—About a Sick MissionaryDFO 156512/7/83

[HomeARC note (10/98): The Charter states the Family's current principles, policies and attitudes regarding faith healing and getting outside medical attention, especially in regards to children.]

1. THAT LAETRILE METHOD IS A METHOD THAT HAS BEEN DEBUNKED BY THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION AS HOCUS-POCUS & IS EVEN ILLEGAL IN THE U.S.! The only positive thing the Mayo Clinic in the U.S. said about it was that it wouldn't hurt you in normal dosages, not that it was a cure for cancer. All reputable organizations that have anything to do with cancer have declared it absolutely worthless as a cure, except possibly of some use in making feel a little better psychologically. And he's paying that much for it? That's ridiculous!

2. … He's also doing a really tremendous professional job‚ he ought to be able to get some support for that. Imagine paying three or four hundred dollars a month for a system that is declared absolutely worthless by all the reputable Medical & Cancer Associations in the United States, & evidently in Australia. Of course, theirs aren't worth much either & it's competitive. But people flock from the States down to Mexico to take the Laetrile treatment. They're desperate & they'll go for anything to save their lives. "Skin for skin, what will not a man do for his life?" (Job 2:4)

3. … They're just absolutely throwing the money away‚ it's ridiculous! The most effective natural treatment against cancer that I ever heard of & that has been proven by actual experience & recommended highly by Dr. Koger & used by him, is the all-grape diet, nothing but grapes.—Any kind of grapes‚ all kinds of grapes, but nothing but grapes day & night!

4. IF HE'S GOING TO GO IN FOR DOCTORS & HOSPITALS & TREATMENT, HE OUGHT TO GO HOME WHERE HE CAN GET IT ALL FREE ON THEIR HEALTH BILL, WELFARE OR MEDICARE. The idea of pouring three or four hundred dollars a month into any kind of doctors, medicine, shots, vitamins & all that stuff just shows they're not really utterly trusting the Lord! I just don't have faith for that kind of thing!

5. IF A PERSON'S GOING TO TRUST GOD FOR HEALING‚ IT SEEMS LIKE HE WOULD JUST TRUST THE LORD! (Maria: Otherwise, why not get the very best medical treatment they have to offer?) If you're going to go to the doctor & the hospital, then put yourself in the hands of the doctor & the hospital & go the limit!—The very best ones you can get! Get the best doctor, hospital, medicine & everything else you can! But if you're going to put yourself in the hands of the Lord, He doesn't need anyone!

6. NATURAL HEALING IS ONE THING‚ LIKE I SAID ABOUT THE GRAPE DIET, BUT I DON'T CALL THIS NATURAL HEALING! All those shots & treatments & pills & doctors & hospitals, that's not natural! (Maria: Even though some say it's natural, it's depending on something other than the Lord. You're still putting your faith in something other than completely in the Lord‚ even if you go on a grape diet!)

7. MY MOTHER USED TO ALWAYS SAY THIS: As long as you are going to depend on doctors & pills & medicines & treatments & hospitals & whatnot, how are you going to really be able to say when you're healed, if you're healed, that the Lord did it? She always told that story about Marie Smith, who was in a hospital bed next to this Jewish woman, both of whom were in the hospital for cancer, & Marie Smith was in the hospital praising God she was healed of cancer by prayer! And the Jewish woman next to her said, "Huh! I had the same cancer, same doctor‚ same treatment as you had & I'm healed, & I don't even believe in God!" So how are you going to prove it was just God unless you just depend on the Lord?

8. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU KNOWN ME TO GO TO THE DOCTOR IN THE 15 YEARS WE'VE BEEN LIVING TOGETHER, EXCEPT JUST FOR DENTAL WORK & FILLINGS? How many times have you ever known me to go to a medical doctor for any reason?—Twice!—Once because the dentist insisted I go to the doctor & get a heart check–up before he'd even give me shots for a tooth extraction! Remember? He wouldn't work on my teeth unless I got a doctor's guarantee that I'd live through it. So I just went to the doctor to comply & get his statement, & he said I was fine, just great! The only other time was when I had that throat trouble, which seemed to be an infection or inflammation, when my throat was so sore & my tongue so swollen I could hardly swallow. We decided to go to the doctor just to find out what it was, but he couldn't do a thing for it!

9. MY MOTHER WAS ALL FOR THAT, TO GO AHEAD & GET AN INSPECTION, CHECK-UP OR DIAGNOSIS! That doesn't entail treatment just to find out what you've got! And then when you testify that you're healed, you know what God healed you of & you can specifically testify that that's what you had & you can prove it because of the doctor's actual examination! Otherwise people say, "Well‚ how do you know you had that? You never went to the doctor!" It sounds like he's been to enough doctors, so he apparently knows what he's got! Sounds to me like it's time for him to trust the Lord! My attitude when I was dying of appendicitis was‚ "If the Lord wants to take me‚ I'm ready to go & there's nothing going to stop Him! But if He's going to heal me, He doesn't need any help!"

