The Lone Ranger & Tonto are camping in the desert, set up their tent, and fall asleep.

Some hours later, The Lone Ranger wakes his faithful friend and says, "Tonto, look up at the sky & tell me what you see."

Tonto replies, "Me see millions of stars."

"What does that tell you Tonto?" asks The Lone Ranger.

Tonto ponders for a minute, then answers, "Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Chronologically, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it is evident that the Lord is all-powerful & we are small & insignificant. Meteorologically it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.

What it tell you, Kemo Sabi?"

The Lone Ranger is silent for a moment, then speaks: "Tonto, you fool,

Someone has stolen our tent."

I am always amazed at some of the forwards I receive. How people come up with some of the things they do is beyond my imagination? The Lone Ranger and Tonto parable cited above underscores a paradox within the various branches of the Church of God today. Actually the inherent wisdom expressed by this parable underscores a problem that has existed for decades.

Yes, just as Tonto failed to see the obvious, the majority of people in the Church of God lack the discernment to see the obvious. They have been without an important gift of the spirit for so long that they no longer relate to this gift except in an abstract way. Most can no longer relate to this gift in any tangible way since they have never seen its fruits.

To illustrate this point let me ask, are you in the church of the unhealed? Sad as it is to face; the simple truth is that the mainline splinter groups coming out of the Worldwide Church of God continue to foster an atmosphere, which has existed for decades. The gift of healing is gone from the Congregations of God. Yet, most of the laity lack the discernment to see that a protective hedge of God has been removed. A vital, absolutely necessary gift is absent that demonstrates who are the true people of God. This gift is one of three special gifts that Jesus Christ identified as signs, part of the fruit that distinguishes who is really aligned with the will of God. These special signs are given in Mark, chapter 16, apparently on Monday night, just after the sun went down and the beginning of what we call Monday started. It could possibly be a set of scripture relating another meeting between the time Jesus first appeared to the Disciples and his final ascension but I personally do not think so.

The only prominent figure in the Churches of God that actually addresses this issue that I know of is Dr. Roderick Meredith. Of course he wants the Gift of Healing restored to his organization so everyone will finally recognize that his leadership is the one Christ has actually sanctioned. Most other leaders just do not talk about this gift. It is really quite embarrassing to them because they realize what the implications of the absence of this spiritual gift really mean.

The common argument for the absence of healing, as taught in the Bible, is real cute, but just a product of human reasoning. Like a lot of doctrines floating around the various organizations, it has no biblical basis. The reasoning goes something like this. It is not God’s time yet to manifest this gift right now. Be patient, He will show the gift when the time is right. The apostate leaders rationalize that since the church is mature, the gift is not needed to help bolster faith and other admirable qualities. Unfortunately, no such biblical doctrine exists. What is actually the case is that the church, just like the parable of the fig tree is not producing fruit. The church has bee overran by Satan and his demons and is quite corrupt.

Part of these ministers’ rational comes from an analysis of scripture showing very little healing in the later stages of the book of Acts and other epistles. Really! This system of logic conveniently ignores the fact that the Bible is only a very brief documentation of the human experience. There is a massive Library of Congress that has untold millions of pages just showing how the laws of the land should work. Can you imagine the Bible and how large it would need to be to cover 6000 years of human history?

I wonder how long the apostate, self-appointed leaders will take to stop making Jesus Christ out as a liar? The scriptures are just so plain on this. They say these signs will follow.