The sun was hot on Pastor Boon Song as he traveled down a road in South Thailand. All day long he had preached the gospel of Jesus Christ in the villages along the way, but his message had received almost no response.
As he passed near a house, a woman came out and offered him a drink. He drank it gratefully, wiping his brow.
Within only a few minutes, Boon Song became deathly ill. By the time he arrived home, he was losing consciousness. Too late, he realized that the drink he had so gratefully accepted was poisoned!
At the nearest hospital, doctors began to treat the now-unconscious man. Blood was coming from Boon Song’s nose, his throat was closed, and his lips were badly swollen. His death appeared all but certain.
Boon Song’s wife, however, was praying earnestly for him. She claimed the promise of Mark 16:18: “If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” And, true to His Word, God performed a miracle. Boon Song regained consciousness, and his condition stabilized. In only a few days he was out preaching again.
Boon Song went back to the village where he had been poisoned. The people gathered around him, including the woman who had given him the deadly drink.
“You should be dead,” the woman cried.
The people listened as the woman told what she had done. Since Boon Song was obviously alive and well, they were anxious to hear his story. When Boon Song told them about a God more powerful than poison, almost the entire village accepted Christ as Savior. During the next 18 months, Boon Song established a strong church.
But Boon Song’s miracle was not the last one to take place in that village.
Mr. Noy, a new believer, was plowing in his field one day when he was bitten by a poisonous snake. Almost immediately, his leg began to swell.
Hurrying to his house, he called to his wife to bring him their Bible. Frantically he searched for Mark 16:18, the verse Boon Song had quoted so many times.
“The verse that saved Boon Song from death—it’s my only hope!” he told his wife. “I’ve got to find it!”
In desperation Mr. Noy placed the Bible over the snakebite and prayed, “O God, I can’t find that verse anywhere. I know it’s there somewhere, and since this is Your Book, You must know where it is. You find that verse, Lord, and You make it work for me like it did for Boon Song.”
Mr. Noy and his wife waited a few minutes and then lifted the Bible off the snakebite. The page of the Bible next to Mr. Noy’s skin was soaking wet.
“Look at that wet spot,” Mr. Noy said. “The poison has come out.”
Mr. Noy recovered completely from the snakebite. In his village, Mark 16:18 became known as the “no hurt” promise. Boon Song and Mr. Noy are living testimonies of its truth.
Loren and LaDonna McRae were Assemblies of God World Missionaries from 1969-1977
