The Medical Missionary, vol. 12
April 1903
“Divine Prescriptions for Health” 1 The Medical Missionary, 12, 4, pp. 94-99.
“I WISH above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health.” How can the Lord record a greater wish for us than when he states it in so many words: “I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health.” What a blessed thing it is, what a blessed thing it must be, to be a company of people engaged wholly in the endeavor to make that wish of God effective to people. He has called to himself a people, he has planted institutions, in order that that wish may be fulfilled, to carry into effect this his highest possible wish. Do you see the highly exalted position that he has given to you in connecting you with a sanitarium? In making choice of you to be an instrument of his in his great work of perfecting this his highest wish? MEDM April 1903, page 94.1
We cannot afford to overlook the proper estimate of this statement. We must not let anything come into the heart or life, into thought or conduct, that would hinder, that would frustrate, that wonderful wish of the Lord,—that the people shall have health. We must rise to the full height that God has set before us in this, and let him have full control of every faculty for the accomplishment of the greatest wish that he has recorded. Now what are the means by which the Lord would accomplish this great desire? What are the means that God designs to use? I shall not attempt to define them all, but I shall touch on the chief ones. He has established institutions; perhaps he has called you into one of them to be instrumentalities, and people have come to find health. Now what are the means that you are to receive from God as his called ones, through which to work for the people who have not health and who have come to the institution to get it? MEDM April 1903, page 94.2
I am not stating it too strongly when I say that whoever comes to one of our sanitariums for health should get it. The situation should be such that if they do not get it, the only possible reason to be offered is that they refuse to take it. This is the truth. Do not think that this is extravagant. It is only sober truth. Think of it,—God expresses the highest wish that he possibly can; and establishes an institution and calls together a score, a hundred, and even hundreds of people to make that wish effective,—and then it cannot be done? That will never, never do. Then this requires first of all that each one who is connected with a sanitarium shall simply put everything out of his life that can possibly keep back, hinder, or frustrate God’s purpose of giving health to those who come. MEDM April 1903, page 94.3
Those who are in these institutions as God’s instrumentalities can frustrate that thing. God’s wish is as strong, his will is just the same, but by our lack of consecration he may not be able to reach with health the persons who come for health. Why was it that the light and salvation that he intended for the world did not reach the nations around Israel? Simply because the people to whom it was given as the means of reaching them, did not let the light shine forth. When the electric current is turned on, the light bulbs are full of blazing light; but if they are all smoked or covered with dust and cobwebs you know what the result would be. The light would be just as strong inside as it could be, but it could not get through. Clean them up; then the light can shine through. MEDM April 1903, page 95.1
God has health for the people who come to our sanitariums. His health can reach them only through his instrumentalities there. You can have your life so darkened with unbelief, so befogged with evil things, that God’s health cannot reach them through you at all. God has health for the people, and it is his wish “above all things” that they shall have it. And shall the only reason that they do not have it, be that your attitude toward him hinders its reaching them? No, no. Brighten up that the light may so shine that the only reason for their not having it shall simply be that they will not take it. This calls for holiness on the part of every individual connected with these institutions. Holiness,—that is, wholeness: the whole being, body, soul, and spirit, devoted to this blessed work. MEDM April 1903, page 95.2
Now to present the Lord’s prescribed means to health. Exodus 15:26: “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” This was immediately after the crossing of the Red Sea. The first part of the chapter down to the twenty-first verse, is the song of their rejoicing at the Red Sea after their deliverance from Egypt. That physical Egypt is only a symbol of another and deeper Egypt. There is a spiritual as well as a physical Egypt. And this word to them who were brought out of Egypt is good for all time to the people whom God world bring out of Egypt: “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” MEDM April 1903, page 95.3
Health signifies more than merely that I am not sick to-day. Health signifies more than merely freedom from disease at the present moment; it signifies also defense, security against disease. The Lord Jesus took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses, yet he was never sick. They brought the sick to him time after time; Sabbath days were constantly spent in healing the sick. There was something in that to the Lord Jesus; these was something that drew upon him. The record is, and it is true, “he took our sicknesses.” MEDM April 1903, page 95.4
He also took our sins. Did he really? Or does his taking our sins signify that they go off into the air somewhere? Was he touched with the feeling of our infirmities? Did he feel that which was upon us? Surely he did. Then when he took our sins, that was real; he felt it. When my sins and your sins, the sins of which we were conscious, were upon me and upon you, there was a reality to them. There was condemnation upon us, there was guilt, and we felt it. Now when my sins, the condemnation of which I realized, were laid upon him, did the condemnation and guilt burden him as really as they did me? Did he feel that? To be sure. Otherwise it was a mere figure. But it did reach him; he took it and made intercession for it. MEDM April 1903, page 95.5
Now note: he took your sins, he took my sins, actually themselves, and yet he never sinned. He as really took our sicknesses, and why was he never sick? I call your attention to this that you may see the philosophy of Christian health; because there is as much difference between Christian health and heathen health as there is between Christian morals and heathen morals. God says in this verse, “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” Now that does not signify that if we do his commandments, then the Lord apart from that will come in on the side and do something for us. No. Do this which the Lord directs, do this which is right in the sight of the Lord, and that itself is the way to health: health is found in that very thing and is the consequence of that thing. MEDM April 1903, page 96.1