10. FOR SOME THINGS, PURELY MECHANICAL THINGS, I THINK DOCTORS & HOSPITALS ARE SOMETIMES NECESSARY, like to set a broken bone or stitch up a cut‚ like a mechanic working on a car! But for some otherwise incurable things which doctors just experiment around with & use you as the guinea pig for a bunch of medicine & drugs & pills & other junk, they don't know what they're doing & neither do you! And who knows? It might do more damage than good! We have never had any kind of pills or medicines or treatments or series of antibiotics or anything else that have ever helped us that I know of. I went to the doctor once in Tenerife for my sore tongue when I poked it with a fork & it got infected. He recommended some antibiotic pills that I took because he told me to, but I certainly didn't have any faith in the pills!

11. I'LL TELL YOU, WITH ANYTHING AS SERIOUS TO BE DIAGNOSED AS POSSIBLY CANCER, HE'D BETTER GET THROUGH TO THE LORD, & FAST, BECAUSE THERE'S NO KNOWN CURE! And that Laetrile system has absolutely been debunked by all competent Medical & Cancer Associations & whatnot! I've never heard them say a good word for it. There are people, of course, who swear up & down that they got healed by it‚ but the doctors say they're not sure they ever had cancer in the first place! Well, who knows?—Maybe the Lord healed them! But to pour three or four hundred dollars a month down a medical rathole that we have no faith for whatsoever, I think is an absolute waste of money! (Maria: And it's obviously not bearing good fruit‚ because his cancer's growing!) What good is the treatment if it's not healing?

12. I'M SURE THAT ANYTHING THAT OBVIOUS THAT EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT & CAN EVEN SEE, GOD PROBABLY WANTS TO HEAL HIM & GET THE GLORY FOR IT! (Maria: But He can't heal him while he's trusting in something other than the Lord!) God won't get the glory for it then! If he gets healed while he's taking the Laetrile Method, then he's going to give the Laetrile Method the glory. And if he doesn't, then everybody else will, because they'll know he was taking the Laetrile treatment. God won't get the glory for it. Anybody that knows he's taking Laetrile is going to say, "That's what healed him!"—Or they'll always have that doubt in their mind that maybe it wasn't God, it was Laetrile.

13. ANYTHING THAT HAS BEEN CONDEMNED AS AN ABSOLUTE WORTHLESS QUACKERY LIKE THE LAETRILE TREATMENT, I'M AMAZED THAT HE WOULD HAVE EVEN GONE IN FOR IT! Anybody in his serious condition with a growing cancer ought to get desperate with God real fast! If God wants to heal him‚ He's going to heal him if he'll depend utterly on the Lord & give Him utterly the glory!—But not as long as he's leaning on the Laetrile crutch or any crutch & trusting God halfway & the Laetrile method the other half! There's no halfway with God! He'll have no other gods before Him! (Ex.20:3) And if God doesn't want to heal him, he'll just have to accept that & figure the Lord wants to take him Home, & the quicker the better!—Unless He just wants him to keep suffering in affliction to keep him humble or close to the Lord or something.

14. BUT BOY OH BOY, I THINK IF I WAS IN HIS SHAPE, I'D SURE CAST MYSELF ON THE LORD & FORGET LAETRILE & ALL THAT JUNK‚ TRUST GOD UTTERLY & STEP OUT ON A LIMB & PUT GOD ON THE SPOT! "Now Lord, I'm trusting You & I've left home & gone to the mission field & I'm doing my best for You, now You've got to do it! And either You do it or I'm not going to trust anybody else, certainly not the Devil & his methods!" (Maria: Or any kind of natural juices or anything, because he could even give those the credit!) Needing stuff that's hard to get & expensive! (Maria: And hard for people to prepare.)

15. I CERTAINLY THINK HE OUGHT TO LIVE AS HEALTHFULLY AS HE POSSIBLY CAN, & OF COURSE HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOING THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE! That may be what brought it on, because he wasn't eating properly before. (Maria: But of course to have the Lord heal him & know that it was an absolute miracle, he shouldn't have to eat any more healthfully than I do, for example. He should eat healthfully just like everybody else should eat healthfully!)—Normal, natural eating‚ as healthfully as possible as all of us should be doing. Of course I sympathize with him if he can't swallow & he just has to drink juices‚ then he'll have to go ahead & drink juices. But drinking juices is not going to the Laetrile doctor & getting shots & pills & so-called Laetrile Treatment & things hard to get that have to come from a different country & are expensive‚ three or four hundred dollars a month! Can you imagine? You'd think the expense would have driven him to trust the Lord!

16. (MARIA: IT COULD HAVE BEEN AN ATTACK OF THE ENEMY TO STOP HIM FROM GETTING TO THE FIELD, BUT HE SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THE FIELD & THEN JUST TRUSTED THE LORD!) Instead, he carried all that with him! (Maria: Yes‚ & he tried to have the same treatments & doctors that he did in Australia!) That's not casting yourself on the Lord! God's Word says, "Cast thyself on the Lord & He shall sustain thee!" (Ps.55:22) Maybe that's a verse for him. But leaning on the Lord on one side & the doctor on the other is not going to do it!—It never has for me or my Mother or anybody I know that really trusted God for healing, to just half trust the doctor & medicine & halfway trust the Lord.

