Book Review: Preparing the Way—The Reopening of the John G. Lake Healing Rooms in Spokane, Washington

In his book “Preparing the Way,” Cal Pierce, the Founder and Director of the Healing Rooms International, gives his autobiographical story of how the Healing Rooms began.  He describes a series of “meant to be” amazing “coincidences” and a number of prophecies that directed him to “re-dig the wells of healing” that John G. Lake, a famous “healer,” had started in the early 1900’s.    He gets so caught up in these experiences that he doesn’t seem to give any thought to testing the spirits like we are instructed to do in 1 John 4:1. These amazing “meant to be” experiences become a theme throughout his entire book.

If you have read any of former New Ager Warren Smith’s books or heard his testimony, you will understand how these types of “meant to be” experiences are very common in New “Age” Spirituality. Satan is capable of orchestrating these “meant to be” experiences.  So these amazing coincidences can’t be automatically assumed to be from God.  It is essential to test these experiences against  Scripture.

Cal states that after many years of attending church and being a self-described “bored” member, something happened that changed his life forever.  One night in 1996, a couple from his RV group told him what was happening in some meetings that his new pastor Bill Johnson and a Vineyard pastor were conducting in the area churches.  People were “falling down, laughing, shaking, and crying.” (Pierce 33)

After a short discussion, he and his wife decided they wouldn’t be attending those meetings.  But by May of that year, Pastor Johnson called for a special meeting for all of the leadership of the church.  Although Cal wasn’t happy about it, he was required to go since he was a member of the board.

At the meeting, after they had sung several  worship choruses, Pastor Johnson stood up and raised his hands to Heaven and said “Come Holy Spirit!.”

“The next thing I remember,” Cal states, “is that wave after wave of fire began to course through my body.  The flames seemed to be going deep into my bones and that made me want to run or jump or shout or scream or all of those things at once.  But I couldn’t move.  My feet were stuck to the floor, as if they had been glued there.

Within what seemed like a few minutes, I heard Michelle’s [his wife] voice.  She was pulling on my sleeve, trying to get my attention.  ‘Honey’ she was saying ‘the meeting’s over, and everyone’s gone home.’  I had no idea what the meeting had been about, but I somehow knew that I would never be the same again.

I tried to move again, but couldn’t.  It took two strong men to pull me loose from the floor that night, and from then on the change in my life was so great that it was like the difference between night and day.” (pg 34)

This experience isn’t something that can be confirmed by Scripture.  Something to keep in mind is that in Paul’s discussion of the Gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 14:32, he makes it clear that the “spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophet.”  The Holy Spirit never takes control over our body so that we become powerless to control anything that we are doing.  Not being able to move or do anything for a period of time would not be caused by the work of the Holy Spirit.  It would contradict clear teaching in Scripture.

Cal goes on to state that somehow the old Cal Pierce had died that night and “all of his plans and desires died with him.” (pg 35)  He suddenly had an inexhaustible desire to study everything he could get his hands on about spiritual growth and especially regarding “revival” and healing.  [Nothing about studying the Word of God?]

Cal’s wife, Michelle, hadn’t become involved in everything that he had.  She didn’t outright oppose what he was doing, but she wasn’t too excited about it either.  He states:  “I could sense her reservations when I announced to her one day that we would have to scrap all of our plans for the future.  There would be no early retirement and no “RV”ing.  That lifestyle no longer interested me in the least.”

So, he didn’t expect her to understand when he announced his decision to take a trip up North for a few days.  For reasons that he indicated were not totally clear to him, he decided to take a trip to Spokane, Washington.

When he announced in his Sunday School class where he was planning to go, one of the ladies spoke up.  She said that she had recently read a book by Ken and Gloria Copeland about John G. Lake, and that he was from Spokane and was also buried there.  Cal then realized that months earlier he had read the same book, but had forgotten about it.

Driving the 10-12 hour drive from Redding to Spokane, he couldn’t get the thought out of his mind that he was “going to the city where John G. Lake had been used so mightily by God.” (pg 47)   He remembered that John G. Lake had “experienced a hundred thousand documented healings in only five years of ministry, and this resulted in Spokane being officially declared the healthiest city in the world.” (pg 47)

[NOTE: This is stated in numerous sources on the internet and in books, but to my knowledge, so far no actual documentation has ever been given for these healings nor has a copy of the official statement been produced.]

Cal planned to do a number of things while in Spokane.  He wanted to see the building where the miracles happened; he wanted to see the tabernacle where John G. Lake had ministered; and he wanted to see the home where he lived.  He also wanted to see his grave, and decided to start there first.

Once he arrived in Spokane, he stopped at a convenience store and bought a map to see where the cemeteries were located.  He found that there were three large ones and many little ones.  He decided to just pick one, and you guessed it, he picked the right cemetery on the first try.  At the cemetery’s visitor center, he asked for the location of John G. Lake’s grave and was told that his was the most visited of any grave site in the city.

