False prophets claiming to heal HIV/Aids

Apostle Marson Sharpley writes: I fully agree and support what Health Minister, Dr Haufiku, said about false prophets who claim to heal HIV/Aids. Let me also congratulate him on his appointment. Haufiku is fast proving that choosing and appointing him was a good move by our President. Please note that I am a teacher and lecturer by profession. I was an ardent scholar of Marxism as a revolutionary, an ex-UN diplomat and an ex-drought relief co-ordinator. I am now an Apostle and ex-co-ordinator of the Council of African Apostles. I deliberately include the short CV to dispel any notion by the reader of being an emotionally deranged hocus pocus magician. However, suffice to say, God - the God of the Bible - through our faith in Jesus Christ does supernaturally heal people from sickness and disease and even raises the dead back to life. God uses people to do this, but it is not those people who execute the actual healing or miracle, they are mere instruments of God being used by God as gifts. There is no person on this earth that can heal sickness or disease or make miracles happen. It is either God or even Satan who works through people to do this. All well-informed theologians, irrespective of their denomination or hermeneutical studies as scholars of God and custodians of the mysteries of God know full well that nothing is impossible with God! We are also informed by the Bible that through faith and belief, as well as through holy and pure living, we "can do all things through Christ who strengthens us". Let me also state unequivocally here that anyone who claims to be able to heal people from sickness and disease without acknowledging the power of Jesus Christ in such a matter and who charges people a fee for such, is not of God and should be arrested and charged for fraud, because that is not what the Bible instructs. As spiritual men and women of God, the monotheistic God of the Bible with the gifts of prophecy, healing, wisdom and knowledge, we are informed that "freely we receive and freely we give". Anyone who charges people for prayer is a charlatan and should be brought to book and so is anyone who claims that they can heal people. Personally I have experienced many supernatural occurrences from church buildings to hospital beds and schools as well as at homes, but I have neither the right nor the authority to claim that it is I, Marson Sharpley who healed someone or delivered another from demons out of my own. It is the Christ in me as the son of God through my faith and belief in His supernatural power that performed the miracle by His grace. It therefore means that the basic and yet most potent ingredients for miracle healing to occur are mine and the person’s faith and God's grace affording us to eat the bread which is Christ. It is like the ingredients needed when baking a cake or fulfilling a cuisine recipe. We mix the ingredients as directed, but it is the heat from the stove or oven that makes it a reality. Furthermore, anyone who claims to perform miracle out of their own and instructs people they prayed for to throw away any chronic medication they are using, needs to be arrested and brought to book as well. God by grace gives humans the ability to manufacture medicines and medical machines to mitigate sicknesses and diseases. People miraculously healed through prayer should not immediately abandon their medical treatment without consulting their doctor or physician to confirm that they are healed and no longer require the medication. This is not withstanding the fact that God works in collaboration with us as His creation to either procreate or to preserve creation. I would like to encourage us not to doubt or limit God's presence and working in our midst as a nation and a continent beyond religiosity and churchianity! Let us rather endeavor to increase our faith in God because as Biblically declared by our dear President when he assumed the presidency on March 21: “This is the day that the lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!" As a nation of technocrats and highly intelligent intellectuals, we must remain vigilant against mumbo-jumbo philosophies, as we rationally and pragmatically research strategies to find solutions to so many perplexing challenges facing our society. However, let us not become so puffed up with knowledge that we despise and rubbish what God can do for us, to us and through us. God bless Namibia, God bless Africa!