Jesus Jumpers See Miracle as Man Revived in Church
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A man who went into cardiac arrest in a church Sunday and, according to the Jesus Jumpers in attendance, he was saved by the miracle of prayer, and, well, OK there were two paramedics there who may have had something to do with it.
“When they raised the IV I knew that was a glimmer of hope and I knew that something powerful had taken place,” said E. Dewey Smith, pastor of the church in Decatur, Georgia, WGCL Atlanta reports. Church members talked about feeling “a power in the room” and “the blessing of God’s hand” while the man was out for 15 minutes. Smith led a prayer as paramedics attended to the man, who had flat-lined.
In a possible contradiction, members also called it divine intervention that paramedics were there in the first place. The emergency workers had come responding to another incident “that ended up being a false alarm” and remained to hear the pastor’s service, the Blaze notes. The paramedics being there “was even more of the blessing of God’s hand,” said a church member. “God is bigger even than science.” No word yet from the paramedics, or the man whose life was saved.
Here’s a YouTube video that purports to show the incident as it happened.
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Too many of my fellow Christians have a bad habit of thanking God for everything, no matter how trivial. I sincerely doubt God gives a hoot if somebody struck out. But if He is to be thanked for all the good things then we must blame Him for all the bad to be consistent. A doctor survived ebola because he was sent to one of the finest hospitals in America. 2,500 people who didn’t have that opportunity are dead. The doctor thanked God. if I’m one of the 2,500 before I die I wonder why God must hate me so much but love the other guy.
God or Mother Earth or whomever gave us the tools to help the sick. It’s up to us to use them. Thank God for the opportunity we have to make the lives of everyone better. But it’s up to us, not Him, to use them. I thank the paramedics in this case. God doesn’t make crank phone calls.
I am of the belief that whatever helps someone get through the day and night is perfectly fine by me. I respect, for the most part, their inherent right to have faith in anything or nothing. I do have a problem when it comes down to people who contend that their belief system is superior to that of others. I get especially upset when their is coercion by religious people of their faith onto others.
Faith or, if you prefer, belief is a personal thing.
Those with faith should always have their faith respected – assuming their faith isn’t encroaching on others a la fundamentalism.
I have many friends with faith in Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam and a few others.
I will deny saying this – so, on those grounds, this comment will self destruct in five seconds – I envy them.
It should be needless to wonder how many people have died during church services without a “miracle” intervening. It’s cherry-picking, and people on either hand aren’t going to be convinced. Believers will still interpret coincidence as miraculous, and skeptics will still wonder what god has against all the many people who do die in disasters. People who survive plane crashes, hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural and man-made disasters still have no reasonable explanation for all the people who didn’t survive. It’s easy to feel smug and have a heightened sense of self-worth, then justify it by claiming it came from a higher power. It’s harder to feel merely human.
Well said E.A.
i can’t speak for any other dogma but presbyterian, but in our church we are taught that grace belongs to God and God alone. He does with it as He chooses. grace is neither earned nor deserved, why and where God chooses to dispense grace is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. we are taught to humbly accept grace, not feel smug or advance our own sense of self worth, be humbled and at the same time to never feel envy over grace God dispenses elsewhere.
He is God, i am not.
people who are worth the grace they receive have no need of Jesus, they have earned their own way to wherever they want to go. people who feel superior to others do not know Jesus. Jesus came for the helpless, not the well. He came for the broken, the deserted, the outcast….if anyone gives you the impression that they are smug in their faith, it isn’t a christian faith. christianity is a struggle, it’s hard, it’s not natural to follow the teachings embodied in the sermon on the mount….you spend most of your time in abject failure, but, as dr bear said earlier, faith is what is hoped for…you keep trying. you try not because you want something for it, you try because you believe, you are convinced that Jesus taught the best way to live and you want to imitate that, not create it, imitate it. being like Jesus is impossible, you know it, but you know that as you fail you are trying…you hope to do better next time….and you will be forgiven because you believe, because you try.
you don’t have to be christian to be a perfectly wonderful person. God is so big that i am personally convinced that there are ways to be in His service that i cannot even imagine. Jesus came for those who accept Him, for others God has other plans…i can’t speculate about what they are….i am personally convinced that whatever “heaven” turns out to be, we will ALL be there. if i am wrong i will be disappointed.
He is God, i am not.
One might say coincidence and confirmation bias are bigger than God.
Mike,
Faith is something that is unseen, the evidence of things “hoped for.” Whether God intervened personally on this matter, to me at least, is irrelevant. He is alive and that is most certainly a miracle, especially when brain cells begin to die within two minutes of being deprived of oxygen. For me, I believe because I choose to believe, and do not find it essential to push my belief on any other person, other than those willing to hear about my relationship with an unseen God.
My personal belief is just that; personal, and while I think it wrong for me or others to shove their beliefs down another’s throat, I find it nearly as wrong to denigrate those who do believe. Please note: I am not criticizing you or the site, but all too often, I have folks come to me and accuse me, a man who holds two doctorates no less, of being naive, dumb, or idiotic for believing. What these folks fail to realize however, is that perhaps I do believe in vain, but it is my choice to do so. After being labeled terminally ill back in 1996, I chose to hang my hat on God, whether for good or bad. I hope this makes sense to some. If not, I cannot make another believe what I have experienced in my life. Many thanks for allowing me to voice my opinion on the matter.
Mark it’s great to see you commenting over here, and I would love to see you more often. My objection is not with the religious, only those who would force their beliefs on me. You are not one of those people.
amen, dr bear. it seems that some non believers are perfectly capable of doing their own cherry picking. they pick out what’s most offensive about some believers and ascribe those things to all believers.
“Jesus jumpers”. i don’t know what that means or where it came from but viscerally, in this context, i read it as a term used to denigrate anyone who believes in Jesus as savior. not just some believers, all of us. it’s insulting and unnecessary…points can be made respectfully, if one cares to take the time and apply the intellectual energy.
laziness and insecurity are the catalysts for these far ranging insults…in my opinion.
personally i made no “choice” to believe…i believe because i believe. i believe the earth orbits the sun, not because i have ever been out there to see it happen, in spite of the visual that counters the belief, but because things have happened, people who i respect have said it…and, at least to me, it makes sense. i could no more choose to not believe that than i could choose to not believe in Jesus as savior.
for most of human history that fact made absolutely no sense to anyone. it was about as silly as religion seems to some people now.
i can take the insults, i’m secure in my beliefs…but for those who throw the insults, well…it does mitigate the respect i might have for them.
for the most part it is people who are insecure in their own beliefs who resort to insults. secure people are far more likely to show respect for the beliefs of others…to live and let live…to treat others as they would like to be treated…respectfully.
Being an Atheist I confess to being rather cavalier at times when writing articles such as this. The expression “Jesus Jumpers” is my own device and I’ve been using it for years. I must apologize if you feel insulted Penny. You have to remember that virtually everyone who visits MMA is either Atheist or Agnostic, with exceptions of course, so we fall into our bad habits. I will be more careful in the future, but from time to time we do write some rather scathing articles pointing out the fallacies of organized religion, particularly the fanatics. Peace…..
mike. atheist or not…i’m here because i have developed a respect for most of the people i find here and even affection. plenty of intelligent and insightful conversation which i find stimulating and informative.
as i said, i can take the insults….i’m a gay/transsexual/christian…if insults could do me in i’d have slit my throat a long time ago. i just find it reasonable to address them when they show up.
peace with honor, pj
(oh, God….did i say that?)
Peace with honor…I like that Penny 🙂