Once he found the grave, he laid down on it and began to cry out to God.  “God, bring up the anointing of this man to me.  Let it rise out of his bones.  I want to walk in the same power that he walked in.  I want to see the miracles that he saw.” (pgs 48-49)

[NOTE: This is something called “grave soaking” and is practiced by the youth from Bethel Church where Cal Pierce came from and whose pastor is Bill Johnson.]

After visiting John G. Lake’s home and tabernacle, Cal went to the location of the old Rookery Building where John G. Lake’s healing rooms had been located.  The original building had burnt down, but had been rebuilt.  He went up to the third floor where he remembered the healing rooms were originally located.  He spent quite a while praying as he walked up and down the hallways.  He states:  “The enemy was there too.  He said to me ‘What are you doing here?  You’re no John G. Lake.’  I knew that was true so I went back out to the grave site to pray some more.” (pg 50)  He spent three more days in Spokane praying and then went home.

After several more trips to Spokane, Cal and his wife moved to Spokane.   Cal indicates that they weren’t sure why God had sent them there, but they were determined to find out.  For a year and three months Cal continued to visit the grave of John G. Lake once a month.  He and his wife tried out a number of churches.  In each church they visited, they asked people if they knew about John G. Lake.  Cal claims that many had heard of him and that they all had been praying that the same anointing and healing would come to Spokane.

Cal was certain that God had brought them to Spokane for a purpose, and finally he felt prompted to do a 40 day fast.  During his fast, he claims that the Holy Spirit led him to a passage in Genesis regarding Isaac and how he re-dug the wells that belonged to his father Abraham, and that he renamed them the same names they had before.  The wells were then restored.  Cal believed that this meant he was supposed to “re-dig the wells of healing.”

His book then flashes back to describe how others had “prepared the way” for the healing rooms.  The “meant to be” experiences then go into faster-than-light speed.

Others Prepare the Way?

In August of 1996, two men by the name of Timothy Johnson and Tom Bensen attended a meeting in Spokane conducted by a “prophet” named  Bob Jones, (pg 65) who had prophesied that a new healing anointing would begin outside of the City of Spokane, it would be brought into Spokane and then it would finally go out into the whole world.

So Tim and Tom came to Spokane to prepare for it.  Over a period of 18 months they made a number of trips to Spokane.  They too were “led” to the grave of John G. Lake to pray and to the site of the Rookery Building.  They also conducted several 40-day fasts during that time. They claimed that the Holy Spirit had told them that he was sending them there to “prepare the way for healing.”

After seeing a brochure that Cal had sent out, Tim called Cal and told him he had heard about what he was doing.  Cal states “This was amazing.  These men didn’t know us, and we didn’t know them, yet God had dealt with each of us separately concerning the exact same burden.” (pg 67)

Tim then told Cal that Bob Jones said that while he was preparing for meetings in Spokane, he could see in the spirit realm “a huge python over the city.  He was given the authority to strike the Python behind its head with a sword, but he couldn’t kill it.  The Lord told him that the local church would have to do that.  He then struck it in its reproductive organs so that it could not reproduce before the church got united enough to kill it.” (pg 67)

He also saw an angel that God sent over the area who was tattered because of an intense battle between him and the demonic forces.  Bob Jones declared “God’s people needed to unite in intercession, so that no more angelic forces would be sent to the area.” (pg 67)

Tim goes on to state that after the conference before he went home, he was led to go to the grave site of John G. Lake to pray.  He claims that “the Lord spoke to me and said ‘I will restore the healing anointing that was on John G. Lake.  It will start in Spokane and spread like wildfire across America from here.  Revival in the Northwest will also begin in Spokane.’  I sensed that the roots of the huge pine tree over the grave were flowing down into the bones of the man of God and bringing up strength for a new generation of healing ministries.” (pg 68)

Then, Tim said that he was blown away when he heard that Bob Jones was also led by the Lord to go to the grave of John G. Lake and pray.  He (Bob Jones) too stated that the Lord had revealed to him that “the tree growing down into the grave was a prophetic sign from God that He would revive the anointing that had been over his servant.” (pg 68)

Tim asked God if it was time for them to go to the city, and He said that it was.  Tim asked Tom to go with him.  They decided to pray about it and if God confirmed it they would go the following Saturday.

Tom started praying and he claims the Holy Spirit instructed him to “Go into the garage and get the staff  you cut in the Redwood forest…bring it into the house and write on it ‘My Name is Elohim.’” (pg 69)  Tom followed the instructions and then called Tim who amazingly was sitting at his own kitchen table with a staff that he had just finished writing the names of God on.

They took the staffs with them on their trip to Spokane.  They went to the Rookery building and walked around the area praying.  They claim that as they passed through a food court on the other side of the street, they ran into a demonic force that almost knocked them down.  Tim states “I seemed to be suddenly overtaken by a magnetic field, and I had the feeling of static electricity around my body.” (pgs 69-70)  Tom felt it also and asked Tim “What is this?”

After walking to another part of town, they came back to the same area and felt the same thing they had before.  Tom believed that they had encountered a prince of demons over the city who seemed to be boasting “This is my city and I will not be brought down.” (pg 70)

Medical Lake Healing Water?