17. (MARIA: THERE'S ANOTHER COUPLE THAT HAVE DONE PRACTICALLY THE SAME THING, the couple who wrote you about their little girl having a lump on the neck too, like a big cyst. They said every time she'd break out with that thing it stopped them from leaving the U.S.! They went to doctor after doctor & they had operations & everything. They finally got up enough faith to just leave & go to the mission field, but when it broke out again they did the same thing there, they went to the doctors!—And they also ate junk food! It reminds me of his case, it was on the neck too! But I guess that's the thing that happens a lot, they finally get up enough faith to go to the mission field, but then they drag all their doubts with them!) They still depend on the doctors & the medicines. That's not really casting themselves on the Lord, not really trusting the Lord!

18. YOU'RE NOT GOING TO PROVE TO ANYBODY ELSE THAT IT WAS JUST THE LORD THAT HEALED YOU AS LONG AS YOU'RE GOING TO THE DOCTORS & getting shots & medicines & pills or any kind of treatment! There's always going to be doubt even in your own mind as to whether it was the Lord that healed you or the treatment. The Lord just will not share His glory with another! (Is.42:8) "I will have no other gods before Me! I the Lord thy God am a jealous God!" (Ex.20:3,5)—And He simply will not share His glory with somebody else or something else, much less a pill or a shot or a treatment or any doctor!

19. ANYONE WHO KNOWS AS MUCH ABOUT HEALING AS WE DO‚ GOD EXPECTS IT OF US & HE REQUIRES IT OF US TO TRUST HIM UTTERLY & LET HIM DO IT! You know what I've told you—don't ever let them carry me off to some doctor or some hospital! I'd rather die in the hands of the Lord than die in the hands of the doctor! That's what happened to that poor healing evangelist Jack Coe. He made his wife swear that if he was ever disabled or seriously ill she would trust God & never take him to the doctor or the hospital. But when he had this stroke or something & he couldn't defend himself or do a thing, she finally weakened under the persuasion of others & let him be taken off to the hospital & given over to the doctors—& he immediately died! Imagine what a testimony that was for a great healing evangelist who went around doing miracles all over the World, healing people just through faith in the Lord! When the pressure really got hot on her she retreated & fell back on the doctor & the hospital & medicine & it killed him!

20. AS LITTLE AS DOCTORS KNOW & AS EXPERIMENTAL AS MOST OF THESE MEDICINES & PILLS & TREATMENTS & SHOTS ARE, I'D SOONER TRUST THE LORD ANYWAY! He knows what's wrong! He is able to heal it! They don't know what's wrong & don't know how to heal it! They're just playing around & experimenting like little boys with toys! (Maria: They constantly misdiagnose cases.) Dr. Koger said, "If you knew doctors like I do, you'd never go near one or take a single prescription from them! It's nothing but experimentation! Most of the time they don't know what's wrong with you either, & they just try this & try that & charge you for it to make money off it!"

21. THAT'S WHAT MAKES ME FED–UP WITH SOME OF OUR GIRLS WHO BELIEVE THE DOCTORS WHEN THEY TELL THEM THEY'VE GOT TO HAVE A CESAREAN! And the main reason doctors recommend Cesareans is because it's surgery & they make thousands of dollars on it, lots more money on it than natural childbirth! We've had plenty of girls who refused the Cesarean & insisted on trusting the Lord & came through with flying colours! We've got one girl who had a Cesarean in South America & she nearly died of it! She was in a coma for quite some time.

22. I'LL TELL YOU, IF YOU KNOW THE LORD & HIS HEALING & ABOUT TRUSTING GOD BY FAITH FOR YOUR BODY, GOD WILL NOT LET ANY KIND OF TREATMENT, DOCTORS, PILLS‚ SHOTS OR HOSPITALS HELP YOU! That sort of thing is for the poor sin-sick unbelieving World who have no other recourse, who don't even know the Lord or His healing. But as long as you know the Lord & His healing‚ He holds you responsible to trust Him for it & cast yourself utterly on the Lord! Then if He wants you to die, you'll know it was His will & not some doctor or treatment that killed you. And if He wants you to live, He'll heal you & you'll know it was the Lord & not the treatment!

23. I HAVE NO FAITH FOR THE HEALING OF PEOPLE WHO GO TO THE DOCTOR & LOOK TO THE PILLS & THE TREATMENTS & the shots & the natural or unnatural or normal or abnormal methods, or whatever they want to call it, anything else but the Lord! I have no faith for their healing, because the Lord is a jealous God & He will not share His glory with another! And He's certainly not going to heal somebody when neither they nor the rest of us will ever know whether it was God or the treatment. He likes you to throw yourself utterly on Him & trust Him completely! I've got much more faith for that! If God wants me to die, then all right, I'll know it was God's will that I died & not the treatment! If He wants me to live, then I'll know it was the Lord & I'll give Him all the glory & so will everybody else—& not the treatment!

24. GOD IS A JEALOUS GOD & HE'LL NOT HAVE ANY OTHER GODS BEFORE HIM! He'll not share His glory with another! That boy had better get busy … & throw himself utterly on the Lord & do it quick! … He'd better take the warning of the Scripture about King Asa who was diseased in his feet! It says that King Asa turned not unto the Lord, but unto the physicians & died! (2Ch.16:12,13) You can't turn to both! The Lord will not share the credit or the glory!

25. I DON'T THINK ANY OF THOSE THINGS THAT DOCTORS DID TO ME EVER DID ME ANY GOOD! Can you remember anything that did me any good?—Nothing! It was purely the Lord! I can't remember a thing they gave me or did for me that did me any good or that healed me. It reminds me of the old joke about a bad cold: With medication you can get rid of it in about two weeks‚ or with just plain rest & proper diet, etc., you can get rid of it in about 14 days! So who knows what healed you?