Proverbs 4:20-22 says in so many words that this is all so: “My son, attend to my words; incline thy ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their spirit”?—No; To all their mind?—No, but “to all their flesh.” What is it that disease takes hold of?—The flesh. Sickness strikes the flesh. Then what is the way to health?—God’s word received into the life, treasured in the heart, and allowed to be indeed the life because the word is life,—this is health to all the flesh. That is the Lord’s own prescription, therefore it is a correct prescription. MEDM April 1903, page 96.2
I
In the medical treating of disease what is it that does the curing? Suppose that on my hand there is a cut, a gash clear across and into the bone; and I come to the physician to have it bound up and mollified, and he does this. Does that heal it?—No. What really does the healing?—It is the wonderful working blood. But what is the particular thing in the blood that God uses to do the healing?—Life, life. If my blood is full of corruption, of poison, of death, because of the things I have been eating, will it heal? It will be an open, inflamed, and vicious sore for weeks, if it does not result in blood poisoning. But if the blood is a pure, bounding life current the cut heals in a very short time without being inflamed or sore at all. It is the life in the blood that does it. This is as true of a fever as any other disease as it is of a cut. As certainly as there is a sufficient supply of life, the disease is defeated. And this “sufficient supply of life,” is simply another way of expressing the thought of the “power of resistance of disease.” MEDM April 1903, page 96.3
Another verse, Proverbs 14:30: “A sound heart is the life of the flesh.” Very good. But the heart is not truly sound unless it is free from sin, and is bound up and is made whole in the holiness and righteousness of God. MEDM April 1903, page 96.4
Let us read those words again: “My son, attend to my words, ... For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.” For they are what? “They are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.” Then that tells us that devotion to God, holiness of life, life derived from God through receiving his word and spirit of life—that is the true way to true health. Then when the people come for health to you or to the health institution where you are, what are you to give them that they may have health?—Life, life, the word of life. That is not too much to say. Oh, it is true that you and I, being called to be Christians, are literally to stand as channels of life from God to men. MEDM April 1903, page 96.5
And since life is health, and it is literally true that we are to stand between God and men, we shall be channels by which health shall reach them, and they shall know that it is come. To illustrate: John 5:24: “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life.” What is that for? What does he give eternal life to you and me for?—Not only for our own sakes, but also that we shall pass it on to them that have it not. For his life is the fountain of health and his word is “the word of life.” MEDM April 1903, page 96.6
There is another passage that tells this same thing in another way. Deuteronomy 7:12-14, “Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers: and he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle. And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.” MEDM April 1903, page 97.1
He says, hearken to the word of God, and “thou shalt be blessed above all people.” Now did he expect them to do that thing and then he would, apart from the word, do this thing?—No. In that way comes the blessing. Take that course and the consequence is that you will be blessed above all people. The way of the word of God, is the way to the things which God promises. So that those things which he promises are, in the nature of the case, consequences of our expecting the thing that he says and putting ourselves into the attitude to which he calls us. MEDM April 1903, page 97.2
“Without faith it is impossible to please God.” “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” That which the word of God speaks to me cannot come to me unless I believe that thing in the word in which he speaks it. Now in this word, “the Lord will take away from thee all sickness,” that blessing cannot come to me unless I take that word which says it, and expect that through the word that says it, that thing will come to me. That is faith. MEDM April 1903, page 97.3
To illustrate: the centurion came to Jesus one day saying, “Lord, my servant lieth at home, sick of the palsy.” Jesus said “I will come and heal him.” The centurion replied, “Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.” His servant was miles away across the hills and valleys, and Jesus was here. But the centurion said, “Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.” Jesus said, “I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel.” The centurion did not expect Jesus to go over there and speak to his servant. No. Speak the word here, and there it would be done. What would do it? That man expected that the word which Jesus would speak, should do the thing which Jesus would speak; that is faith. MEDM April 1903, page 97.4
We must not read in the word the precious promises of God, and then ask and expect him to send down to us, apart from that word, the thing promised. No. We read in the word the promise, and then we are to expect the things promised to come to us by that word in which it is spoken. Therefore, when he prescribes here the way to be free from all sickness, that is the way: and that thing can come to us only in the way that he has expressed, and our faith can receive it only through the words that he has spoken in which he tells that thing. MEDM April 1903, page 97.5
Why, then, are there so many Christians who are sick? Is it the fault of God, or the fault of those who are wondering why they do not have health when it is simply because they do not take it? The physician gives a prescription, and the patient usually takes it. When the physician makes a prescription, and the patient refuses to take it, he then takes the case into his own hands. Here our God gives prescriptions for good health. If people will not take the prescription, they take their cases into their own hands; and, of course, are responsible for the consequences. And there is no true ground for their queries as to why they are continually sick. MEDM April 1903, page 97.6
