| Subject: Healing |
Author:
Steve
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Date Posted: 20:56:28 08/26/05 Fri
We must keep in mind that modern medicine is just that, modern. There is no doubt
that they are doing a pretty good job of keeping sick people alive, today. But
during the first 1900 years after Christ, they "practised" their craft with human beings
as their guinea pigs. Millions died at their hands, while they tried one remedy after
another until they came to the point that they are at today. In the following
paragraphs, let's remind ourselves of the "History" of the Medical Profession.
While reading just ask yourself, "If this profession was from God, would he give
out such important information in such a piecemeal fashion?"
MEDICINE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES
Doctors
Few doctors were trained until about 1200. Then medical schools were established in
universities run by the Church. However, the Church believed in the ideas of Galen,
and discouraged people from questioning them, so no advances were made. Most
people would probably rely on a local person using traditional remedies. Some
hospitals were established by the Church where the sick could be treated.
Surgery
There were many wars in the Middle Ages, and some surgical advances were made.
Some doctors discovered that wine was a good disinfectant (because it contained
alcohol) and stopped wounds becoming infected. This was a great advance, although
not all doctors accepted it. Opium was used to make patients sleepy so that
operations could be carried out - a primitive form of anaesthetic. Some internal
operations such as removing stones from the bladder were carried out.
Prevention Public Health and Hygiene
No government took responsibility for providing a public health system, and standards
of hygiene declined drastically from Roman times. The connection between dirt and
disease was not made, and people rarely bathed.
If the Medical profession was from God, why was their knowledge so limited???
The History of Medicine: The Renaissance 1500 - 1750AD
CAUSES
Ideas about the cause of disease did not change from the middle ages. Disease sent
by god, due to the planets or bad air, or due to imbalance of the humours.
Development of scientific methods was good, but doctors did not have the tools to
make advances in cause - powerful microscopes needed to see bacteria (not available
until 1830), and better knowledge of chemistry (oxygen not discovered until 1777)
needed to understand processes inside the body.
CURE
Same as middle ages - praying to god, purging and bleeding, herbal remedies. More
understanding of cause needed before advances in cure possible.
DOCTORS
About 1000 trained doctors in country - very expensive (one months wages for treatment).
Apothecaries in most towns - prescribed and sold medicines, but untrained.
Barbers, tooth-pullers - visited markets and fairs - sold herbal remedies and did minor surgery - untrained but cheap.
Wise-women, witches, neighbours - knowledge gained through experience.
Most widely available form of treatment - cheap or free.
SURGERY
Most surgery done by barber-surgeons - no training, learned on job. Paré developed idea
of ligature (to stop bleeding), and a cool lotion (to stop pain and shock of cauterisation). Development entirely due to war. But not used universally because infection was more
common than with cauterisation. Full benefit of Paré’s work not realised until
development of antiseptics in 19th century.
PREVENTION, PUBLIC HEALTH AND HYGIENE
Connection between dirt and disease still not made, so no change from middle ages.
Some government action during the plague, but generally no attempt to improve public health
An excerpt from a book on medical history during the Civil War:
Amputation was the most common method of treating broken bones.
There, lying on clumps of hay or bare ground, the wounded awaited their turn on
the operating table. There was usually little shouting, groaning, or clamor because
the wounded were quieted by shock and the combination of liquor and opiate. It
was an eerie scene, with a mounting pile of amputated limbs, perhaps five feet high
, the surgeon and the assistant surgeon-after a few months both Union and
Confederate authorities decided that two assistant surgeons were necessary in
a regiment -cutting, sawing, making repairs, and tying ligatures on arteries. The
scene was especially awesome at night, with the surgeons working by candlelight
on an assignment that might sometimes go on for three or four days with hardly a respite.
And there was always the smell of gore.
The surgeons tried to ignore both the slightly wounded and the mortally wounded
in the interest of saving as many lives as possible. This meant special attention to
arm and leg wounds. Union statistics showed that 71 percent of all gunshot wounds were in the extremities, probably because of fighting from cover behind trees and breastworks.
Wounds of the head, neck, chest, and abdomen were most likely to be mortal, so
the amputation cases went first on the operating table. The bullet or piece of shell
had to be removed, often with the operator using his fingers for a probe. Between
the extensive damage done by the Minnie bullets used to inflict wounds, and the
haste and frequent ignorance in treating them, amputation was all too often the
"treatment" prescribed.
Everything about the operation was septic. The surgeon operated in a blood- an
often pus-stained coat. He might hold his lancet in his mouth. If he dropped an
instrument or sponge, he picked it up, rinsed it in cold water, and continue work.
When loose pieces of bone and tissue had been removed, the wound would be
packed with moist lint or raw cotton, unsterilized, and bandaged with wet,
unsterilized bandages.
This is just a little over a hundred years ago. If you still think that God works
through the Medical profession, why do you think their methods were so primitive
and their ideas about sanitation and infection were non-existant?
Even today, according to a recent story on CNN, approximately 98,000 people
die each year from medical mistakes. Another 40,000 die from "Hospital infections",
These are infections that they picked up in the hospital. Medical authorities admit
that because of the widespread use of antibiotics, some viruses are becoming resistant to all treatment..
