Saturday, March 09, 2013

Signs and Wonders: Salvation and Healing AAs


This is about an extraordinary book I have been reading in connection with our research and publications on curing alcoholics by the power of God. See www.dickb.com/cured.shtml.

The book is Marua Woodworth Etter, Signs and Wonders (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1997)

Early A.A. pioneers who became a part of the first A.A. Fellowship (Akron Number One) were required not only to renounce alcohol permanently, but also to: (1) Believe in God. (2) Come to God through His Son Jesus Christ. (3) Eliminate sinful conduct from their lives. (4) Grow in understanding of God through Bible study, prayer, Quiet Time, and reading religious materials. (5) Help others get straightened out.

Many of these pioneers, including the first three AAs, were believers  in God, Bible readers, and Christians. They sought God's help. They were healed. And they specifically declared in many meetings, newspaper articles, columns, and magazines across the nation that they had been cured by the power of God. And see When Early AAs Were Cured and Why www.dickb.com/alcoholismcured.shtml

Today's AAs have that same access. But far more often than not, they just don't know the Christian origins of A.A., the Christian organizations and evangelists who fed A.A. its techniques, the Christian upbringing of the cofounders, or the specific principles and practices of the original Akron A.A. Christian Group. See Pioneer Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous: God's Role in Recovery Confirmed!, available on Amazon.com Kindle store.

Coincidental with the writing of this article, a facebook letter just arrived and has been posted in which Laura tells of her father who was an AA for 44 years, drank on and off, finally went to the altar and accepted Christ, and was healed for good until his death 3 years later.

All this history inspired me to begin reading about the great evangelists in American and their messages and accomplishments. One of the greatest was Maria Woodworth-Etter. She traveled the United States, visited churches, held camp meetings, and addressed thousands.

I wanted to know her experience in saving and healing drunkards. I wasn't sure I would find much among the accounts of thousands who were crippled, seriously ill, saved and healed. But I did.

In fact, the Etter book is filled with accounts of Mrs. Etter ministering to drunkards, converting them to Christ and often simultaneously seeing them completely healed of their drink problem. There are many other books about the great  evangelists, their revivals, their messages, those they converted, and those who were healed. But this book is a top record of a top woman who ministered to endless amounts of drunks, got them saved, and healed them on the spot.

Dick B., dickb@dickb.com;  808 874 4876.

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