He was fifteen, just slightly younger than I was. He had leukemia and was about to die. He was a Christian. His friends and relatives were Christians. They were supposed to believe in the word of God, but I brought the word of God to him and I could not talk him out of dying. He said it was “God’s will,” you see. I knew he could be healed. Many had been healed right under my hands as I prayed for them. But this boy already decided to die. Those Christians brought me in several days before he died, and gave me ten minutes to talk to him. Do your thing! Work your magic!

Perhaps I could have done more if they had allowed me more time, but when I went in, he did not have faith. He was just religious. Think about it. At fifteen, he had learned enough tradition to insist that he would be healed only if it was “God’s will,” regardless of what I showed him from the Bible. He never refuted any text that I used, but only nodded, and went right back to the “God’s will” routine. Cessationism killed him. Divine sovereignty — I mean that demonic but commonly accepted perversion of the doctrine — killed him. He could have been healed if he was an unbeliever, because then it would have depended on my faith and ministry, or he could have believed when I introduced the gospel to him. Ironically, “Christianity” killed him. And the Christians around him made it happen.