“Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure.” (1 Timothy 5:22)
Paul said that in our teaching we should teach the laying on of hands. He also said that we should beware of laying hands on anybody. Never lay hands on anyone suddenly, without thought, without preparation, without understanding (1 Timothy 5:22). Do you know why? For you might die. When you lay hands on a person, you are taking the person’s problems or burdens unto yourself. You are saying, “We are now one.” But if the power of God in you is not enough to push out the burden, it pushes your way and you get the problem the person has. That’s why we don’t allow everybody to go around laying hands on everybody and also, it is not everybody that you should lay hands on. Some people have a problem you can’t manage. You’d better call the elders of the church, and let four, five, or six of them zap the individual! Otherwise, you will get hurt. Let me tell you what happened to us once.
One day we were going to pray for a woman. The woman was sick, actually given up for dead, in her home. She was actually demon-possessed. The doctor had given her over to bid her family good bye, for she couldn’t live. She was too far gone. They sent for us and asked us to come and pray for her. So, I got some of the elders and we were walking over the mountain in order to get to her house. Because God said to us that the woman would be healed, one of the young brothers, whom we called C.C., ran ahead through a shortcut to get the glory. He wanted the glory of saying that he laid hands on her and she was healed. He got into her house before us and laid his hands on her. When we arrived, he was crippled. His right hand started withering up and he couldn’t stretch it out. Then, the whole one side of him was dead. He also got epilepsy and began to fall and foam at the mouth. As long as that boy lived, he never was able to get back. Though we cried to God, we were never able to deliver him, until he died some years afterwards. He had gone and offered himself to the devil that held the woman and he did not have the virtue, the energy, the power of God to pay for it.
