Sid Roth - I Touched the Nail-Scarred Hands of Jesus and Was Healed
Sid Roth: Hello, this is Sid Roth on location at Redding, California, where there's an outbreak of miracles, over a thousand so far. Judy Franklin, who had 45 years of an illness, healed instantly when she touched the nail-scarred hands of Jesus, next, on this edition of it's supernatural.
Sid Roth: Hello, I'm Sid Roth, your investigative reporter, and I'm here in Redding, California at Bethel Church. An outbreak of miracles! And if you really want to get the goods on what's going on, you don't go to the pastor. You go to the pastor's secretary and that's who I have here, Judy Franklin. Judy, as a young girl, 4 years of age, a tragedy hit your home. Tell me about it.
Judy Franklin: My mother was painting the living room and she had poured some paint thinner in a cup and left it in the kitchen, and I had gotten up from a nap and thought it was water and drank it. I started choking and my mother grabbed me. We didn't have a car at that time, so she ran outside and stopped a neighbor who was just driving by and they rushed me to the hospital. I had my stomach pumped and they thought they got it all out, but the next day I became very ill. My whole urinary tract was an infection was raging and I was very sick and almost died.
Sid Roth: Well, you actually had 45 years of chronic problems. What were these problems?
Judy Franklin: Bladder and urinary tract infections, anywhere from 5 to 15-a-year. The doctors didn't know why they came. Nobody thought that it was from when I drank the paint thinner. They said, oh, no, that wouldn't do it. But they didn't know why and I had all the tests and they still never knew why.
Sid Roth: And what would this mean, practically, to you? How would it affect your life when you had this infection?
Judy Franklin: I was frustrated, because even taking antibiotics, I would take the full course of antibiotic, be off a week and I'd have another infection, and I didn't know what they were from, so I couldn't do anything. I just had to live through them, which I did for 45 years.
Sid Roth: But, I mean, were you able to work when you had these infections? Were you able to function normally?
Judy Franklin: No, they were bad, and usually what I ended up doing was going to bed, laying flat, drinking lots of water, on antibiotics, and they made me very nervous, so I shut the door and kept it as dark in my room as I could.
Sid Roth: You had a problem with your parents, and even I mean, it's hard to believe. You actually were told that your grandmother put that paint thinner there?
Judy Franklin: No, my grandmother told me my mother put it there on purpose so that I would die because I was no good, and so that was just something she told me.
Sid Roth: That's an awful thing for a child to ? So there was definitely a love problem at home.
Judy Franklin: Yes. My father also would tell me that I couldn't do anything right, and so and when I was in the I was 9 years old, about, I wrote 'dear Abby' a letter and I asked her why my dad hated me so much, because I tried so hard to be good, and my mother found the letter and took it to my dad and I thought, oh, he'll say, 'oh yes, I do love her. She just does things wrong', but he bellowed out at the top of his voice, "If she weren't so stupid, maybe I could love her". And so I thought, that's why I can't be loved, because I'm stupid, and as a child you do stupid things, but every time I did something that I considered stupid, I thought, this is why nobody can love me, and I grew up that way, not thinking anyone could love me.
Sid Roth: This played out in your marriage, too, I understand.
Judy Franklin: Oh, yes, I tried very hard around my future husband to be very good and not be stupid because he was a Christian man and I knew once we were married he would find out I was stupid, but at least we'd be married and I know he didn't believe in divorce, as I didn't, and so he couldn't divorce me. So at least I would have somebody.
Sid Roth: It doesn't sound like a lot of joy going on in your life.
Judy Franklin: No, there wasn't.
Sid Roth: Okay, so, you started going to Bethel Church in Redding.
Judy Franklin: Yes.
Sid Roth: What happened next?
Judy Franklin: Well, I had gone to church since I got my driver's license because my family wasn't Christian, and I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was nine years old through a program in school. But I thought about God the same way as I thought about my dad, that if I did something stupid he wouldn't love me, so it was this, okay, I'm going to beat it in heaven, but I'll probably be in the corner and he just really won't love me. But at least I'll be in heaven. That was enough for me. I was satisfied with that. But because of going to churches and the hurts that you have and the dryness that we had, we had actually stopped going to church two years before I started coming to Bethel and my daughter was going here and she kept saying, "Come to church, come to Bethel" and I had another infection and she said, "Come. God will heal you". And so I wanted to go. I wanted to be back in a fellowship, and so I let her talk me into it, and I came to church and the sermon was very good. They asked for people to be prayed for and my daughter, Susie, came back and got me, and I said, "No, I don't have to go up. God can heal me right where I'm sitting. I don't have to go up there". And I let her take me up there. I remember standing with the chair against the back of my legs so I could sit down really quick in case nobody came to me to pray...