On New Year’s Eve of 1997, Tom and his wife invited some “prophetically gifted” friends to their house for prayer.  After their prayer time, Tim slept over at his house.  The next morning, Tom and Tim were discussing a dream that Tom had concerning the coming revival in Spokane.  Tom states that he heard over and over again a word from the Lord about “a lake of medicine.” (pg 70)

The two of them got out a map of Spokane to look for anything like that. They couldn’t find anything, but when Tom’s wife, Betty, found a better map, they were amazed to discover that just outside of Spokane there was a small town called Medical Lake.   Tom states “We wondered if this is what Bob Jones’ prophecy had meant  that the revival of healing would start outside of Spokane?  Would it come from Medical Lake?” (pgs 70-71)

They looked it up on the computer and found that

“Medical Lake was also the name of a small town, five* miles outside of Spokane, on the shores of Medical Lake.  The lake was discovered by a French Canadian sheep herder by the name of Lefevre.  In the early 1800’s**, he had gone to the lake one day to bathe and was immediately*** healed of his advanced rheumatoid arthritis.  He had named the lake in French, and his name translated to Medical Lake.

Local Indians had also discovered the medicinal and curative powers of the water of Medical Lake.  They had built steam baths around the lake where they poured the water over the hot rocks and breathed in the resulting steam.  They also claimed many healings from its use.

The water of the Medical Lake was found to be high in mineral content, so that when it was boiled down, it left a salty residue.  The Indians carried these salts to distant tribes who could not reach the lake and many of them likewise claimed healing from the use of salts.” (pg 71)

*Actually it is 15 miles not 5
**Actually it was the late 1800’s
***Records say “was almost completely healed”

This is where they stop regarding the history of the lake.  The moment I saw the name Medical Lake in Cal’s book as I was reading it for the first time, I just about fell off of my chair.  My jaw dropped open, and I thought “You have GOT to be kidding?”

Medical Lake is my home town.  In 1972 when Medical Lake celebrated it’s 100 year anniversary, they put out a paper with a lot of information about the history of Medical Lake.  I was in 5^th grade at the time and became very interest in it at that point.  I have read a lot about the history and have collected information regarding it over the years.

As I read the history that Tom was reciting, I noticed something very disturbing.  He stopped after delivering the information about the lake having natural healing powers.  As I read through the rest of the book and have also searched the Healing Room websites, there is absolutely NO information regarding what happened after that.  This is something that anyone can easily find by going to the Medical Lake website.

“From the 1880’s to to the early part of the century, Medical Lake remained a flourishing town and popular vacation destination, and boasted a growing community.  The lake, however, was dredged of most of its minerals deposits over the years and people began to wonder if the lake ever had the ability to heal its users.  The lake showed the effects of the adjacent land developments.  Algae blooms destroyed everything, except for the lake’s recreational value.” (History)

It goes on to state that in 1964, the City installed a sewer system.  The lake could not recover to its pristine state because the lake quality had been so severely degraded. It got so bad that fish could no longer survive in the lake. In 1977, the phosphorous levels were greatly reduced when treated with liquid alum.  Then in 1986 “an aerator was installed in the lake to increase oxygen levels and decrease algae blooms.” (History)  This improved the lake quality so that it could once again be used for recreational use.  The lake no longer has any natural healing properties.  It also should be noted that it NEVER had any SUPERnatural healing properties.

Why did they not fill us in with the rest of the details?  This becomes very misleading. Most people reading or hearing this information wouldn’t be the wiser.  It would be logical for them to conclude that the water STILL has healing properties.

Another issue is that this story written in the book about the circumstances surrounding the discovery of this information is significantly different in an audio presentation by Cal Pierce.   It is natural through each telling of a story to include some details that weren’t included before, or leaving out details that had been included at other times.  However, the story in the audio presentations gives an entirely different story that contradicts the details in this book. (Pierce, Audio file)

After the story of Medical Lake, Tim goes on to recount other stories to Cal.  “In April of that year the Lord impressed us again to undertake a long fast.  He was about to send us back to Spokane.” (pg 71)

Tim and Tom didn’t know what all they would be doing, but they felt that God was telling them to “speak a word of release” over the city.  They went to Spokane to end their most recent 40 day fast.  As they drove into the city, they noticed how many hospitals and clinics there were.  They observed that the city that (allegedly) had once been declared “the healthiest city in America” was now obviously a place of much sickness.  [NOTE:  Again, that declaration has never been documented to my knowledge.]

They were determined to find out more about the “demonic force” that they encountered on the previous visit.  When they approached the same food court again, they felt it as before.  So they went back to their hotel room and asked God what they were up against.

Tom found the story of David and Goliath in his Bible and read it out loud.  Then Tim said to read it again slowly.  The second time they both felt that Holy Spirit was telling them that “it was the spirit of Goliath that had spread intimidation over the city of Spokane and prevented the healing anointing from flowing back into it.” (pg 72)

A few minutes later they decided to go to the Mall.  On the way, they saw a billboard that said “Burger Hut:  Home of the Goliath Burger.”  They felt that this was God confirming what they had felt the Holy Spirit was telling them.

