. I am here to impart divine truth to you concerning the Word of God, that after I leave, you can do the same thing.
Teach Disciples
I went to Switzerland, and after I had been there for some weeks, a brother said, “Will you not go to meeting tonight?”
“No,” I said, “I have been at it all this time, you can take charge tonight.”
“What shall we do?” he asked.
“Do?” I said, “Paul the Apostle, left people to do the work, and passed on to another place. I have been here long enough now, you do the work.”
[1] No time for argument: Smith was dying of acute appendicitis and septicaemia, if he’d had opportunity, he would have argued vociferously with the young man, that, “he could not have a devil in him because he was a Christian.”
This was years before Smith was Spirit-filled, and understood how demonic oppression can bind even genuine believers in Christ who are not in fellowship with The LORD.
Continue reading to discover what happened next…
© 19 Colin Melbourne