Sid Roth: Boy, you really felt rejection!
Judy Franklin: I really did, and I was embarrassed that I was even up there and I thought, 'nobody's going to come to me to pray. This is so stupid I'm even up here.' Pastor Bill and his wife Beni came up and prayed for me, and I felt so bad because I hadn't been to church and I was so dry. I had been in the desert for about 12 years of spiritual desert, and I figured they could see sand coming out of my mouth and ears and they'd known, but they started praying for me and I can remember looking down thinking, how am I going to get out of this? I don't want to talk to them. I don't want them to talk to me. I was so embarrassed, and I thought, I'm going to watch their feet and when they walk away I'll just go out the back and I won't ever come back. They'll never see me again. But God had a different idea. He reached down inside of me and he started pulling something out of me. I can remember seeing something like a big Boston fern and I saw a hand reach down at the bottom and just twist it and pull it out. It was all this anger that I had had toward the church and toward people in the church, not any particular church, not any particular person: just anger for what the church had done to people. And he just ripped it out and there in the soil I saw three words written: resentment, bitterness, hatred. And I realized that's what I felt toward the church, and they were my sin.
Sid Roth: What'd you do about it?
Judy Franklin: I confessed my sin and he was faithful and just to forgive me my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. I saw his hand peel up those words and just throw them away. I knew something was different. I started coming to church every time they had church, and really, it was wonderful. I felt a big load was off of me. In Toronto they were having an intercessory prayer conference.
Sid Roth: But let me tell you something. In Toronto she got much more. You heard about Pentecost, where they accused them of being drunk, but Peter said, "It's just 9 o'clock in the morning"! Well, it might have been 9 o'clock in the morning at Pentecost and it might have been 9 o'clock in the morning for Judy, but they had to carry her out of there. Don't go away. We'll be right back.
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth here, your investigative reporter. I'm talking to Judy Franklin, the pastor's secretary from Bethel Church here in Redding, California where we're doing these special shows. And she had a tough childhood, felt total rejection. No one loved her. It passed on to her husband, and it passed on to her relationship with God. As a 4-year-old she drank some paint thinner, turpentine, and she had bladder infections for 45 years that would just knock her out, and the doctors had no cure. So she went up to Toronto airport church, where they're having revival, two times. The second time she literally got drunk in the spirit. What happened the first time?
Judy Franklin: The first time I went it was an intercessory prayer conference. I wanted to know how to pray for my boys because they weren't walking with the Lord, and I didn't expect anything at all, and people were laughing there and that didn't bother me, and people were falling and that didn't bother me. But the last day, the Lord just touched me in such a way. He started early in the morning, and you talk about being drunk. I can remember going in their bookstore and talking to susie about the lesson that I had just learned, and I started laughing and I couldn't stop. I got behind this door...
Sid Roth: Wait a second, now! Was anything funny going on?
Judy Franklin: Nothing was funny!
Sid Roth: What were you laughing about?
Judy Franklin: I don't know what I was laughing about. I was just and it was so healing. There was just a healing going on. I didn't laugh that often, especially around people, and here I am in this bookstore and I can't stop and it wasn't a laugh like, oh, this is fun. It was God's joy. It was pure joy just bubbling up out of me, and I didn't understand it but it felt so good, who cared? And so I stepped behind this door because I was laughing and I didn't want anybody to really see me. I started sliding down the wall. I couldn't even stand up, and that whole day, oh, God just did such a work. Jesus was there so wonderfully, but that night I was worshiping and I had my hands up in the air and I was looking up toward heaven, and I heard Jesus say, "What are you doing looking up? I'm right here". And I looked down and he was standing in front of me. And I just took his hands in mine and started singing to him. I put both of them in one hand and I was just going like this and I felt the nail scar in his hand. He leaned forward and he said, "You know something? I did that for you". And it was just that was it. I couldn't do much after that. I mean, I was just so touched that he would show himself to me. The next day we came home and the pastor's wife, beni, had me get up and share on a Sunday night. I shared, and I don't know if pastor Bill prayed for me or not. I don't know what happened. All I know is I was on the ground. The Lord just started doing another work in me and I thought, I want to get up because I want to hear the next person, and I could not get up.