That night, God told them to go to the city of Medical Lake for the first time.  So they went there the next morning.  They “prayed around the lake” and were led to put their staffs into the lake water to “trouble” the water.  They were sure that as soon as they put their staffs in, there was a “stirring of the waters.”  Tom wept as the Lord “showed him that the healing water of the lake [The natural healing properties had been gone for a very long time] would not just be for Spokane, but for the healing of the nations.” (pg 73)

As a “prophetic act” they took five gallons of water from the lake and then poured it into the Spokane River where the river would carry it into the city.  As they poured the water into the river, “Tom was overcome with emotion and declared ‘This Healing will flow to all the nations of the Earth.’” (pg 73)

While they were eating at a restaurant that evening, they sensed that they had one more thing they needed to do– “Prophesy to the giant spirit over the City of Spokane the next day, and then we would be free to go home.” (pg 73)

Then they overheard some ladies at another table speaking about some local meetings.  They spoke to them and found out that they were Spirit-filled Catholics.  Tim and Tom had heard of Spirit-filled Catholics, but had never met any before.

The ladies said that they were from Montana and had come to Spokane to attend a healing conference at Gonzaga University, and this was to be the final night of the conference where there would be “a special prayer for anointing and healing.”

Tim and Tom decided to go.  At the end of the service, they lined up with others who were waiting to be anointed by the priests.  “As they laid hands on all of us, people went down under the power of God in every direction.  There were bodies covering the entire floor of the auditorium.  Tom and I were drunk in the Spirit and felt ready for our most important work the following morning.” (pg 74)

There is nothing in Scripture that describes this phenomenon.  Even at Pentecost, there is no description of people being “slain in the Spirit” and covering the entire floor of the Upper Room.  If it were going to happen, you certainly would expect it would have happened then.

The next morning, Tim and Tom parked at the old Rookery Building (where the original healing rooms of John G. Lake had been located).  They stood facing the building and with staffs in hand they “spoke forth the word of Lord against the enemy that bound the city.” (pg 75)  Then they struck their staffs seven times on the pavement.

As they were leaving, they saw a sign two blocks down that read “David’s Pizza”  They took that as confirmation from the Lord that the giant would fall.

Six months later, the Lord told them to go to the Catholic Church in Medical Lake.  They didn’t know if there was one there or not, but “something was troubling their spirits.”  They had begun another 40 day fast, and during that time Tom asked a friend if she knew anything about a Catholic Church in Medical Lake.  She found that not only was there a Catholic church there, but it held healing meetings twice a month.  Tim then called the church and asked when the next healing meeting would be conducted.  He was surprised to find out that the next one was going to occur on the fortieth day of their fast.

A few days before they went to Medical Lake for the healing meeting, Tim states that the Lord had given him a special verse and told him that it was for a Catholic priest at Medical Lake.  They had planned on first getting a room in Spokane before heading to Medical Lake for the meeting, but the Lord told Tim that he should go to Medical that night even though it was getting very late in the evening.  Tim claims he didn’t say anything about it to Tom, but that 20 minutes later, Tom said “I think the Lord is speaking to me about going to Medical Lake tonight.” (pg 76)

They arrived at Medical Lake at 9:30 p.m.  and found the Catholic Church.  Everything was dark, but they found an apartment attached to the building.  The priest, Father Tom Mele, answered the door.  Tim and Tom sat down with him and told him how they had been led to his front door.  After they told most of the story, they informed him that God had given a message to them for him.  After giving him the message, he got an amazed look on his face and went to another room, and when he came back he had a card in his hand.

Father Mele then said that this was the 20^th anniversary of his ordination as a priest.  He had become a priest because of a promise that God gave him which he had written down on a postcard.  He handed the card to them and to their amazement it was the same verse that they had given him.

That night, they stayed in a motel closer to Medical Lake, and the next day they went into town.  It was the last day of their fast and Tim was hungry for a hamburger. They decided to go to the place that had the Goliath hamburgers.  Tim told Tom “I wouldn’t be surprised if “Goliath Burger” is shut down.”  As they were nearing the place, they couldn’t believe their eyes, “The concrete structure had been demolished, and all that was left was a pile of rubble.”  They claimed that God told them “What you see here in the natural is what took place in the Spirit.” (pg 78)

They then went back to the Rookery Building and found that the “horrible power” they had felt before was now gone.  Tom states “Because we couldn’t eat Goliath burgers to break our fast, we settled for David’s pizza instead.  It was delicious.” (pg 78)

[NOTE: Unless they were on just a partial fast, this would have made them very ill, you can’t go from eating nothing for days to eating a pizza, because the digestive system has shut down.]