26. … Even he won't know whether it was Laetrile or God healed him‚ as long as he takes those treatments, & God certainly won't get the credit for it! The Lord certainly doesn't want to share the credit for it. If he casts himself utterly on the Lord, then God has got to heal him, if He wants to heal him. And for God's sake, if He doesn't want to heal him‚ why would he want to be healed? The quicker he goes to the Heavenly City the better, & be rid of it all!

27. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU & MADE YOU PROMISE ME YOU'D NEVER CART ME OFF TO A HOSPITAL IF I'M HELPLESS OR SOMETHING? I'd rather die at home in bed trusting God than go to the damn hospitals full of doctors who don't even know what they're doing! There are things which doctors can do & know how to do which are purely mechanical & they know what they're doing, just like working on a car!—Like setting a broken bone or sewing up a cut or removing a splinter or bullet. Dr. Koger cut that bullet out of my finger. I don't even know that it was all that necessary, because I'd had it in there for three years & it hadn't bothered me, but I'm glad he did.

28. THOSE ARE PURELY MECHANICAL THINGS THAT THE DOCTORS KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING, JUST LIKE FILLING YOUR TEETH! It's a mechanical job. Just like cutting your toenails or your fingernails or brushing your teeth or cutting your hair or whatever, it's strictly mechanical!—But not all that chemical experimentation & fooling around trying this drug & that drug & this shot & that treatment & this doctor & that hospital when they don't even know what's wrong with you!—And if they do, they don't know how to heal it!

29. MY GOD‚ GOD KNOWS WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU! He knows first of all what's wrong with you spiritually & what He's dealing with you about & what He's trying to teach you, what He's trying to tell you through it! I think God's trying to tell that boy that he needs to cast himself utterly on the Lord & trust the Lord. … I'd rather let God do what He wants to do, than go fiddling around with the doctors & the hospitals & the medicines contrary to the will of God!

30. MY MOTHER USED TO SAY, "IF YOU'RE NOT SURE WHETHER GOD WANTS TO HEAL YOU OR NOT, WHY ARE YOU TAKING ALL THESE MEDICINES? Maybe you're going against the Will of God! One way to find out is to just quit the doctor & the medicine & everything!" She told that to a woman one time who had a bedside table just full of medicine! The woman asked her to come pray for her, & Mother got there & found that this woman who was supposed to know about healing was having regular visits from the doctor & taking all these medicines, a whole bedside table just full of them!

31. MOTHER ASKED HER, "MY DEAR, DO YOU BELIEVE GOD CAN HEAL YOU?" And of course almost everybody would say‚ "Yes, of course God can heal me." She said, "Well, do you believe it's God's will to heal you?" She said, "Well, I don't know!" She said, "Then why are you taking all these medicines? You may be taking them against the will of God! Maybe He doesn't want to heal you. Maybe He's trying to take you Home to Heaven‚ & here you're fighting it like mad with this doctor & all these medicines!" And it woke the woman up! It so shook her up that she promptly got up & poured all the medicines down the toilet & said, "I'm just going to trust God! Who knows? I might have been going against the will of God taking all those medicines!"—And the Lord immediately healed her, marvelously healed her, because she quit trusting in the doctors & cast herself upon the Lord!

32. IF I DIED, I'D RATHER KNOW THAT IT WAS THE LORD THAT KILLED ME THAN WONDER IF IT WAS THE DOCTOR THAT DID IT! Well, if you die, you'll know! If he's really got cancer, there's no known cure, & if he's just going to rely on doctors & medicines & treatments & think at the same time he's going to rely on the Lord, I don't have any faith for him unless he utterly casts himself on the Lord. Then if God killed him we'd know it was the Lord, not the treatment or the pills or the medicine or the shots or the doctor or the operation or whatever! At least you know you're doing the will of God to trust Him utterly.

33. I'D RATHER BE LIKE JOB & SAY‚ "THOUGH HE SLAY ME, YET WILL I TRUST HIM!" (Job 13:15)—And put my body in the hands of the Lord & trust God utterly! If He does kill me‚ at least I'll know it was the Lord & it was His will for me to die, rather than be fighting with doctors & treatments & medicines, & I might be fighting the will of God! He's certainly fighting the will of God by taking all those medicines & treatments & stuff, because I don't think that's the will of God! Some people in the Family are certainly weak in faith when it comes to trusting God utterly!

34. I'LL TELL YOU, I'LL NEVER FORGET WHEN I WAS WORKING AT THAT JOB TO TRY TO HELP SUPPORT MYSELF & DO THE LORD'S WORK TOO, & THE LORD TOLD ME TO QUIT & TRUST HIM UTTERLY & HE'D TAKE CARE OF ME, & if He didn't take care of me, then He was worse than an infidel! (1Ti.5:8) When I got that Scripture & God applied it to Himself, then I quit my job, which is the same thing as quitting the medicine! I said, "Okay Lord, it's up to You now to take care of me & my wife & children! I'm going to quit my job & go into full–time service!"—And I did!—And I've never worked at a secular job from that day till this, & He's never failed!