This is true faith cure. For this truth of the forgiveness of sins and the peace of God as elements in the true treatment of disease, does not in any sense sanction the quackery of the so-called faith cures; that is too prevalent. Faith is in it: indeed it is all of faith, because the forgiveness of sins and the peace of God are known only by means of faith. But it is the “faith which works:” not an airy pigmentary notion called faith that prays and “believes” and then sits around and does nothing. It is the true faith which upon the word of God and the love of God teaches the forgiveness of sins, and there works most vigorously to reduce fevers, to eliminate poisons, and diligently to search out the physical causes of the sickness in order that these causes shall with the sins be forever abandoned, and the true way of true health, which is inseparable from holiness, be faithfully followed in the future. MEDM April 1903, page 98.1
The scriptures cited are sufficient upon that one thought, that God’s word contains the remedy for disease. Another one will I repeat: “He sent his word and healed them.” Psalm 107:20. That emphasizes the fact that God’s word, in the prescription that he has given, is the way to health. MEDM April 1903, page 98.2
II
Suppose that Adam and Eve and all mankind from the beginning, had received the word of God as it is, and had not turned aside to the right or to the left, had set their thoughts and hearts upon it, had received it and continued to conform to it, would there ever have been any sickness in the world?—Impossible. Then since it is literally true that if men had conformed to God’s word from the first there never could have been any sickness in the world, it follows that the way from sickness and disease to health is in receiving the word and conforming to every item of it. That is the truth. MEDM April 1903, page 98.3
The history of the deliverance of the children of Israel is altogether different from what it should have been. Well, then, since that is so, and he gave to them precisely the same thing that he gave to man in the beginning, if Israel had received it the results would have been far different. MEDM April 1903, page 98.4
Another prescription: “And the inhabitants shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.” Isaiah 33:24. That says that the forgiveness of iniquity is the way to deliverance from sickness. The forgiveness of iniquity is an element in the recovery from disease. MEDM April 1903, page 98.5
Another prescription: “I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Then the peace of God which comes in the forgiveness of iniquity and the restoration of the soul to righteousness, to holiness,—that peace which comes thus is shown by this verse to be an element in the recovery from disease, is an element in health, is a right of way to health. MEDM April 1903, page 98.6
“Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him.” There is not a physician in this world, though he be a downright atheist, who will not say to you that a disturbed mind, a troubled heart, a perplexed life, is a hindrance to success in whatever he may do to help a person to recover from disease; and that peace of mind and quietness of heart is a positive help. Very good; that which every physician admits to be a positive help, God provides in perfection: “Peace, peace, saith the Lord, ... and I will heal them.” And when a person has that “peace of God which passeth all understanding,” and it is necessary to take treatments, then all the treatments that are prescribed after God’s way will be a means to health. MEDM April 1903, page 98.7
“The peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Again it is written, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” The peace of God can keep your heart in order that out of it shall be indeed the issues of life and peace and health. Thus Bible health means not only that I am not sick to-day, but that I am defended against disease. MEDM April 1903, page 98.8
Another divine prescription: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Proverbs 17:22. The marginal reading of medicine is “healing.” “A merry heart,” does not mean a foolish, giddy heart. It means the heart that is cheerful, peaceful, and glad in the Lord—the heart that God gives. “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” “In me ye shall have peace.” He has met the perplexities; he has met all the difficulties that there are in the world. He has conquered them all, and in him ye shall have peace. Thus a merry heart, Christian good cheer, doeth good like a medicine. MEDM April 1903, page 99.1
God’s way of healing is a sound one: “Physician, heal thyself.” God’s way of treating disease is such that the doctor can take the medicine first and then recommend it to others. How many of the physicians of the world can first take the medicine which they prescribe? God’s medicine can be taken by the physician so that he can stand before the people and recommend it for the value that he personally knows is in it. MEDM April 1903, page 99.2
Another prescription: “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.” Isaiah 58:6-8. This is a divine prescription for health; for sick people who want to get well. Receive the word of God, receive forgiveness of sins, receive the peace of God, then the good that you have received, pass it on to the people who know it not. Thus your health shall spring forth speedily. MEDM April 1903, page 99.3
Jesus was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, and went about doing good; for God was with him, to undo heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. See how exactly that is what Jesus did. He went into the synagogue; he opened the Book and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” Isaiah 61:1. Then he closed the book, gave it to the minister, sat down, and said, “This day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears.” And they brought their sick unto him, and he healed them every one. MEDM April 1903, page 99.4
Brothers and sisters, fellow-workers, all people, please study this for your life; for it is your life. Study these scriptures and receive them; for this is for your health. Then recommend it and by Christian ministry pass it on to all people. “God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us.” What for? What is the object? “That thy way may be known upon the earth, thy saving health among all nations.” Psalm 67:1, 2. What is his saving health?—His blessing unto his people, and the light of his countenance upon us. That gives saving health. MEDM April 1903, page 99.5
Then God be merciful unto us and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us to-day, that his way may be known by us on earth, and his saving health to all people on the earth. MEDM April 1903, page 99.6