At the meeting that night at the Catholic church in Medical Lake, they were given a copy of a book that had the 150 year history of the church.  A quote from a minister in the book stated that “Medical Lake in the state of Washington is a modern-day Pool of Bethesda.” (pg 35)

[NOTE:  Notice how it only says “a minister” this gives the impression that the statement about Medical Lake being a “modern day Pool of Bethesda” applies to the modern time this book is being written in, but the “minister” they are referring to is Rev. Jonathan Edwards,  who wrote “An Illustrated History of Spokane County” published in the year 1900!]

They later discovered that the Pool of Bethesda mentioned in the Bible is located right outside of a Catholic church called “St. Annes.”  They were excited to realize that the name of the Catholic church by the “modern-day pool of Bethesda” was also called “St. Anne’s.”

After one more fast and one more trip to Spokane, Tim and Tom felt that the Lord told them their part was finished.  As Cal Pierce listened to the stories Tim and Tom had been telling, he said “I felt like my hand had accidentally been stuck in a light socket. God was doing something powerful!” (pg 79)

This chain of “meant to be experiences,” and amazing “coincidences” just keeps going and going.  I can see how these stories could be convincing to anyone who puts a lot of stock in amazing experiences.  “How could it not be the work of God?” they would think.  However, how can any of this be verified?  It is just hearsay.  The stories being told by Tim and Tom are especially suspect because the same stories are told so differently in Cal Pierce’s audio presentation regarding “Preparing the Way.”

The Saturday night after Cal’s phone conversation with Tim, Tim called Cal again and asked him, “What did you do?”  Cal thought he was asking about the day of prayer that they had just completed, and he started to tell him about it, but Tim interrupted and said “No, I mean what did you do after I told you about Medical Lake?”

Cal told him that he couldn’t stand to wait any longer to investigate this mystery so he drove out to Medical Lake and brought some home with him.  Tim then told him, that was what he needed to hear.  Cal was fulfilling the prophecy by Bob Jones so that “the anointing for healing would start outside the city, come into the city, and then go around the world.” (pg 79)

As I stated earlier, Medical Lake is my home town, and this sounded absurd to me, then I couldn’t believe what I was reading.  Cal stated “In our Healing Rooms, we keep a vase containing water from Medical Lake.  We have come to call it ‘firewater’ because when we touch people with it, they say it feels hot to them.  It isn’t hot in the natural, but it apparently is in the Spirit.  We anoint those who come to our Healing Rooms with oil,* as the Bible teaches, but when we do conferences, we impart with Medical Lake water.” (pgs 79-80)

*They don’t use olive oil like they did in Scripture.  They have their own oil that is made from almond oil.  They mix it with Frankincense, Myrrh and Cinnamon. (pg 133)

If I had only been reading this about a place I knew nothing of, I would just think that this was a little bit strange.  But since this lake had been in my own backyard so to speak, it felt like someone came into my house, took water out of my toilet, and began anointing people with it as some kind of healing water.

Re-digging the Wells

Cal now goes on to describe in detail what happened that Saturday during their day of prayer.  It was May 29, 1999.  More than 100 people responded to the invitation to attend.  As a group they first visited the grave site of John G. Lake, then the Lake home and the old tabernacle. They then finished the day at the Rookery building.  Cal hadn’t leased the rooms yet, but the owners of the building let them use some rooms for the special day.

Everyone formed a “human chain of prayer” that moved in an out of the four rooms and in and out of the hallways.  At one point, Cal said he “went down the line, anointing each person in the chain with water from Medical Lake.  Many of them were slain in the Spirit.” (pg 83)

Three rooms had brown carpet, but the fourth room had a silver carpet.  This later came to be known as the Silver Room.  When he got into the Silver Room, he saw that everyone was on the floor.  So he anointed them where they were.  Cal recalls that a couple of days later, a woman sent him a letter.  She said that she was the first one in the Silver Room.  As soon as she entered she fell to the floor and couldn’t stand back up.  Then everyone that came into the room after she did, also fell to the floor, because “the anointing was so powerful.”

Again, as I stated early on in this article, I Corinthians 14:32 states “the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet” so if something is forcing you to do something such as causing you to fall on the floor, it cannot be the Holy Spirit.

Later, Cal carried in some boxes and after sitting them down, he went into the Silver Room to see what the lady had been referring to.  He claims that when he went through the door to the Silver Room, “it was like going through a curtain of anointing.”  To make sure he wasn’t imagining it, He states that he did this over and over again for about 20 minutes—stepping into the room then out of the room, and it would happen each time.

The next day, when he moved in some more boxes, he asked God “What is it that makes the anointing so powerful in that room?”  He said that the Lord answered him “I left an angel in that room, and he has been waiting now for eighty years for the rooms to be reopened for prayer.  As long as my angel is there, this healing anointing will pour out from this place and will go around the world.” (pg 84)

[NOTE:  Keep in mind, this building is not the same building that John G. Lake’s healing rooms were in, that building burnt down, and a new building was built in its place.]