35. WHEN YOU DO THAT‚ YOU PUT GOD ON THE SPOT & YOU ALSO PUT YOURSELF ON THE SPOT & YOU SHOW THAT YOU'RE REALLY TRUSTING GOD! But as long as you're leaning partly on God & partly on the medicine‚ He's not going to have anything to do with it! He doesn't care to share His glory with some doctor & some treatment & some pills! If He's going to heal you, He wants all the credit for it & all the glory for it & not to have to share it with anything or anybody else. He wants the World to know & the Family to know that it was He who healed you & nothing else!—God plus Faith plus Nothing!

36. THE ONLY WAY I EVER GOT HEALED WAS TO COMMIT MYSELF UTTERLY TO THE LORD & TRUST THE LORD! And of course at the same time, to do my best to obey the Lord & follow the Lord & live right, eat right, sleep right, exercise right, take good care of my body & not abuse the temple of the Holy Ghost! You can't expect God to do it for you if you don't give Him a little cooperation & use the normal natural methods of taking care of yourself—proper diet‚ proper exercise, proper rest & proper living. You can't expect God to heal you when you're abusing your body.—And with all that medicine, pills & shots, you're probably abusing your body! Because what do doctors know about your body?—More than God? And what do doctors know about healing it or what's going to heal it?—More than God?—That's ridiculous!

37. PUT YOURSELF INTO THE HANDS OF THE LORD, TRUST HIM UTTERLY‚ THEN HE'S GOTTA HEAL YOU IF HE WANTS TO! And then if He does, He'll get all the credit, all the glory & all the praise & you'll have only Him to thank for it & not share the thanks with the doctor! And if He doesn't want to heal you, then taking all those medicines & shots & pills & treatments are against the will of God! If He wants you to stay sick or afflicted or even die‚ it's better to let Him have His way than to fight it. If you believe it's the will of God for you to live & serve the Lord & even be healed, then why don't you trust the Lord? If He wants to heal you, He'll heal you! If He doesn't want to, nobody & nothing can heal you!

38. SO WHY NOT TRUST GOD?—But trusting God means trusting Him utterly, & nothing & nobody else!—Just God!—Then He'll get all the credit & all the thanks & all the praise! You'll know it was God & so will everybody else & they'll all thank the Lord & know it wasn't any treatment or doctors or pills or therapy or that anything else had any share in it whatsoever! If God's going to heal you, He wants to get all the credit & all the glory & do all the healing, so you'll give Him all the thanks & you'll know it was God! But you cannot do that as long as you're even partially trusting doctors, hospitals, medicines, pills‚ shots, treatment, therapy or whatever.

39. THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT, IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE!—YOU'RE EITHER TRUSTING GOD OR YOU'RE NOT! You're either trusting God or you're trusting the medicine! You cannot do both if you're going to expect God to heal you. I don't care how much you love the Lord & say you trust God & have faith in God & you're serving the Lord‚ if you're leaning on the doctor & treatment & medicine & pills & shots & therapy & whatnot, you are not completely trusting God utterly. There's a Scripture! "He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." (Heb.7:25)

40. YOU'RE NOT TRUSTING GOD UTTERLY AS LONG AS YOU'RE LEANING ON SOMETHING ELSE!—Like that story the old coloured preacher told: He said, "When you wants an answer to prayer, you're always looking around for something for God to start on‚ a little bit of something to help God out! The Lord made the World, didn't He? He hung it on nothin', didn't He? He made it out of nothin', didn't He? Pretty good old World‚ isn't it? Hangs pretty good! What makes you think God has to have something to start on?—That you've gotta help God out somehow by supplying Him with some kind of means to start on‚ or medicine or whatever!"

41. WHY DON'T YOU JUST TRUST THE LORD & FORGET ALL THAT OTHER CRAP! You don't know that the other stuff can heal you, but you know that God can heal you if you trust the Lord at all! And you know He can heal you without it, so why bother with it? Why pour three or four hundred dollars a month down a rathole for medicine & treatment & therapy & shots & pills & all that junk? Why waste all that time & money & agony on it if you know the Lord & know He can heal you? Then why don't You trust Him? Why don't you just lean utterly on the Lord? "Cast thyself utterly on the Lord & He shall sustain thee!" He is able to save even unto the uttermost all them that come to Him! (Ps.55:22; Heb.7:25)

42. THEN IF YOU'RE UTTERLY TRUSTING HIM & NOTHING ELSE & HE DOESN'T HEAL YOU, THEN YOU KNOW IT'S NOT GOD'S WILL TO HEAL YOU! Otherwise you may be fighting His will, & if it's not His will to heal you, nothing's going to heal you! If He wants you to suffer & die, you will suffer & you will die! Period! But if He wants you to live & serve Him‚ you'll live & He'll heal you, & He doesn't need any help! PTL! It's just that simple! I've never gotten healed any other way‚ certainly not by trusting in doctors & hospitals & pills & shots & therapy & all that junk & experimentation by doctors who don't even know what they're doing, much less how to heal you! Forget it!

