God’s Prescription for Lasting Health
Too often medicine and health are mistakenly equated. The modern medical technology and knowledge are gifts from God! They can prolong life, relieve pain and suffering, and allow a person to regain health. However, health does not come from medicine. In fact, most medicines have a list of potential health-destroying side effects because they are poisonous to some degree. They are not intended to be taken long term, but are designed to mitigate symptoms until the body can heal.
Instead, health comes from obedience to God’s principles of righteous living. When we violate the principles of righteousness, we end up compromising our health. We need to take more seriously what the word of God has said to us!
Exodus 15:26 “If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
The Egyptians of old suffered from the same diseases that we suffer from today. They had all the major killers we are faced with such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, and etc. Yet, while Israel was in the Wilderness following the Lord’s leading, it was testified of them that “there was none feeble among His tribes” (Psalm 105:37).
We need to recognize that God is far more involved in our health and happiness than we generally think. He is our source of health – not the pills we like to take. The pills we take often relieve the symptoms, but do nothing to alleviate the cause of the sickness. They give us a quick but temporary fix to the problem. And that is what the majority want today. But is that what God is calling us to use?
There are other methods of treating many symptoms beside drugs. But these are far more time consuming and inconvenient than popping a pill. The eight natural remedies are powerful in restoring health and happiness.
“Pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet, the use of water, trust in divine power–these are the true remedies” (MH 127).
Some of the other simple treatments that need to be resurrected include hot and cold contrast showers, cold mitten friction, fomentation treatments, and etc. which all enhance blood circulation and stimulate the natural immune system. It is a truism that perfect circulation promotes perfect health.
All of these remedies/treatments allow the physician to spend quality time with their patients, which allows him/her to uncover the underlying cause of the sickness.
“But in nine cases out of ten, the afflictions we meet are in consequence of the continual transgression of the laws of life” (Health Reformer, December 1, 1870 par. 4).
“Nature will want some assistance to bring things to their proper condition, which may be found in the simplest remedies, especially in the use of nature’s own furnished remedies–pure air, and with a precious knowledge of how to breathe; pure water, with a knowledge of how to apply it; plenty of sunlight in every room in the house if possible, and with an intelligent knowledge of what advantages are to be gained by its use. All these are powerful in their efficiency, and the patient who has obtained a knowledge of how to eat and dress healthfully, may live for comfort, for peace, for health; and will not be prevailed upon to put to his lips drugs, which, in the place of helping nature, paralyzes her powers. If the sick and suffering will do only as well as they know in regard to living out the principles of health reform perseveringly, then they will in nine cases out of ten recover from their ailments” (Medical Ministry, pp. 223, 224).
God’s design is that we prosper and enjoy good health, but sickness and suffering is the natural result of the world of sin we live in. When Jesus healed people, He often said go and sin no more. Sin is not always the direct cause of disease, but it often is. And that is why, in order to bring health to our patients, we need to bring them to the sin-pardoning Savior.
“Those to whom the care of the sick is entrusted, whether as physicians or nurses, should remember that their work must stand the scrutiny of the piercing eye of Jehovah. There is no missionary field more important than that occupied by the faithful, God-fearing physician. There is no field where a man may accomplish greater good or win more jewels to shine in the crown of his rejoicing. He may carry the grace of Christ, as a sweet perfume, into all the sickrooms he enters; he may carry the true healing balm to the sin-sick soul. He can point the sick and dying to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. He should not listen to the suggestion that it is dangerous to speak of their eternal interests to those whose lives are in peril, lest it should make them worse, for in nine cases out of ten the knowledge of a sin-pardoning Saviour would make them better both in mind and body. Jesus can limit the power of Satan. He is the physician in whom the sin-sick soul may trust to heal the maladies of the body as well as of the soul” (Counsels on Health 330.1).
In saying all this, I want to affirm the place of modern hospitals and the common practice of medicine we have today. They are needed and valued. However, is that what God is calling us as Seventh-day Adventist Christians to dedicate our lives to? Too often we are afraid to be different from those practicing medicine around us. We are afraid of being sidelined, and rejected, but God has given us some very amazing promises. Here’s one …
Deuteronomy 28:13 “And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.”
When we bring our lives in line with God’s will, we will witness Him at work in an ever increasing way. True healing will take place, and our patients will experience the abundant life Jesus came to give. God will be glorified, and Jesus will be revealed in all His wonderful characteristics to a world that is dying around us.
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