In an audio presentation given by Cal Pierce while he was still writing his book, he indicates that this angel from the Silver Room goes with him when he goes out to conferences.  He recounts a story where He and Bill Johnson did a conference in Brunswick, and they did a week’s worth of taping on Sid Roth’s Messianic Vision radio program.  Sid Roth told Cal—

“You know, I’ve heard of this angel in the Silver Room.  I’ve heard that it goes out with you when you go out to do these conferences.  Can it be on assignment?”

Cal responded, “Well, I don’t know, maybe.”

When the taping was over, Cal went up to his room to put his card in the door.  He states that “I heard a voice down the hallway saying ‘Reverend, your room is ready.’

“I turned and looked and there was two cleaning ladies about halfway down the hallway.  I said, ‘how did you know I was a Reverend?’

The lady said, ‘Well I saw you leave this morning, I told my friend here when you left that, that’s a preacher, and my friend said, “Well, how do you know that?”’

And I said, ‘Well, because I saw the angel leave with him this morning.’”

Cal then states: “I had never seen the lady before and she had never seen me before, I don’t even know if she is a Christian.” (Pierce, Audio File)

Cal goes on to state “After the Healing Rooms were reopened, more than six hundred pastors would make their way into that room, [the Silver Room] and each time we would ask them what they felt.  Invariably they answered ‘The Presence of Angels.’” (pg 85)

In a book called “The Physics of Heaven” there is a chapter written from an interview of Cal Pierce where he talks about another angel that came to him after a meeting. Cal states:

“As soon as the session ended, I looked up to see an angel standing right in front of me.  I’m not an angel type of guy, but suddenly there was an angel speaking to me saying, ‘I’m sent by God to answer your question about the energy crisis.  I am the energy angel.’  All I could think was, ‘What on earth did I have for breakfast?'”

He goes on to tell how the angel gave him the blueprints for a “water car” and showed him how energy could be produced with water and light.  It was a nice day outside, so Cal asked the angel if he wanted to take a walk.  The angel answered “I’ve been walking with you for 30 years but you just didn’t know it.”

Does Cal ever test the teachings of these angels?  Does he even question that they could be something “other than” an angel of God?  Paul states in 2 Corinthians 11:14 that even “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”

Spirit guides, who sometimes appear as angels, often as beings of light, or even as Jesus himself, are very active in New “Age” Spirituality.  For more information see “Whatever Happened to the New Age? Parts 1 and 2,” and “Spirit Guides Coming to a Church Near You.”

The Reopening of the Healing Rooms

After the day of prayer, they began to recruit and train a group of people who would serve in the Healing Rooms.  Cal taught five classes which covered the following instruction:  [NOTE: Remember I’m just quoting him, I don’t necessarily agree with anything and/or everything in the list]

• The provision of divine healing as part of our Salvation
• God’s many promises concerning healing for His people
• The special anointing that empowers us to minister healing
• Roadblocks to healing—things that get in the way of a person’s receiving God’s promises
• The Spiritual authority we have as Spirit-filled believers
• The Baptism of the Holy Spirit that seals us and enables us to flow in God’s power

Finally, they studied the process they felt led to establish for the Healing Rooms. (pg 87)

On July 22, 1999 the Healing Rooms were officially opened.  Cal states that the process that they established for the Healing Rooms worked very well.   “We would have a small team, usually with three members, to pray in each of the Healing Rooms.” (pg 91)  One person acted as the leader, and the other two would follow his or her lead.  When sick people arrived they would be met in the reception room and given forms to fill out much like at a doctor’s office.

In addition to the person’s general information, there were two boxes to check:  “Are you born again?” and “Are you filled with the Holy Spirit?”  There was also a space to describe their physical issue.   The information sheet was given to the next available team to be prayed over.  As they did this, they were seeking God for a particular healing strategy.  Cal continues:

“They would soon see the person, but only after the explosion of anointing that came through their prayer time together and only after they had some confirmation about how to proceed with the ministry to that person.  In this way, the ministry would never become just another routine.  Each sick person was a new challenge, and we were determined to find God’s unique answer for each one.” (pg 92)

He claims that the healing team became very gifted regarding this.  As they all prayed six to eight hours a day in the Healing Rooms they began to experience all nine gifts of the Spirit.

“Even though our particular gifting was the gifts of healing, all of the gifts were there, available to minister to the sick. Many of the team members began to speak out words of knowledge, as the Spirit revealed something about the sick person or the sickness involved and what was necessary to overcome it.  This proved to be a powerful ministry tool.”  [emphasis mine]

In the Healing Rooms official instruction book “How to Minister to Specific Diseases,” it states on a page right after the introduction:

“Information for this book has been gathered through many thousands of prayer sessions in the Spokane Healing Rooms.  Scriptures are given on each disease as the Holy Spirit directed our team.

Root causes to sickness have been known by the medical industry for decades.  We have identified spiritual root causes by interviewing those prayed for.  Certain symptoms of sickness have similar root causes.  We simply have linked those which are most common root causes to specific diseases.  Our goal is to bring an awareness of what those root causes are, and how to minister healing.” (Healing Rooms)

This appears to be the “ministry tool” that is being referred to.   It is interesting how they go from root causes to sickness that the medical industry recognizes to support their position, but then they do a kind of  “bait and switch” saying that they have identified spiritual root causes.  [I doubt the medical industry would agree with that.]