43. TRUST THE LORD! HE'S THE ONLY REAL HEALER! HE MADE YOU & HE CAN FIX YOU, SO WHY DON'T YOU TRUST HIM? Why don't you trust the One Who made you? Nobody knows the product like the Manufacturer! Send yourself back to the Manufacturer & let Him fix you! He's got all the parts & everything you need, & He's the only One that really knows you & how to do it. Any other kind of a mechanic is just fooling around & experimenting. So why not try God & God alone—utterly, completely, nothing else—so God'll get the glory if & when you're healed. And then if you're not healed or you die, at least you'll know it was the will of God & you weren't fighting it! But if it's God's will for you to live & for Him to heal you, then He certainly doesn't need any help!—Except for you to take care of your body & not abuse it & not do whatever led to the thing in the first place.

44. SO WHY NOT TRUST GOD? If He wants to heal you, He doesn't need any help!—And if He doesn't want to heal you, nothing else will help! So you might as well trust Him instead of fooling around with all that junk & wasting all that money. Think how much you need that money for your support on the mission field!—Or if it's not you‚ it's some other missionary that needs it. But we're certainly not in the business of supporting doctors & hospitals & pharmaceutical companies! They're some of the richest in the World! Why should we support them? We're supposed to be supporting the Lord's work & His missionaries, not doctors, hospitals & medicine companies!

45. THAT BOY NEEDS TO PUT HIMSELF COMPLETELY IN THE HANDS OF THE LORD, & MAYBE SOME OF THE REST OF YOU DO TOO, & quit leaning on the medicines & the doctors & the shots & the pills & the vitamins & the treatment & the therapy, blah blah! Why don't we just trust the Lord & give Him all the credit or all the blame, whichever!—At least then you'll know it was God! I'd sooner trust the Lord any day than man & his medicines—or the medicine men! "He that putteth his trust in the Lord shall never be put to shame, but the fear of man bringeth a snare!" (Pr.29:25)

46. GOD IS A JEALOUS GOD & HE WILL NOT SHARE HIS GLORY WITH ANOTHER‚ MUCH LESS SOME PILL! … King Asa … was diseased in his feet & "he turned not to the Lord but unto the physicians & died." That's what the Scripture says clearly, & the point's certainly clear! You'd better watch out you don't do the same thing! (2Ch.16:12,13)

47. YOU'D BETTER TURN UTTERLY TO THE LORD … & TRUST GOD UTTERLY! He not only can heal you, but it's His will to heal you, or He wouldn't have put all those Scriptures in there on healing! He wants to heal you & He certainly wants you to serve Him‚ but He does not want to give the glory to anything or anybody else, or for anything or anybody else to get the credit for it! He wants you to trust Him & Him alone so you'll thank Him & Him alone for it, & He'll not share His glory with another!

48. SO YOU'D BETTER GET BUSY & TRUST THE LORD BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! … (Maria: The thing is, if God wants to take you, He usually does it pretty quick & doesn't let His children suffer for a long time. Look at Phoebe & Abner!) But there are some who sometimes the Lord lets suffer for awhile to teach them or teach their family some kind of lesson through the suffering before He takes them.

49. BUT IT'S BEEN MY EXPERIENCE WITH MOST CHRISTIANS WHO REALLY KNOW & TRUST THE LORD, THAT IF THEY WILL UTTERLY CAST THEMSELVES ON THE LORD, HE WILL UTTERLY DELIVER THEM ONE WAY OR THE OTHER—HEAL'M OR TAKE'M—& NOT DRAG IT OUT! Although there have been a few cases where the Lord even let them suffer for years until they learned their lesson, such as my Mother & my Father! I certainly hope that never happens to me! I hope I'm never that hard–headed that it takes me years to learn the lesson, especially if it hindered my service for the Lord or was a poor testimony to other people.

50. PLENTY OF PEOPLE ARE PROBABLY ASKING THEMSELVES & OTHERS, MAYBE EVEN GOD‚ "WHY DOESN'T GOD HEAL HIM?" It's a reflection on the Lord! Why doesn't God heal him?—Because he's not utterly trusting God, that's why! He's still trusting other things! And whoever advised him to trust anything else but the Lord is giving advice contrary to the Word & all God's principles. He likes you to trust Him utterly for everything!—Your life‚ your work, your support, your health, your children‚ everything!—And not rely on anything or anybody else. And if you'll do that, God will abundantly bless you. He's bound to answer prayer, He's bound to heal you, He's bound to keep His promises, He's bound to keep His Word if you absolutely throw yourself on the Lord & trust Him utterly‚ obey Him utterly & please Him utterly!

51. LOOK AT HOW THE LORD'S BLESSED US, & WE'VE TRUSTED THE LORD FOR YEARS, UTTERLY, FOR EVERYTHING!—Every bite we eat, every roof over our heads, every bit of our work, our health, our strength, our safety‚ our children, our finances, everything, & He's never failed, because we trust Him utterly! We do our part. We do our best to take care of our body & our children & obey the Lord & take care of His work & not abuse our bodies or get careless or negligent with our work or our Family or our children, but to be diligent in business & not neglect our finances. We do our part, but we trust God utterly that He's really the One that does it!

52. BUT UNLESS YOU ARE OBEYING GOD & DOING YOUR BEST TO SERVE HIM & DO HIS WILL & TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODY‚ WHICH IS THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY GHOST, YOU CAN'T VERY WELL HAVE FAITH FOR HEALING! (1Co.3:16,17; 6:19; 2Co.6:16.) If you're abusing your body or abusing your job or abusing your finances or abusing your family, you can't very well expect God to take care of them if you're not doing the best you can. But when it comes to healing‚ let me tell you, your best is to call on the Lord & depend on the Lord utterly, because there's obviously nothing you can do! You found out that there's nothing you can do & there's nothing the doctors can do, & like the old lady in the Bible, you've "suffered many things of many physicians & are not better!" (Mk.5:26) So it's time for you to wake up to the fact that only God can heal you & to cast all the rest aside & cast yourself utterly on the Lord & trust the Lord entirely, completely, utterly!

