Counsels on Health

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Counsel to Physicians and Nurses

[Special Testimonies, Series B 15:16-23 (1900).]

The Lord has instructed me to present the following scriptures to our physicians: “Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.... For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.” 1 Thessalonians 4:1-3. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him: rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” Colossians 2:6-8. CH 584.1

Physicians are placed where peculiar temptations will come to them. If they are not prepared to withstand temptations by the practice of the principles of truth, they will fall when Satan tempts them. There are ministers of the gospel who are too weak to resist temptation. They may have long preached the gospel, and with marked success; they may have won the confidence of the people, but when they think they are strong, they show that they cannot stand alone without being overcome. Unless they govern their habits and passions, unless they keep close to the side of Christ, they will lose eternal life. If ministers are in such danger, physicians are even more so. CH 584.2

The perils of physicians have been opened before me. The physicians in our sanitariums must not allow themselves to think that they are in no danger. They are in positive danger; but they may avoid the perils which surround them if they walk humbly with God, taking heed not to be presumptuous. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” 1 Corinthians 10:12. A power higher and stronger than human power must hold the fort in our medical institutions. CH 584.3