Everyone should understand that correlation DOES NOT prove causation.  This kind of research would need to be done under very strict guidelines and a controlled environment to prove anything.  Even if these root cause were actually shown to be associated with these diseases, who is to say that the so- called “root causes” aren’t the resulting behaviors and issues caused by the disease?

Here are some of the examples of the so-called “Root Causes” they list in the book:

Alzheimer’s:  Self-hatred, self-rejection, shame and guilt
Arthritis:  Usually involves bitterness from unforgiveness toward others or yourself
Autism:  Can be Generational.*  Rejection, rebellion, anger, self-hatred, spirit of fear, deaf and dumb spirit, and self-condemnation
Cystic Fibrosis:   Inherited disease.  Fear and anxiety problem.  (What!?)
Diabetes:  Extreme  rejection and self-hatred coupled with guilt.  Can be inherited through an unloving  spirit from parents or grandparents.  Could be a generational curse.
Hypoglycemia:  Worry, fear, fear of rejection, not trusting God, self-hatred; could be hereditary.
Parkinson’s:  Unresolved rejection, self-rejection, abandonment, hope deferred.
Stroke:   Could be generational.  Stress, anxiety, and anger.  Self-rejection, self-bitterness, self-hatred.
Varicose Veins:  Internalization of hurts that are caused by anger and resentment.  Usually inherited.

*Later in the book it indicates that what they mean by “generational” is that it is a generational curse.

Then they list the root causes for a number of different types of Cancer:

Cancer:  Can be deeply rooted bitterness, anger, guilt, and self-hatred.  Can be generational.
Colon Cancer:  Bitterness, slander, possibly generational with division making—contention.
Liver Cancer:  Lusting after a female, mentally or actually.  Often involving pornography, fornication, drugs and/or alcohol addiction.  Also bitterness.
Breast Cancer:  Conflict and bitterness between the female and her mother, sisters, or mother-in-law.
Ovarian Cancer:  Woman’s hatred for self and her sexuality and self-bitterness
Uterine Cancer:  Bitterness and self-bitterness; promiscuity and uncleanness
Hodgkin’s Disease & Leukemia:  Deep rooted bitterness coming from unresolved rejection by a father
Prostrate:  Bitterness, unforgiveness toward males in the family, fornication, fear.

Then the procedures for healing from the various diseases are given.  This is for cancer:

• Re-establish Christ’s redemption from the curse
• Lead them to forgiveness and repentance to the Father for wrongly discerning the broken body of Jesus (Taking the bread in doubt and unbelief)
• Deal with any deep emotional hurts through forgiveness and repentance
• Take communion with them, if possible, rightly discerning what Jesus did on the cross.
• Bind and cast out the spirit of cancer
• Command the cells to function normally
• Command healing to all organs and tissue effected by the cancer

The Expansion of the Healing Rooms

Cal Pierce began receiving invitations to teach conferences on healing.  Eventually he was doing two each month. To each conference he indicates that he takes with him some Medical Lake water and uses it to “impart the healing anointing to the Body of Christ in each place.” (pg 104)

Also, Healing Rooms began to be opened in many places in the United States and in other countries.  Because of this, they started an organization called “The International Association of Healing Rooms.”  They began doing a bimonthly training program at the Spokane Healing Rooms.

Cal tells of two important visions he had about the healing ministry in the end times.  He believes that they are being fulfilled by the Healing Rooms.

His first vision came to him on his first trip to Spokane.  He claims he saw “a giant lying in the valley.  His head was in Spokane, and his feet extended all the way to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, thirty miles away.” (pg 107)  He saw cobwebs and thin looking cords covering the giant similar to the story of Gulliver.  The giant looked like he had just been born there and grew to maturity, but had never moved. He could move, but he didn’t because he didn’t think he could.  There was no way that the flimsy looking cords could have held him down if he had tried to move.

Cal states “I sensed that the giant I was seeing was the Church, not just in Spokane, but around the country.  If we could just get all of the parts moving together, nothing could hold us back.” (pg 107)

The second vision came to him just before the Healing Rooms opened.  He was driving across the Maple Street Bridge.  As he looked over the city he saw that it was dark.  Cal states that God showed him that “the enemy had held God’s people captive too long.”

He then began to see flashes of light and “in the Spirit” he was raised up to about the same height as the mountains around the city and could see for great distances.  There were white horses at the outskirts of the city in every direction.  The might army of horses moved in unison and the pounding of the hooves shook the ground.  Lightning was flashing from their swords.  “Suddenly, the windows of Heaven began to open, the sky rolled back, and I was looking into the heavens.  A voice like a roaring lion came from Heaven, saying ‘Let my People go.” (pg 108-9)

Cal believes these were confirming the prophecy given by Bob Jones, “that the healing anointing would begin outside the city of Spokane and then go out from there around the world.”  He believes that “the greatest move of the Holy Spirit the world has ever seen is about to take place through the Church, through the army that God is calling together and raising up.” (pg 110)

Can you lose Your Healing?