Sid Roth: You were pinned to the ground.
Judy Franklin: I was pinned to the ground. I looked up at one point and I saw this God's glory. I know that's what it was and I don't know why I know what it was, but I know it was God's glory coming down. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life and it kept coming closer and closer and I could actually feel it. They tell me I was doing this: I was going back and forth because it was just running through my fingers. It was so beautiful. It wasn't solid. It was substance, though, and it just kept coming and in his glory was his love. This love that I had never felt before, it was so incredible.
Sid Roth: It was tangible.
Judy Franklin: It was tangible. It was substance.
Sid Roth: Well, you know, the glory is described as a river and maybe that's what you were doing. You were running your hand through the water.
Judy Franklin: Oh, it was wonderful and it kept coming and kept coming, and this love grew stronger and stronger and I realized that it was for me! He loved me! And that is the first time in my life I have ever felt loved, was that night, may 1, 1997. I felt love! I thought, this is what it's like! I would look at people and think, I wonder what it would feel like to be loved. I knew I couldn't be, but I really wondered what it would be like, and I knew, and it wasn't just love for me. It was for everybody. It was for Saddam Hussein. It was for Charlie Manson. It was for everybody!
Sid Roth: This isn't a natural thing.
Judy Franklin: No. This is a godly thing. It was so wonderful and it just kept coming, and I felt such a weight press me down and every time I took a breath it would come. At one point I told him, "I can't take anymore. I can't". It became so bright I had to put my hand over my eyes, but I wanted to see it so I kept going like this trying to look, but I couldn't and I finally said, "I can't. I can't take this. I am going to die". I knew I would die. And very slowly, without me realizing at first, it started going back. It got to be where I could look at it again. I could run my hand through it again, and then I realized it was leaving. I felt such grief. I called out to God, "Don't go! I want to go with you! I don't ever want to be out of this"! This was so incredible. I would leave my life now, gladly. Just take me! He didn't.
Sid Roth: Obviously. And as a matter of fact, I feel that river that Judy is talking about as she remembers what God did for her. That river is flowing, and I believe when we come back you'll find out about not only a marvelous healing, but you'll experience a flow of God's river. Be right back.
Sid Roth: Hello, Sid Roth, your investigative reporter, and I'm speaking to Judy Franklin and I believe history is being made because I believe the river of God's glory is getting higher and higher and higher as she talks about the steps God took her through so that she could not only experience his love, but give his love, and she got a supernatural healing to boot. Judy, the second time you went to Toronto airport, tell me about it.
Judy Franklin: Well, we went in March of '98. It had been almost a year since I had gone before and in that time I knew God loved me because of my experience before, but I really didn't believe people could. A lot of people here at church said 'I love you' but I knew that sooner or later they'd find out I was stupid and they wouldn't. So we went back in March of '98 and it was just a wonderful time there. The first night I was standing in the prayer line and I saw Jesus walk up to me and just put his arms around me, and he kept them around me all week. But on a Friday night we were going back to the hotel on the shuttle bus and one of my friends, Claudia Perry, just whispered my name, 'Judy'. And I looked over at her and she said, 'i love you!' she just mouthed those words. And it felt like something hit my heart and I just leaned back and slumped down a little bit and I thought, something's going on. What's going on? We got off the bus okay and I got to the elevators. I started leaning against the elevators and I thought, I'm shutting down. What is going on? I felt God's presence so strong that I knew it was him, so I wasn't scared...
Sid Roth: Stronger than what we're feeling right now?
Judy Franklin: Oh, yes.
Sid Roth: Okay. Well, it's still getting stronger.
Judy Franklin: It is getting strong here, yes. And I was just standing there and I could hear them calling me to get on the elevator and I thought, I don't know if I can move! And Bob Perry, who is a big man, came and just lifted me up by my arms and took me in the elevator and I knew God was doing this deep work. It was almost like I could see him doing something, and it ended up I could not walk. I could not do anything. They had to carry me to my room. Now, I can be even more undignified than this, I'm sure, but...
Sid Roth: I don't know!
Judy Franklin: It was I've often wondered if someone outside the renewal came to me and said, 'God doesn't work that way' how they would have stopped such a wonderful work in my life! Or they would have said God could have done it some other way. Who are we to tell God how to do his work?
