THE MAN WITH THE DEATH CERTIFICATE
So, you think it is all over? You have come to the end of your rope and you are stuck: there is no way of going back and the future is unattainable. Is that you? Keep reading, my friend, this story is for you.
I worked with Pastor Rene Theules for several years as an associate and minister of music at the church he was senior pastor, the Church of Saint Paul in Palermo, a neighborhood of Buenos Aires. He was a man that seemed unstoppable, always on the move, always doing something, preaching, teaching at Bible College, and managing the publishing house of the Assemblies of God in Argentina. He had been our teacher in Bible College in a subject that he mastered Prophetic Books, Daniel and Revelation. So, what was so special about this man?
HE WAS DEAD
So now that I have caught your attention! I am going to tell you the most unlikely yet powerful story of how God can use a person who has been issued with a signed a death certificate.
How? Very simply, bring them back from the dead!
Rene was a medical student who lived with his mother in his native province of Santa Fe in the midlands of Argentina. He also worked as a reporter for the local newspaper. He had been saved years before but then he got carried away by friends and became a “party-guy”, at some point during those years, partying nearly every night. Amazing that he could go on with his studies at university. However, his mother was a saintly woman who prayed for him daily with tears always, claiming him back for Jesus. She never gave up.
BLACK CLOUDS
But black clouds were about to cover their lives. At the age of 27 he was infected with one of the most terrible diseases: leprosy. In those years, more than sixty years ago, leprosy was an incurable disease and those who had it could only expect their body to deteriorate until the disease took over and then death. Not only was it a deadly disease, with no hope of escaping, it was also socially disabling, leprosy meant that you became an outcast long before you lost your life to the disease. You would have been deprived of your right to live in society, due to leprosy being a highly contagious disease. Because of that the authorities had created those places of isolation -leprosarium-, where anybody who had caught leprosy would be sent to wait for the final outcome.
The good doctor who had made the diagnostic, was a friend of the family but he knew that he was bound by the law to report him, and upon doing it Rene would have been forcibly taken to the “leprosarium” to die there. Because of his friendship he told his godly mother that he would not report him, but they had to promise that he would be literally hiding in the house and should not talk about it with anybody. They eventually had to even stop receiving people in their house. Although this was not the best prospect it was better than sending Rene away to the leprosarium.
As the disease advanced, Rene’s body was more and more disfigured. Leprosy attacks the skin producing those visible light spots and scars at the beginning, but it also attacks the nerve cells and eats away cartilage. The nerves in our body serve several purposes, one of them is to transmit impulses that allow us to perceive sensations and feelings in our body, including the feeling of pain; however, there is another aspect of nerve activity that is called ‘neurotrophy’ which mediates the growth and renewal of body tissues, particularly in the muscle-skeletal system. In plain English this means that if you cut for instance the median nerve in your upper arm, you will not be able to use that arm or hand, and when you do not use an arm or a leg it will stop its normal renewing process and enter into a state of atrophy, which again, in plain English means that not only does not grow but it grows “backward” that is it growths smaller. Leprosy, because it eats away the nerve tracts in the body ends up causing atrophy in the body parts where the affected nerves should reach. Leprosy also eats cartilage and cause some tissues to grow lax, producing gross disfigurement: for instance the nose would be eaten away, and the ears might grow even as long as to reach the shoulders.
The above description fits perfectly the picture of Rene of what were to be his last months of life. He was totally disfigured, unable to eat or move, and finally he entered into a deep coma, so it was just a matter of time when death would actually come.
That night the doctor came to the house and checked him and said to his mother: “look, he will not make it through the night, it is over; besides, there is a huge storm coming tonight and I do not want you to have to go out and look for me in that weather (they were now living out of town far away from everything), so I am going to leave with you the death certificate already signed.
God has plans for you, and because of His love for you, He will pursue you and bring you back from the dead because of His plan. Unlikely? There are no “unlikelies” with God, or better said, the “unlikely” becomes “most likely” when God is taking care of you.
HIS FACE WAS MOVING!
Rene’s mom was in her rocking chair by her son’s bed, the light of the oil lamp dimmed (they did not have electricity out in the country in those years) waiting for her son to breathe his last. She had been praying for a long time, and even in these last moments she was still praying, believing God for that “unlikely“. She slumbered into a half sleep state, when she heard the door to the bedroom open; not only did she hear the door open, but she also felt a soft breeze like when someone walks past you, causing a gentle breeze as the air moves. She was now awake but could not see anybody, so she just decided she had been dreaming and was going back to doze in her chair when she noticed something pretty strange in her son’s face; she immediately put the light up and in astonishment she looked how her son’s face was actually “moving”! God was at work restoring the body of her son so quickly that the tissues were actually moving! All that happened in the middle of the night and by the next morning he sat in bed and asked for food!
When I wrote this, he was still alive and although retired from the pastorate, he was still travelling around teaching and preaching and praying for the sick. When it was unlikely that he would even live -let aside become a preacher- God gave him many ‘extra’ years. Not only he received a miracle of instant healing but also, he was a walking miracle. He had 70 % of the nerves in the body dead; with such percent of dead nerve cells, he could not be alive, or he should have been in a state of permanent atrophy unable to ever move! God healed the leprosy but did not restore the damaged nerve cells, and the very fact that he could walk and work and did all he did on these years was in itself a miracle, for we are not only healed but sustained by the power of God.
After more than fifty-plus years Rene Theules still had his own death certificate framed and hanging from the wall in his living room.
JC