On page 125 of Preparing the Way, there is a statement regarding healing that says this:  “Many people lose their healing because they turn their attention from the seed of God’s promise and concentrate on their circumstances or symptoms.  Pain, for instance, is a terrible distraction.”

In the back of the healing instruction manual “How to Minister to Specific Diseases” it has an article called “How to Keep Your Healing.”  It misapplies the parable of the sower which speaks of the different types of people who hear the gospel and how they respond, to being about how we are healed:

“When we receive the Word on healing and are prayed for and a healing takes place, we receive it with joy, but it must become firmly rooted in us because the devil will always try to inflict us with the very same symptoms to change our minds.  Verse 21 says because of the Word, this affliction will be brought against us once again to cause us to fall away. [Say what? Matthew 13:21 says this?]

The devil will once again bring the symptoms of the sickness to try and convince us that we are not healed.  This is a lying vanity.  The root meaning of a lying vanity is something that comes against you to change your mind.  If the devil can cause us to look at symptoms instead of God’s promise, he can convince us to believe his lie.  When we focus on the symptoms, pain or whatever it is, doubt and unbelief come to our mind and this gives entrance for fear to re-establish the sickness.  We must keep our heart and mind fixed upon God and His promise.”

Is this Scriptural?  Misapplying Scripture doesn’t count.

1.  Anyone who seriously studies the Bible would come up with some very quick responses to the idea of “losing your healing.”  First of all, there is absolutely no account in the Bible of anyone ever “losing” their healing.  In about 99% of all accounts the healing took place immediately. The 1% were Naaman in the OT (2 Kings 5:10-14)  and the blind man who saw “men as trees walking” in the NT (Mark 8:22-25).  In 100% of all accounts the healing was permanent!

2.  The information regarding “keeping your healing” puts all of the responsibility on the person being healed.  If the person isn’t healed, then the people in the Healing Rooms praying for them can just say, well sorry, we did our part, you just didn’t have enough faith to keep your healing.  There are a number of healings in the New Testament where no faith at all was required from the person being healed.

–The lame man at the “Gate called Beautiful” was just looking for a handout when Peter said “Silver and Gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” (Acts 3:2-8)

–The widow from Nain and her dead son.  No faith was required of him or his mother.  Jesus saw them, had compassion and raised her son from the dead. (Luke 7:11-15).  All accounts of the dead being raised required no faith from the person being raised.

–The Centurian’s servant. (Luke 7:2-10)  No faith was required of the sick servant.  He was healed because of the Centurian’s faith.

3.  Jesus made it clear that the disciples did not need to “increase” their faith.  He said that all they needed was faith the size of a mustard seed and anything would be possible. (Luke 17:5-6).  It is not the size of the Faith that matters because it is not source of the power, it is WHO you have faith in that has the power—God!  Trying to drum up enough faith is trying to obtain your healing through your own efforts, it is your own “works.”  We are not healed by our efforts, God is the one who heals us.

If a person has the same symptoms he or she has NOT been healed.  No healing in Scripture indicated that the symptoms came back.  The blind man who was healed didn’t go around with a daisy in his hand pulling off the petals saying “I can see!”  “oh, now I can’t”  “I can see!”  “Oh, now I can’t” fluctuating according to his belief or lack of belief.

It is identical to the concept of “positive thinking” in which you have to keep believing or the symptoms will return.  It reminds me of Gilligan on the old show “Gilligan’s Island” where Gilligan has a pair of wings on that he made and he is hovering in thin air until the Skipper says “Gilligan, you can’t fly!” and Gilligan says “I can’t?” and then falls to the ground.

When God heals you, you are healed!  Satan cannot do anything about it. Nothing in Scripture indicates that Satan can make you have symptoms so that you will believe you’re not healed.

Also, there are no instructions for lengthy investigation and procedures to accomplish healing in Scripture.  There was no “healing manual.”  Jesus simply said “be healed” and they were healed—the Apostles said “be healed” and they were healed.  Being God, the Holy Spirit knows the cause “if any” of any disease, he doesn’t need us to help him out.

The only instructions given is what it says in James 5:14 where it states:  “Is any sick among you?  Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”

Notes:

History. Welcome to the City of Medical Lake. Medical-lake.org. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. http://www.medical-lake.org/community/history.asp

Franklin, Judy and Ellyn Davis.  “Chapter 9.”  The Physics of Heaven.  Double Portion Publishing, 2012. Print.

Pierce, Cal. Preparing the Way:  The Reopening of the John G. Lake Healing Rooms in Spokane, Washington.  Maryland: McDougal Publishing, 2001. Print.

Pierce, Cal. (Audio File) Preparing the Way: The History of the Healing Rooms. NCSanDiegoHealingRooms.com. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.   http://www.ncsandiegohealingrooms.com/about-us/history

Healing Rooms. How to Minister to Specific Diseases. nd. Spokane: Healing Rooms Ministries. Print.