Do you really believe that God works through this system?
Remember, all abortions are done by doctors, today. Proverbs 6:17 says that
God hates hands that shed innocent blood. Do you think that maybe the babies
aborted could be innocent blood?
Just recently in Florida, two separate cases come to mind. In the first, a man who
was a diabetic, went into surgery to get his left leg removed. By mistake, the
doctor cut off his right leg. His left leg had to be amputated the next day. The
second case involved two patients, both "prepped" and waiting for surgery. One
was getting a gall bladder removed, the other was getting a heart transplant.
Somehow the charts were switched and the man who was supposed to get his
gall bladder removed, got a heart transplant.
How many medicines prescribed for one part of the body actually attack another
part of the body? This is common news, everyday. Medicine taken to help your
thyroid does damage to your liver,etc.
Christians are not against the medical profession. We know that they are doing
the best job that they can. The "world" definitely needs them. We just have to see
that God has provided a better way for his people.
Let's see what the Word says about Divine Healing.
Exodus 15:26-"...for I am the Lord that healeth thee"
Psalm 30:2-"O lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou has healed me"
Psalm 107:20-" He sent his word and healed them..."
Psalm 103:3-"Who forgives all thine iniquities; who heals all thy diseases"
Psalm 118:8-" It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidance in man"
The need for healing is an excellent place to show that your faith is in God and not in man.
2 Chronicles 16:12-" And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet,
until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians."
Why do you think the Lord put this example in his Word? It shows that Asa could have went to the Lord for his healing, but went to the physicians instead.
And what happened?
vs. 13-"And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign."
He went to the physicians instead of God and he died!
Jeremiah 17: 5- " Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trust in man, and
makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord"
Here the Lord is saying, Cursed is the man who turns to the arm of the flesh for help rather than to God.
Proverbs 4:20- " My son attend to my words; incline your ear unto my sayings."
21-"Let them not depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart."
22-" For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh."
Here is a promise from God that if you attend to his words and keep them in your
life, He promises health to your flesh.
I know there are some out there who are going to say that these are all Old
Testament promises. But remember, We have even better promises in the New Testament.
Remember also-" Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever"
Let's look at some New Testament promises now.
Hebrews7: 22-"By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament."
Do you see? Better promises. He healed without any help from anyone in the
Old Testament and surely He heals without help from man in the New Testament!
Hebrews 8:6-"But now has he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also
he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises."
Do you see? Healing was in the first covenant and we have a better covenant,
established on better promises
Isaiah 53 is a prophecy concerning Christ which was written hundreds of years
before He walked the earth. 53 : 5 says-" and with his stripes we are healed."
This is prophecying that He will pay the price for our healing with the severe
beating that He took prior to His cruxificion. The "stripes" are the whip marks
on his body.
And 1 Peter 2:24 confirms this, "...by whose stripes ye were healed."
Notice it is past tense in the New Testament, Jesus has already paid the price:
Healing is in the atonement. We just must believe it in our hearts, and Jesus
knows your heart.
Mark 16: 18 says believers will-" lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
Are you a believer? Really? Why don't you believe this?
James 5 : 14- " Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church;
and let them pray over him, annointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
15-"And the prayer of faith shall save the sick..."
Don't let unbelievers stop you from having the blessings that God has for you.
These scriptures do not need to be interpreted by anyone. They clearly mean
what they say as does most of the scripture.
God is faithful to His Word.
2 Corinthians 1:19 & 20- " For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached
among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yes and no, but
in him was yes. For all the promises of God in Him are yes, and in Him Amen,
unto the glory of God by us."
What He is saying here is that it is not sometimes yes and sometimes no. He says
that the answer is yes and Amen, which means so be it. You have to receive it
by faith. Here is a good example: Matthew 9: 9- Jesus said-" According to your faith be it unto you."
Mark 5 : 26-" And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all
that she had, and was nothing better, but rather grew worse."
Here is a woman who spent all of her money going to doctors and couldn't get healed.
Why do you think the Lord included this example in His Word?
Remember, there are countless examples of Jesus healing all who came to Him.
Let's see what the Lord said about sickness in Luke 13 : 16-" And ought not this
woman, whom satan has bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?"
Now put this together with Acts 2 : 38- "How God annointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all
that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him."
Do you see what it says , there? Those who were sick were oppressed of the devil.
Sickness is part of the curse, Brothers and Sisters. Jesus redeemed us from the curse!
Do you believe?
Jesus said in Mark 11: 24-" Therefore I say unto you, What things soever you
desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them."
My friends, " what things soever" includes healing.
You say you have faith in God? Well then, take Him at His Word.
Hebrews 11: 1 says -" Now faith is the substance of things hoped for" Are you hoping for a healing?
Receive it by faith. "the evidence of things not seen," You see, when you receive
your healing by faith, you believe it before you see any results.
Hebrews 11: 6- " But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that comes
to God must believe that he is" In other words, believe that He is God. " and that
he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Here He says that He rewards
them that diligently seek him.
Divine Healing, I assure you, is one of those rewards.
God is Faithful
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