Sid: We want everyone everywhere to walk in divine health. Then when it’s time to go home with the Lord to just say “Well it’s my time,” and as I understand Kenneth Hagin who recently went home with the Lord did; just have a good breakfast and just slump over at the table and be home with the Lord. That’s the way I believe God intended it and I believe the devil has done everything possible to steal, kill, and destroy. Well I have a couple on the telephone that don’t just talk the talk, they have walked the walked, and learned valuable lessons on how to walk in divine health, and how to get rid of sickness. They’ve known it because they have… let me read this from their book “The God of Now” subtitled “Pearl Will Live and Not Die.” “It was February 15, 1997 as I was taking off my coat and preparing to find our seats at the church Pearl, my wife, sat down on the back pew and cried out that she was going to faint. I hurried over to the back pew where she was sitting laid hands on her and begin to pray. Pearl moaned “Oh my head! My head!” then she screamed “My head it just blew off!” and went into convulsions. A few moments later the convulsions stopped and Pearl lay motionless in a deep coma.” What would you do if that happened to your wife, if that happened to your husband, if that happened to your child? I have on the telephone this couple Dale and Pearl Raatz. I’m speaking to them in their home in Amberg, Wisconsin which is about 75 miles north of Green Bay, Wisconsin. They have gone through experiences so they can teach us; so that we will not be unaware when the devil comes like a roaring lion, I might add like a roaring toothless lion if we understand our authority. Dale I want to start with you. At a young age you started learning about healing, and learning about demonic attacks on physical health. I don’t know about you Dale but the older I get in the Lord the more I see that everything is so spiritual when it comes to walking this walk… Yes I know there are natural germs and things like that, but I believe ALL starts in the spirit realm, what do you think?
Dale: Yes it does.
Sid: I want to take you back to, although your book covers other things, but I want to take you back age 15. I mean you’re minding your own business and you have a head on collision. Tell me what happened.
Dale: Well I believe the devil tried to destroy my life that day. When the car was coming I ducked and took the dash and because of that I slammed my head into the dash of the car causing a concussion; driving my neck bone back into my backbone.
Sid: Hmm.
Dale: What happened, the injury stopped the blood flow from producing calcium to the bone so that my backbone started deteriorating.
Sid: What did the doctors say when they first saw you?
Dale: Well it didn’t happen overnight it happened in the process of about 3 years before I really noticed it.
Sid: Hmm. So in other words, the prognosis was eventually your backbone would totally disintegrate?
Dale: Yes. Finally they couldn’t find what was wrong, and finally they took some x-rays and they’d seen what happened. All the nerve endings was pushing on each other, so it was unbearable. The only way I could get upstairs above the farm home was to crawl on my hands and knees. I couldn’t sleep, it was unbearable but my faith was in God’s word, and I believed His word. So it took a period of time I believe that we realize that God gave us His word we’ve got to be persistent with our faith. I didn’t know much I did, but God knew my heart. I believe the thing it is we go it He knows our heart. So finally the doctors said to me, I remember he knelt down and he said to me “Dale, there’s nothing more we can do. Your backbone is so degenerated that there’s nothing we can do. The only thing we can do we have to take you down to Madison, Wisconsin and we will all the nerve endings and we will put into a sitting or lying position. Which way do you want to be?” I said “Neither.” He said “Neither?” and I said “Yes!” “What are you going to do?” I said “I believe in God.” He laughed at me, but there’s where we’ve got to stand our ground being persistent. So I remember…
Sid: When he laughed at you was because medically speaking there was no hope?
Dale: Yes. There was no hope he knew there was no hope.
Sid: Okay go ahead.