Sid Roth: What kind of change occurred as a result of that?
Judy Franklin: Oh, my. Oh, my. Just being able to realize that I could be loved! They carried me to my room, put me on the bed. They all went to dinner, and it was like God came down and Jesus came down. It was just like Jesus was sitting on my bed holding my hand while they did surgery on my heart. It was like it had been so damaged all my life and they didn't decide to heal it. They decided to take that part that was so damaged and cut it off and give me a part of their heart. Not only could I believe that people could love me, and I did believe it: it was a revelation to me. The love that he put in my heart to love other people was supernatural.
Sid Roth: It didn't go away.
Judy Franklin: It did not well, no, it hasn't gone away now and I don't believe it ever will. It has grown stronger.
Sid Roth: Bottom line: do you love your husband?
Judy Franklin: Oh, I love my husband dearly.
Sid Roth: Does your husband love you?
Judy Franklin: Yes, he does, very much.
Sid Roth: That's not what you told me a few minutes ago!
Judy Franklin: But he does, and I know that now, and these people here at church, I know they love me and it's it's such a new feeling for me! It's...
Sid Roth: And you know God loves you, but...
Judy Franklin: Oh, yes.
Sid Roth: But what about that problem, the bladder infections and -
Judy Franklin: Well, I continued having them. In fact, from March of 98, when we got back from Toronto, to june 19, I had five infections, and on june 19 I had an infection so bad it was a Friday night. I left the service and went into the dining room and laid down. My husband came in and said they gave a word of knowledge for pain in the lower abdomen so I thought, okay, so...
Sid Roth: What do you mean, okay?
Judy Franklin: I know. I should know better, right?
Sid Roth: Right!
Judy Franklin: So I went back in and everybody was praying for everybody else and so I thought, well, there's nobody left to pray for me, so I just sat down, and my husband, Paul, called pastor Bill over and he came over and he said, "Father, we come against the spirit of affliction", and so that was fine. And he walked away and I thought, "I wish he hadn't prayed for me". The pain got worse. And I thought, "Ooooh"! So I was sitting down and talking to his wife and he came up and said, "How is it"? And I said, "Well, truthfully, it hurts worse". He said, "We've got it, then"! I said, "Okay". And he hadn't been he put her hand on my stomach and he...
Sid Roth: His wife?
Judy Franklin: Yes, he aggressively went after the spirit of affliction because we have found in this renewal that a spirit of affliction, if a sickness is from that, it will get worse. And so he came against it and it was gone. It was gone! It was totally gone. I had been to a specialist three days before then and he said, "I don't know understand. You've gone through the medication. You still have this. I don't understand this at all. I want you to go to another specialist". So I kept my appointment on Monday after this and I went and he just gave me a very funny look and said, "I don't understand why you're here. You have no infection". I said, "But the doctor told me before I did". He said, "Well, he was wrong".
Sid Roth: 45 years...
Judy Franklin: 45 years.
Sid Roth: Of problems and the doctor before said you had but he was wrong. How about the 45 years?
Judy Franklin: Yes. I had them, but this doctor wouldn't believe. I told him I was prayed for.
Sid Roth: And that even that was even worse. You know, Judy, we've just got a couple minutes left, but I would like you to look at some men and women that feel they're not loved, and would you let Jesus tell them how much he loves them right now?
Judy Franklin: Yes. I know the love of my father, and I know the love of Jesus. I know it passes all understanding and all knowledge that we can have. There is nothing that you have ever done. There is nothing ever you could do to earn his love. He has given it freely, totally freely. He wants to have an intimate relationship with each and every one of us, from love. We, as a people, don't accept love unless we do something good. We're real goal-oriented here, but there's no goals that we can achieve that he would love us more than he does right now, and I don't care where you're at: I don't care what you're doing or what you've done: he wants to just love you. And I want to pray that the Holy Spirit will touch you right now, right where you are, right where you're listening right now and show you the father's love because it is the greatest thing there ever was, and when we get to be with him forever, the actual heir in his glory is made up of this love.
Sid Roth: I believe that river is flowing right now. That river is flowing right into you, right now, right through the television. Just open yourself up. You are loved. You are accepted. You are wanted. You are needed. You have substance, you have purpose, you have destiny. Repent of your sins. Ask God to forgive you in the name of Jesus and open yourself up to the river, now.