The Hunters: Ministers to the Sick

If you’re convinced that God wants to use you to heal the sick, then get To Heal the Sick by Charles and Frances Hunter (Hunter Books, 215 pages, 0917726405).

If you’re not convinced that God wants to use you to heal the sick, get the book anyway, and any doubts you have will fly away.

In fact, God wants every Christian to minister to the sick and hurting.

I’ve read other books that chronicled outstanding healings and books that explained the Scriptures in a deeper way. But I’ve never read a simpler, more satisfying, more exciting how-to book on the subject of healing.

And guess what?

This book was published in 1983!

You see, Charles and Francis aren’t exactly spiritual spring chickens. They’ve been clucking around on the planet for more than eighty years.

They’ve also been teaching how to heal the sick for a long time. In chapter 2 of To Heal the Sick they write:

“We are in the very end of this age, and there is an urgency in the entire body of Christ to prepare the world for the soon-coming return of Jesus!

“We must reach every kindred and every tribe and every tongue with the supernatural.

“How can this be done? By believing that the supernatural can be taught! We feel in our spirits that the masses of ordinary people around the world will suddenly arise to the supernatural move of the Holy Spirit and will be healing the sick, casting out devils, and presenting a living, vital Jesus to the multitudes.

“This will not be limited to the ordained ministers of the gospel, but will include the multitudes. God has anointed us and directed us to present the simple ways of healing the sick that He has been teaching us for the past few years. They have worked for us and multiplied thousands have been healed. We have taught others how to heal the sick and cast out devils, and it has worked for them. And it will for you.”

Sections of the book are written by Frances, and other sections are written by Charles. Isn’t it typical that Frances wrote more than Charles?

Kudos to the women!

“It seems to me that the simplest way to heal the sick is by the laying on of hands,” writes Frances, while also allowing that the Bible mentions many other ways of healing.

She also admits that she and Charles experiment sometimes, exploring new avenues of healing.

The Hunter book is a case study in healing. I cannot begin to chronicle a representative sampling here. Obviously, the great majority their healing are unknown even to the Hunters because many who receive healing don't report it. But over their many years in ministry the Hunters have more than enough recorded.

“One of the most unique miracles that I remember happened as I was coming down an aisle of a church,” she writes. “God impressed me to reach out and touch the top of a woman’s head. This woman had cancer of the tongue. That one little touch, releasing the power of God, caused her to be totally healed of cancer and her tongue was completely restored!”

Just in case you are confused, we need to clear up one point: sickness comes from the devil, not God. God does not send sickness to His children to “teach them something.” He gets no glory from sickness, though He does get glory from seeing His children well.

Acts 10:38 tells, How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.

Healing is clearly what God wants for His people. As for who can be used to heal the sick, Charles answers by asking this question:

“Have you ever turned a light switch on or off?
“If you have, you are smart enough to heal the sick.”

Charles sees the believers’ hands as the light switch, situated between them and the power generator, which is the Holy Spirit. “The person needing healing is the light bulb.
“Now, it is entirely up to you whether you turn the switch on or off,” he writes.

Charles suggests that believers stand as close as possible to the person being healed, “because the power actually flows from all parts of your spirit, through all parts of your body, into the person near you.”

Sometimes, he says, a demonic spirit is the source of disease.

“In the case of scoliosis, you need to command a spirit to come out (incurable disease), and then command the bones of the spine to straighten. Even though the spirit comes out, the back doesn’t necessarily straighten until the command is given, so if you don’t do both, the spine could remain crooked.”

Frances relates a case in Florida when she was relatively new to the healing ministry and was asked to stop by a sick woman’s home to pray. The woman was lying on a mattress on the floor, almost too weak to move.

“Would you do just one thing for me?” the woman asked.
“Certainly, I will do whatever you want,” Frances said.
“Would you stand right over here?” she asked. Frances said “her voice was so weak, and she began to inch across the mattress until she got to the very edge. Then she said, “Would you come real close to me?”
Frances said, “Sure,” noting that the woman had not asked her to pray.
“Would you get a little closer?” the woman asked again.
“I kept getting a little closer, but I didn’t understand what she wanted. Suddenly, she looked at me with the most beautiful faith I have ever seen in the eyes of any grown person. She said, ‘If I could just touch the hem of your garment, I KNOW that I would be made whole.’
“…She reached out and touched the hem of the skirt I was wearing, and when she did she was instantly made whole by the power of God!”

Fourteen years later when Frances was back in Florida she saw the woman again. There was “no recurrence of the horrible cancer that was causing her to hemorrhage to death,” she writes.

Charles relates an occasion when he ministered to a man who had suffered a stroke.

“The man had been paralyzed down his right side for three years; his leg was stiff as a board and he could not bend his knee at all; his right arm was totally incapable of moving and had been drawn up against his waist with the fist so tightly closed that his hand was white from lack of circulation.”

Charles says God spoke three words to him: “Spirit of death.” He then commanded the spirit of death to come out of the man in the name of Jesus. Then he told the man to say, “Jesus, I love you.”

The man repeated the words, though they were not very distinct. But his wife got excited because previously he had not been able to speak.

Charles then took the man’s immobile arm and began to bend it. It was stiff at first, but it became more limber as he continued bending it. Soon the man could move it by himself. Charles did the same thing with his leg. He also began opening the man’s fist and bending his fingers back and forth.

Charles writes, “Within about five minutes, he was able to lift his arm and walk, bending his leg without help. Within four days he had almost completely recovered.”

The Hunters believe that a healing Jesus is the Jesus much of the world is waiting to see.

I think they are right.

The Hunters’ books and tapes can be ordered from:
City of Light
201 McClellan Road
Kingwood, Texas 77339
1-800-231-3024

Stanley O. Williford