PILL?--OR PILGRIMAGE!--Medicine vs. God's Healing
DO 599
8/8/77
[HomeARC note (9/98): The current Charter articulates the Family's principles, policies and attitudes regarding faith healing and getting outside medical attention.]
1. I ALWAYS FIGURE THAT IF GOD WANTS TO HEAL US, HE DOESN'T NEED ANY HELP!--AND IF HE DOESN'T, NOTHING WILL HELP! But on the other hand, maybe that's too extreme a view, because I believe in washing my hands & taking care of my body & giving Him a lot of cooperation. So I guess we don't always necessarily expect God to do it all. He can do it by a miracle, but I guess He usually lets you do what you can do, & He does what you can't do. So, maybe the medicines will help. It's doing what you can do, & then maybe He'll do a miracle & heal you, the thing you can't do.
2. You take the MEDICINES & you PRAY, both--but then how do you know which did it?--GOD or the MEDICINE? Who's going to get the credit? If the Lord did heal you, how are you going to know it was the Lord? And how is the rest of the World going to know it was the Lord if they see you going to the doctor & taking the pills just like they do?--Hmm? What kind of a testimony is that?
3. I remember some Christians always used to say, "Well, God USES the medicines, He works with the doctor, they work together, so you thank both the doctor & the medicine & the Lord." But He says, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, & I will have no other gods before Me!" (Ex.20:3,5)--He doesn't like to share His glory with the doctor! "I will not share My glory with another!" (Isa.42:8)
4. Maybe if you've got FAITH in the medicine, maybe it'll heal you--but what if you don't? (Maria: After all this, if you really believe in the Lord & His power, I don't know if you can really have faith in the medicine. I guess it sort of comes down to: Either you believe one or the other, huh?--At least you believe one more than the other.)
5. But if you downright DON'T believe in it, then is it a SIN to take it?--If you don't believe in the medicine, like me! (Maria: Oh, it's a sin to take it, yes, it must be.) It's "according to your faith be it done unto you" (Mt.9:29), & if you've got the faith that the doctor & the medicine will do it, well, I suppose the Lord in His mercy will let it work that way--maybe. But I don't have much faith in doctors & medicines & pills.
6. BUT I'VE GOT FAITH THAT THESE PILLS MIGHT BE DOING US SOME DAMAGE OR SOME HARM at the same time they're trying to do us some good. You believe in the pills, therefore maybe it's no sin for you--but maybe it's a sin for me to take them because I don't believe in them. If that's the way your faith runs, then you have to go to the doctor & take the medication. The least we can hope is that it won't do us any harm.--And the most we can hope is that it might do us some good. But one thing it will do: It'll either cure you or it'll prove that it can't--& then you'll have to trust the Lord!
7. (Maria: Well, I really don't think the Lord's going to let that cure me, because I've taken all kinds of suppositories & pills & they never seemed to help.) I just don't know that I've ever been healed of anything by taking medicines, as far as I know. (Maria: Yes, I'd rather trust the Lord & praise the Lord, even if I don't get healed.) I don't recall that medicines ever helped me, just because I'm almost totally against it as unnatural & unspiritual & unscriptural.
8. I'm sure it wasn't the penicillin or the antibiotics they gave me in the Army that cured me of double pneumonia--I KNOW it was the LORD! Because it was the minute I gave Him that answer, when I prayed & told the Lord that if He'd heal me & save my life, I'd live for Him better than ever before.--And right away the fever left, I regained consciousness & strength & was hungry, & I believe I was healed right then!
9. (Maria: Well, in the Spirit last night you said, "I can't stand hearing murmurs like that when you should be thanking God & saying, 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him'!" (Job 13:15)--"The trying of your faith is more precious than gold, yea than much fine gold!" (1Pe.1:7)
10. (Maria: I guess that's why the Lord let the pills fail. 'Cause either you have to have faith for everything & trust the Lord completely, or you start getting involved with doctors & medicines & more involved & more involved, until you're dependent completely on the medical profession! It usually works that way.)
11. BUT HOW DO THE DOCTORS KNOW, HOW DO THEY KNOW?--They know so little about God or the human body, & there's so much mystery to it that they can't possibly understand.--So how do they know that what they're putting into you is really going to help you, or that maybe it's upsetting God's Own natural means & His Own natural resistance & His Own created processes?
12. Maybe it's really upsetting the balance of nature or something. (Maria: That's probably why some people get so many aches & pains & all kinds of things & they don't know where they came from.) We know one thing for sure, that some medicines that people would take for one thing have done some people a lot more damage elsewhere.
