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Revival Article: Resurrections Of The Dead And The Revival Here's a note I sent to somebody who was inquiring about modern-day resurrections of the dead. I would be interested in any additional examples, or references, that any of you might have. Please feel free send them to me at rriss@drew.edu (and also to Ron & Becky Hubbard at rhubbard@fortwayne.infi.net). Thanks! BLESSINGS,
Richard M. Riss It is a matter of historical record that resurrections from the dead accompanied the ministries of Smith Wigglesworth (1859-1947), William Branham (1909-1965), and, more recently, David Hogan. On Branham, see, for example, David Edwin Harrell, Jr., ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), pp. 35-36, according to which, "Branham's healing power became a world-wide legend; there were continued reports that he raised the dead." David Hogan ministers among Native Americans in Mexico, and he and his associates have witnessed a large number of resurrections of the dead during the 1990s. David Hogan and his colleagues have testified concerning these events in many places, including the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. Also, some of the young people of Dr. J. Patrick Fiore's church, Christian Life Center, in West Milford, New Jersey, have spent time in Mexico with David Hogan and know some of the details of these events. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, one influential book among Pentecostals was Lura Johnson Grubb's LIVING TO TELL OF DEATH (Memphis, TN: Voice of Faith Publishing Co., n.d.), in which the author, who was the wife of a well-known pastor, Paul N. Grubb of Memphis, Tennessee, provided the details of her own resurrection from physical death. There were a number of incidences of resurrections of the dead in the island of Timor in Indonesia in 1965. One such incidence, in which a man was raised two days after his death, is described in considerable detail in LIKE A MIGHTY WIND by Mel Tari (Carol Stream, Ill.: Creation House, 1971), pp. 76-78. The stench of the dead man was almost more than could be borne by those standing around him, who were singing songs of worship, praying for his resurrection. When he actually began to move, the prayer team was initially frightened, but they were reassured when the dead man woke up, looked around, and smiled, saying that Jesus had brought him back to life. Several people have attempted to discredit the many reports of resurrections associated with the Indonesia revival of 1965, but I find those attempts to be unconvincing. One such attempt was made by George W. Peters in INDONESIA REVIVAL: FOCUS ON TIMOR (Zondervan, 1973), pp. 80-84. He says that in one case, an infant daughter "had been dead only about half an hour," as if this were a short amount of time, but it would seem to me that he was exercising undue skepticism, since lack of oxygen for more than just a few minutes would normally cause irreparable damage to the brain and certain death. The sheer number of testimonies to similar incidents that he attempts to refute is also an indication to me that genuine resurrections must have taken place there at that time. I have heard from many people about a more recent occurrence of a resurrection from the dead which took place in Cambodia in 1994. One of them, Tom Ford, of Dallas, Texas, reported on October 10, 1994, that he had just returned from a two-week trip to Vietnam and Cambodia and that, "in Cambodia, we were hosted by Sophal Ung, the pastor of a church sponsored by the Global Network. The Lord is doing great things through his ministry there. . . . They've seen lots of miracles too, blind eyes opened, deaf healed, demons cast out, and the dead raised. There was a man that died of a heart attack and was dead nine hours. They took up boards from the floor of his house to have a coffin made. The Buddhist priest was going to come pick up the body the next day. His wife had been saved about two weeks and wouldn't give up. She and several Christians prayed for hours until midnight. The others gave up and went home, but she kept on. At 4:30 am the husband sat up [and] said, 'give me something to eat.' He went out the next day and the people of the village thought he was a ghost. People came from miles around to see the man that was raised up. The man and his wife now have a church in their house. I have the testimony on videotape also." At the CATCH THE FIRE conference in Toronto in October of 1994, some people from Cambodia, Monee Mon and Chen Mau, co-workers with Sophal and Deborah Ung, corroborated this story. At the same conference, James Ryle told my wife and me that he had seen a videotape in which Sophal Ung described these events. In 1974, I attended the Christian Collegiate Conference at Temple University in Philadelphia. It was a conference for College Students, and there was an unusual diversity of speakers, including John Poole, who at that time was pastor of a church in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Cornelius Van Til, the great Christian Apologist who taught at Westminster Theological Seminary. Van Til tried to assert that miracles do not happen in the present day, but some of the people who were attending the conference were excited about an event that they said had taken place recently at Deliverance Evangelistic, a black church in downtown Philadelphia. According to these people, they had been to that church and spoken with several black people who had witnessed a resurrection from the dead which had taken place within the church building there during a church service. In 1987-1988, my wife and I were living in Plano, Texas, where we were attending Fountain-Gate Church, pastored by Fuchsia Pickett. In one of her sermons, she alluded to an incident that had taken place a number of years previously, in which a woman had died during one of Dr. Pickett's church services, and had been raised from the dead. That the woman had died was confirmed by a Registered Nurse in the congregation. The woman who was raised testified to having left her body, and risen to the ceiling of the church and beyond, during the time that her body lay dead in the church. More recently, Wilma Marshall, wife of Richard Marshall, senior pastor of Springs of Life Fellowship in Sunnyvale, California, was used of God in the resurrection of a baby who had just been struck by an automobile. This happened shortly after the Marshalls had returned from one of their trips to Argentina, where they had received a greater anointing from God. When the Marshalls told us about this incident, my wife Kathryn became highly motivated to go to Argentina, with the result that we did go to Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata for the sixth Harvest Evangelism International Institute last year. People have widely varying criteria for evaluating claims of this kind, but one should bear in mind that it is always the case that it can only be eyewitness testimony that provides evidence for such claims, just as was the case for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If people choose not to believe eyewitnesses, then they cannot be convinced, regardless of how many examples may be cited, or witnesses produced. Nevertheless, I hope these examples will be of help to you. If you wish, I would be glad to put you in touch with many of the people whose names I have mentioned here. May God bless you as you continue to research this, and other matters pertaining to the things of God. With every good wish to you in the Lord, Richard M. Riss |
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