Dale: So… my faith didn’t look at the problem I got to keep looking at the answer that God said “By His stripes I were healed.” Yes I would pray for many many times, but my faith didn’t grab it. That night I remember I came back to a little Bible study late that evening. When I came into the parsonage of the church and I was 21 years old and I was crying. The Pastor said “What’s wrong?” I said “This is the doctor’s report” he looked at me “Is that true?” So the point is there’s 2 opinions the doctor’s or God’s. God’s words says “By His stripes we were healed.” That night they laid hands on me and I received my healing. I didn’t feel nothing go through my body, but supernaturally I knew something happened into my spirit. That night when I went to sleep I fell asleep and I didn’t wake up till 5 that morning; when I woke up I didn’t have a drop of pain in my body. I remember I woke and come running down those stairs and my mother met me at the bottom of the stairs she thought I was rolling down the stairs. I said “I’m healed! I’m healed! I’m healed!” I remember I called that pastor that morning and said to me in a word of wisdom, word of knowledge he said “Dale the devil’s gonna come and try to steal your healing with symptoms, and put these false symptoms back on you again.” I took heed to that word, I really believed what he said. He said “Prepare yourself the fight a good fight of faith and to stand against the wiles of the devil,” and that’s scriptural.
Sid: So were you attacked again afterwards?
Dale: Oh yes I was definitely.
Sid: You mean the symptoms came back.
Dale: I remember one day, it was only 3 days later, I was raised on a big farm and I was out in the farm field and I was doing work. I hadn’t worked for a number of years, and I felt like I could take a lion by its tail and swing him over my head. I was just singing hymns, singing choruses to the Lord and all at once the pain struck me I lost control of my back and legs again and I fell to the ground. A voice behind me said “Ha! Ha! Ha! I told you weren’t healed.” I remember I turned and there was no one there. I said “In the name of Jesus according to James 4:7 ‘I draw nigh unto You and You draw nigh unto me.’ I resist you devil in the name of Jesus.” Immediately the strength came back into my body, and I remember driving back home I was about a mile from the home, I drove back to the home. I got out of the car and I ran to the kitchen, my mom says “What’s wrong Dale you’re white as a ghost?” I remember I got on the phone and called the pastor and he said “I already know the Holy Spirit already revealed it to me. I’ve been praying for you that your faith fail you not.” I remember a few days later I had to go back to the doctor and I walked into his office. The receptionist… because I could hardly get in before, and I walked in as straight as straight could be. I sat in that seat in their chair and she looked at me and got off from behind her desk and went into the doctor’s where he was. I remember he came back out just a couple of minutes later he looked at me and he said “Raatz what happened to you?” and he slammed the door. A few minutes later I went in “What happened to you?” and I said “I’m healed.” I remember he said to me “This won’t last long. This won’t last long.”
Sid: [Laughing] He had the same message as the devil.
Dale: Yes he did.
Sid: It’s a good thing you weren’t in agreement with either. What did you say to him when he said “It wouldn’t last long?”
Dale: I said “Yes it will because I am healed by the stripes of Jesus Christ.” So literally that was my last appointment I had with the doctor.
Sid: Dale I know this is a little thing, but recently I had arthritis in my thumb in the top joint. When I would bend it and it would really hurt. So I went to a doctor and the doctor said “Well we can try we’ll give you a shot and maybe it’ll work maybe it won’t.” Well he gave me a shot and it worked, then all of a sudden it came back right out of the blue. I said “I don’t want another shot” and to be candid with you I forgot about it. I was in a meeting where there was such an outpouring of God’s Spirit when the man walked in the miracle anointing he didn’t pray for my thumb at all, he prayed for me, but he didn’t for my thumb. I wasn’t even thinking about something so minor. I noticed after the meeting the thumb didn’t hurt anymore. I said “Praise God I got a healing.” Then the next day I believe, or two days later, the pain came back and it was bad, but you know it’s just a little thing it’s a thumb, so if I didn’t bend it it wouldn’t hurt. I said “Wait a second I was healed I’m not accepting this” and the pain left.
Dale: Yes.
Sid: See I’m bending my thumb right now. Same thing, although it’s a little thing it works for little things or big things. You know I want to find out some of the things that have happened to Pearl on tomorrow’s broadcast.