53. OBVIOUSLY ALL THESE DOCTORS & TREATMENTS & PILLS & SHOTS & THERAPY HAVEN'T HELPED HIM ANY—HE'S WORSE! So now that he's found out there's nothing else he can do, he might as well trust the Lord & save all that time & money & forget it! Trust the Lord! If He wants to heal you, He doesn't need any help. If He doesn't want to heal you, nothing can help, & that's that! Period! God help you to trust Him & Him alone!

54. LOOK HOW THE LORD HAS BEEN TRYING TO GET HIM TO DEPEND ON THE LORD! He gave them all those verses about "many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all," "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction," "blessed is he that seeketh My face in the hour of trouble." (Ps.34:19; Is.48:10; Ps.119:2; 91:15.) Look how the Lord's been trying to get him to trust Him! So why doesn't he trust the Lord utterly & throw the medicine & junk away & tell the doctors to forget it & save his money for the rent!

55. HOW PEOPLE WILL TRY TO FIND EXCUSES TO EXCUSE THEMSELVES FOR DEPENDING ON THE NATURAL, getting quotes from the Letters about "you can't pretend you haven't got a disease & do nothing about it" & about the camel sucking Grandfather's thumb & where it mentions there's a remedy for everything. All right, now he's done everything he can possibly do about it & it hasn't done any good & he's worse. So now he knows there's nothing he can do about it, so he might as well quit trying to do something about it & trust the Lord! The best thing for him to do is trust the Lord. The Lord's certainly been trying to get him to trust Him. I don't go for those doctors & those books & all that junk!

56. HE'S TRUSTING THE WORD OF MAN INSTEAD OF THE WORD OF GOD! (Maria reads from the boy's letter: "Praying, I had a vision of myself as having a lazy spirit & eating garbage which filled me with black. Then I took a natural healing course & was restored to health with new spirit & learned to enjoy eating & drinking normal food again, but in moderation. One day I realized that I often joke about being old & believe that it was in my heart an ideal from childhood that it was best to be very old. I prayed to receive a new vision of being in prime health. It seemed the state I was in was that of an old man‚ as I was in my heart. After the 'Sphinx' series I prayed to see if there was any particular spirit behind the affliction, & I got the name Matilda & saw a kangaroo.")

57. MATILDA & THE KANGAROO ARE AUSTRALIAN SYMBOLS! "Waltzing Matilda" is the Australian national anthem‚ & Australia is certainly as System as it can be! Maybe the Lord's trying to warn him that he's depending too much on the System! He obviously was in Australia! (Maria: Yes, because he says his first contact was with this couple during the last two weeks they were in Australia. "They shared with us their program & some of its sources, & here it is basically. Eddy May—'How I Conquered Cancer Naturally'—all about wheat grass, juices & raw food. Dr. Max Garrison—'Cancer Therapy'—this doctor had phenomenal success with diet & juices & treating not only cancer but many other similar incurable diseases.")

58. I THINK PROBABLY SOME OF THOSE THINGS DO HELP IF THEY WILL CORRECT WHAT'S CAUSING THINGS—which is probably junk food, bad health habits & abusing their bodies—if they can catch it soon enough. But when they've already got it, it's virtually impossible to cure by just simply trying to build a fence at the top of the cliff when they've already fallen off it! It's too late for prevention, they've already got the disease! All that sort of thing is more for prevention than cure. To take care of your body & not abuse it & to eat the proper foods‚ etc., that's to prevent things like that. But once you have abused your body for so long & you've got the disease, you're a little bit late trying to build a fence at the top of the cliff when you've already fallen off!

59. (MARIA: HE SAYS, "HIS THEORY WAS THAT THE BODY HAS BEEN DAMAGED BEGINNING WITH THE LIVER due to too much modern poisons & too little nutrition in modern food & has lost its ability to heal itself. That's the remedy, is to eliminate poisons from the body, cease their intake, feed the body with as fresh, pure natural foods as possible, etc. They're professing Christians both giving a witness in their books.") Yes‚ yes, yes, yes, yes! That's exactly what Dr. Koger taught too—naturopathy. But that is not necessarily a cure, it's more of a prevention!

60. I'LL TELL YOU, WHEN MY MOTHER HAD CANCER, GOING ON THE GRAPE DIET DIDN'T HELP HER A BIT!—IT WAS TOO LATE! She got worse! It was only God by a miracle that healed her! That's when she had that experience of seeing those words on the wall when she was dying‚ hemorrhaging from cancer. They only gave her a few days to live, & she fell asleep & dreamed or had a vision of this horrible yellowish-green sickening word in great big letters on the wall: CANCER! And then all of a sudden, all the letters suddenly began to be gobbled up by great big beautiful pure red letters: CHRIST!—The same number of letters as the word "Cancer," & each of these red letters blotted out each of the letters of the word "Cancer."

