The Greatest Physician on Earth

Rev Trevor Dearing became a Christian at the age of nineteen in 1952. During the seventy years since then, he became an internationally recognised evangelist, and preacher with a powerful healing ministry. This is Trevor's eighteenth and last book, completed just two days before he went to Glory. In this book, Trevor endeavours to help the reader see that the healing of individuals is only part of God's healing work, which in fact encompasses the whole life of His creation from its beginning to the time of His creation of a new heaven and a new earth. Trevor describes God's healing work as being part of His essence and nature. God's own description of Himself as Yahweh Rapha (I am the Lord your Physician) reveals the purpose of His healing work - that mankind, through faith in Him, can be whole in body, mind, and spirit.

Born in Hull in 1933 into a non-religious home, as a frail child he suffered inexplicably from life restricting anxiety from early youth until the age of nineteen when he made a commitment to Christ in a Methodist church. The following year he studied theology at Cliff College, graduated with honours and joined the Methodist Circuit with responsibility for ten rural churches in Norfolk before gaining a BD at Leeds Methodist College. Obtaining a Master's degree at Birmingham Theological College he entered the Church of England and was ordained in 1961, serving in Yorkshire parishes until he and his family moved to Harlow. There he took the post of head of religious education at a local comprehensive school and as curate at St Paul's, Harlow.

In 1970, Trevor Dearing became vicar of St Paul's, Hainault. Tuesday evening prayer meetings of a dozen people became revival meetings attended by up to four hundred as news spread each week of the deaf hearing, lame walking, immoveable limbs freed, crutches abandoned, addictions and phobias eradicated, countless set free, converted to Christ and empowered for effective spiritual living. Coaches lined the half mile road from Hainault tube station to St Paul's.

During his long ministry he was often interviewed on television. He was once invited to an interview at which without notice, at the end of the interview three women were brought onto the set who were suffering from different ailments. He was asked to pray for them "to see if it worked." No sooner had he lightly laid hands on the first than she fell to the floor. The same was the experience of the second and the third. The studio's telephone lines became jammed with requests for his contact details asking for prayer, so much so that a message had to be displayed saying that no more calls could be taken. In the following week he received 2,000 letters asking for prayer. The women were invited back to the studio a week later to ascertain whether they had been healed. All three reported that they had been verifiably healed. This resulted in a further 5,000 letters.

In 1975 Trevor Dearing left St Paul's to start an itinerant ministry of evangelism and healing in the UK and internationally which took him to many countries. When once in the USA he was offered the position of rector of St Luke's, Seattle, a large and well-known charismatic church from which Dennis Bennett, author of the Christian classic Nine O'clock in the Morning had recently retired. After an intense period of discernment, he and eventually most of his family moved to Seattle. He was welcomed with open arms. Retiring from St Luke's he and Anne returned to the UK. They settled in Lincolnshire where after a period of rest Trevor undertook writing and a wide ministry amongst several denominations. His health deteriorated significantly in later years, but he continued in ministry to the very end to the many individuals and churches who sought him.