13. Let nature take its course & trust the Lord.--Because if HE can't heal it, NOTHING can! And if He wants to heal it, He can sure do it without all that stuff! (Maria: Well, we have to decide about the whole Family: I mean, if they're going to go to medicines, they're probably going to go all the way. If you do it for one thing, if you say for sexually transmitted diseases you can go to the doctor, then of course they'll start going to the doctor for everything. But if you say, "Trust the Lord!"--then they'll trust the Lord for everything.)
14. Well, we started out trusting the Lord.--"Having begun in the Spirit, are ye made perfect in the flesh? O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" (Gal.3:1,3) The Family started out trusting the Lord for healing & we had a lot of healings & God has healed us all & kept us pretty healthy.
15. WHEN YOU START TAKING MEDICINES, WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO STOP?--AND WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO START TRUSTING THE LORD?--Probably only when you find out that the medicines don't do you any good & don't do the job, then you turn to the Lord. But I always remember that verse my Mother used to quote about old King Asa who was diseased in his feet. It said,
16. "But he turned not to the Lord, but he turned to the physician, & DIED!" (2Chron.16:12,13) The Lord doesn't say too many good things about physicians in the Bible! It said about the woman who'd had an issue of blood for years: "She suffered many things of many physicians, & yet was not better!"--The one who touched the hem of His garment. (Mk.5:26)
17. (Maria: Well, if we do the things we're supposed to be doing, like eating the right diet & following the other health rules, & if we're doing as much as we can naturally, then we should just trust the Lord.)
18. I've been trusting the Lord all these years & I'm in better health & stronger today than when I was younger, without going to any doctors or hospitals or anything, except when they made me in the Army! So He's never failed me all these years--why should He fail me now? Or why should I fail Him now?
19. I'VE BEEN SICK MANY TIMES, INJURED & WHATNOT, BUT YOU'VE ALWAYS PULLED ME THROUGH IN THE LONG RUN, LORD! I had to wait a little while sometimes, but You never failed, Lord. I guess there are people who have faith in pills--maybe they're Thy mercy on the World, Lord, maybe they do help some people. But I just never had much faith in them for me, Lord, since I know You & know You expect us to trust You & believe in You & that You'd either heal me or kill me, one or the other.
20. "MANY are the AFFLICTIONS of the RIGHTEOUS, BUT the LORD delivereth him out of them ALL." (Ps.34:19)--A-L-L, Lord, all.--Not just some or a few or most or many, but all, all of them! You've never failed, Lord. You know, Lord, how that's been my motto many a time,
21. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." (Job 13:15) I figured if You wanted to kill me, okay, I'd die, still trusting You & praising You, Lord, whatever You wanted to do.--I'm Yours, my body is Yours, my life is Yours, I live for You, so it's Your business to take care of me because I'm in Your business & You've never failed, Lord, to pull me through sooner or later, somehow.
22. I have a lot more faith in YOU, Lord, that You know what You're doing & You know how my body's made. You created it, You made it, so You ought to be able to fix it without any of this other junk! If You can fix it, then You don't need any help necessarily, as far as I can see. And if You don't want to fix it, why, I doubt if anything could help me, Lord.
23. Even DEATH is a deliverance, Lord! So if you don't deliver us from the affliction & we die, then You deliver us from everything. So, Lord, we just take it all as from You, & whatever You want to give us or deliver us from or whatever You want to do, like You did with Job, it's our job not to murmur or complain, but to just trust You, Lord, in spite of the tests & the trials.
24. After all the Lord's done for you, you quit trusting Him over one little trial, one little test! Lord, help us & forgive us! If He knows that at the first little "boo!" you're going to stop trusting Him, then why should He do it? He likes gold faith that goes through the fire, that's real faith! The kind of faith that gets results is "though He slay me, yet will I trust Him!" Why should He honour you with healing when you don't honour Him with faith? If you don't trust Him till you die, then you don't trust Him! If you're going to compromise at the last minute, then you've failed.
25. There's no TESTIMONY without a TEST, no VICTORY without a BATTLE, no TRIUMPH without a TRIAL! So why should we hesitate to fight the battle, the good fight of faith? O Lord, help us in Jesus' name! Help us, O God, to have more faith! My God, I sat there looking at that little pill today & I thought, "Now isn't that ridiculous? We're looking at this little pill instead of God!--This little brown pill that can neither see nor feel nor speak, like the idols of Egypt!
26. "My God, you mean to tell me I've got more faith in this little PILL than I have in GOD?" Man's gods have been getting smaller all the time--now they've gotten down to the size of a pill! If you're going to believe in the pill you can see, how are you going to believe in the God you can't see? (Parody on 1Jn.4:20.)
27. It seems like most people would rather take the PILL than the PILGRIMAGE of faith! Are you taking the pill or the pilgrimage? We prefer the pilgrimage to the pill!--The certain pilgrimage of faith in God!--Amen? Do you?
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family