61. THEN SHE HEARD THIS VOICE SAYING, "CHRIST IS GREATER THAN ANY CANCER!"—And she woke up & told Dr. Koger the dream & that she believed she was going to be healed! She'd just had an invitation to go up North to hold meetings & be on the radio all Summer with L.P. Lehman's "Bit of Heaven Hour," & she told Dr. Koger to send him a telegram of acceptance, "I'll be there by such-&-such a date!"—And here she was dying & still hemorrhaging! But she took that step of faith, that Christ is greater than any cancer‚ & she went ahead & made plans to go!—And the Lord healed her! And that was the Summer that she went there & L.P. Lehman made her write her books, The Hem of His Garment & Streams That Never Run Dry that have blessed millions!

62. BUT LET ME TELL YOU, IT WAS TOO LATE FOR THE NATURAL GRAPE DIET! She already had a serious cancer & it had already gone too far! It was too late for grapes to heal her, only God could heal her! Christ is also greater than any grapes or juices, & he'd better put his faith in the Lord & do it quick or he can be a goner depending on juices & grapes too late! It's too late for him to depend on anything but the Lord, & he'd better do it quick! (Maria: And even though it might save some people, like you said, the Lord's not going to let it save this boy because He wants him to trust in Him!) Because he knows the Lord & he knows what he's supposed to do‚ & the Lord's not going to let him get away with it! Some ignorant benighted sinners who don't know anything, don't know the Lord & don't know any better, God in His mercy might let it help them, but it's too late for him! He'd better trust God quick. …

63. THE VITAMIN B17 MIGHT BE A GOOD PREVENTATIVE OR IT MIGHT RETARD IT‚ BUT IT'S TOO LATE FOR HIM, HE'S ALREADY GOT IT!—And obviously it hasn't done him any good, he's worse! And besides, the Lord's not going to let it do him any good! God wants him to trust Him & not man-made remedies. If he's going to depend on all that junk, for God's sake‚ you'd think he would have clung to those things for dear life to save his life instead of being unfaithful with them & careless & negligent about it! (Maria: I think he probably knows deep down in his heart that it is only God that's going to do it or can do it, so he doesn't really have faith in it in his heart.) Exactly!

64. THAT'S WHY I'VE NEVER REALLY HAD FAITH IN VITAMINS OR ALL THIS OTHER JUNK OR PILLS OR WHATEVER‚ BECAUSE I KNOW GOD'S DEALING WITH ME IF I'M SICK, & I know I've got to get things right with the Lord & obey the Lord & trust utterly in Him, or nothing's going to heal me! That's still my motto no matter what they say—& that's what I have lived by & it saved my life & I'm still here, several times as old as he is—& that is: If God wants to heal me‚ He can do it without any help! If He doesn't want to heal me, nothing can help me!—And so far He's always healed me, obviously! I'm still here! PTL! All the credit to the Lord!

65. GLUTTONY IS ONE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS & HE ADMITS THAT HE HAD VERY BAD EATING HABITS BEFORE & WAS GLUTTONOUS ON TOP OF IT, & HE DIDN'T MIND EATING JUNK FOOD EITHER! He admits that he disregarded the "Health Revolution" & the other food & health Letters‚ & he sure is paying the penalty! No wonder God's mad at him! No wonder God has afflicted him! That's downright defying the Lord & defying God's Prophet & disobeying the Letters & disobeying the Word of God! What could he expect but an affliction & a good hard spanking from the Lord? He's been a very naughty boy! How could he be self-righteous when he's so disobedient & so defiant of God's laws & Family laws? What's he self-righteous about? (Maria: He says he sees he's dependent on others more than he saw it before. Obviously the Lord's trying to get him to depend on Him.) Apparently he was spoiled & independent, & now the Lord's making him depend on others & on the Lord. But he still hasn't been depending on the Lord.

66. HE'S STILL TRYING TO SAVE HIMSELF WITH HIS OWN WORKS! By taking all those medicines that's exactly what all that is!—It is a self-righteousness! The same principle applies to the body & health & healing as applies to salvation, to depend on medicines & doctors & treatments & therapy & all that is depending on your own works & your own self-righteousness to heal you, instead of totally utterly depending on the Lord by grace through faith. You get healing the same way you do salvation, by grace through faith! You're saved by grace through faith & that not of yourself! It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. (Eph.2:8,9)—Or lest you should boast of any man or any doctor or his medicines! You get healing the same way as you do salvation, by utterly trusting God for it & not anything else, just like you get salvation!—Grace plus Faith plus Nothing!

67. (MARIA: HE SAYS, "I PRAY DESPERATELY I'M NOT MISSING GOD'S MAIN POINT & want to be completely open to confess anything‚ receive any counsel or rebuke & learn what I must." He said he believes that love & the Word are all he needs. He asked the Lord, "What is the main lesson You're trying to teach me?" And the Lord said, "Love!" And he prayed & asked the Lord, "What is the greatest healing factor?" And He said, "The Word!") Then why is he trying to trust all this other stuff instead of the Lord & His Word & casting himself desperately on the Lord alone & trusting utterly in His Word? He's not trusting God alone or God's Word utterly as long as he is depending on these other things! That's like depending on his own works & his own self-righteousness! "Not of works!" And the other verse, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us." (Tit.3:5) Amen?—So why not trust God? GBAKY!—In Jesus' name, amen.

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family