Part 6 (1/2)
The figs did not and could not heal Hezekiah. His case was wholly incurable. They were simply a token that G.o.d had the case in hand, and were given at the command of the prophet, and not the physician, who seems to have had nothing whatever to do with this case.
25. Why did Christ use clay?
No doubt, for a similar reason, as a token that He was touching this man's disease. But the clay did not heal him. It was the water of Siloam, the type of the Sent One, which washed away both the clay and the blindness, too.
26. Was not Luke called the Beloved Physician?
Yes. He had been a physician, but be became an evangelist. Even if he practiced after his conversion, it was no reproach, nor sin; but if G.o.d had wanted to guard us against the fanaticism of Divine Healing, how easy it would have been for Him to record a single instance in which the early believers sent for Luke. He could not have much medical practice in such a wandering life as he led with Paul, and the only time we read of the two meeting at the side of a patient, was when Eutychus was killed, and then it is Paul, and not Luke, who seems to have been sent for, and who certainly was used of G.o.d to raise him from the dead. Luke himself, who writes the narrative, does not even use a medical term in describing it.
27. But did not Paul himself prescribe medicine to Timothy in telling him to take wine for weak digestion?
Well, if this was fermented wine, we must abandon the argument for temperance. If, then, it was unfermented wine, it was simply a diet, and not a drug, and used just as we would suggest tea or rare beef to a friend. G.o.d's Word does prescribe to us all varieties of simple, wholesome food, but not medicine. From Genesis to Revelation you will find no single explicit direction to use human remedies. But you will find numerous directions to bring your sickness to G.o.d.
28. How should I act if I should break my arm?
Ask the Lord to keep it from breaking. Then do not calculate on breaking it, or you may according to your faith. If you should meet someone who has a broken arm, tell him not to try any experiments on G.o.d. If they can trust Him, without doubt He will heal anything. But if they cannot surely do so or have any question about it, let them go to the nearest and best surgeon.
For yourself, trust G.o.d in the present moment, and do not have any supposes, else you may have Job's experience, ”I feared a fear and it came upon me.”
29. How should we act in reference to the sickness of others?
First lead them to get right spiritually, and learn the lesson G.o.d may have. Then tell them of the great Physician, and pray for right conviction and appropriating faith, but do not commit your faith further than they are ready to go of themselves, unless you are specially led of G.o.d to do so. Above all, do not allow them to lean upon your faith for their healing. If they can really believe and act faith, then take hold for and with them with all your heart, and when two of you are really agreed in spirit and faith, it shall be done.
30. What should we do in the case of children?
We may act for them if our own, or if they are substantially laid upon us by the Lord, so that we are responsible for them. But we cannot believe for the children of others where G.o.d is looking to someone else to a.s.sume this responsibility, as, for example, an unbelieving parent. In the case of the children of others we should be most careful in a.s.suming responsibility. In the case of the children of our Orphanage, we would not feel justified in taking this responsibility, in view of the law of the state requiring the care of an attendant physician.
In the case of our own children we may and should teach them to unite with us themselves in faith, and we will find it very easy to get their simple hearts to trust Jesus fully.
In all cases of sickness in others where there is danger involved and you have the responsibility, to meet the obligations of the law, it is a great matter, if possible, to have some regular physician who believes in Divine Healing within call, so as to be responsible if necessary.
31. If we are not immediately conscious of actual healing, after anointing, how should we act?
Keep your eyes off your symptoms and on Christ. He is your life. Your body must be reckoned as good as dead, and He depended upon for strength, moment by moment. Therefore look to Him, draw your strength from Him, and be not discouraged at any testing or seeming delay. In nature the root may be cut, and yet the tree only wither after many weeks; the serpent may be killed, and yet his tail will move till the sun goes down; the seed may be planted in September, and the winter snows and storms pa.s.s over it before the spring and summer bloom and harvest-”Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it till he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient, stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”
32. How can I consider and call myself healed when there is no sign of it in my body?
How can I go away from the telegraph office and be at rest about the telegram I have just sent, when I see no trace of it as it goes flas.h.i.+ng along the wires.
If I can trust a telegraph operator, can I not trust my G.o.d? Faith must always first ”call the things that are not as though they were,” and ”against hope believe in hope,” and ”consider now its own body now dead,” or more literally, ”without being weakened in faith, he considered his own body now as good as dead, yet looking unto the promise of G.o.d, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to G.o.d, and being fully a.s.sured He was able to perform.”
The healing is not in our own body at first-we consider it as good as dead, but in Christ's body, and as we look to it, its strength keeps coming into ours, and we ”wax strong through faith.”
33. But have we a right to call that real which is not real?
If G.o.d calls it so, we can echo His declaration. And faith always must first reckon and then receive. And when we go to the post office to collect our orders, we must send in our signed receipt before we get any money, so faith must ever send its receipt to heaven before it grasps its answer. And if we have not the faith to do this for Divine Healing, perhaps we have not the faith for anything.
34. How can I obtain and exercise true and effectual faith for Divine Healing?
Only by having Divine faith as well as Divine Healing. Only by counting your faith and yourself dead and insufficient, and receiving Christ for this wholly, throwing yourself upon Him for it absolutely, and claiming a faith as perfect as that which G.o.d requires and gives, faith that doubts not, that believes it has the thing which it has asked, and so has whatsoever it saith.
35. Is all sickness from the devil?
Sickness may arise from several causes. First, it is sometimes G.o.d's chastening, and while the devil is the instrument used, G.o.d is speaking and we must hear and repent, and learn His lesson. Secondly, it is sometimes Satan's tormenting attack when we are walking in obedience and service. He has power even to simulate all symptoms. He often attacks us after we have given a testimony against him, especially respecting healing, at other times when in G.o.d's special service. At such times we must resist him, and he will flee from us. We must not fear him. Especially we must lay him over on Christ, and He will conquer. But to know it is Satan is half the battle.
APPENDIX.
DIVINE HEALING AFTER TWENTY-ONE YEARS' EXPERIENCE A CONTRAST.
Testimony Of Henry Wilson Out of weakness into strength, out of pain and weariness of mind and body into power and gladness in both, out of the fear of disease into the joy of the Lord and the love that kills fear and casts it out. For seventeen and a half years of toilsome, painful effort to keep on one's feet, and do a little, the blessed exchange of twenty-one years of service without toil. Doing three times as much without one-third of the effort, and without the need or desire to touch a drop of medicine or stimulant. In the sad past, old beyond my years; now younger than at twenty-five, if vigor of body and clearness of mind are any test of youth; not to speak of the ”joy unspeakable and full of glory” that illumines the soul.
If attaining one's majority gives a right to speak and act as not before, then this privilege is mine today; to say a few plain words as to what divine healing is after twenty-one years of unbroken peace and joy in believing in and living out the life also of Jesus in this mortal body.
DIVINE TRUTH A DIAMOND.
Like all G.o.d's truth this of ”the Lord for the body” is a diamond with many facets or faces, and as we hold it up in the white light of the Holy Spirit it s.h.i.+nes and sheds forth like a prism the very life and sweetness of the incarnate but glorified body of the Lord Jesus.
I. First, then, after twenty-one years divine healing is to me: NEW PERSONALITY.