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Ex 15:26 And
said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD
thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his
commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon
thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD
that healeth thee.
Ja
5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the
elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the
name of the Lord:
When my wife and
I were young Christians an elderly missionary and his wife who were staunch
King James Bible advocates took us to a nearby church. The church supported him
and he wanted us to hear him preach. And, of course, with two new faces showing
up, everybody wanted to meet us, find out if we were saved, if we were looking
for a good church, etc. We enjoyed speaking with an elderly couple who were
members of the church. They knew a lot of Bible and were delighted to find a
couple who shared their interest in the Scriptures and who were so full of
questions. When the service was over they invited the four of us to their home
for some chow.
The
elderly church members soon shoved the dishes aside so we could break God’s
Bread. The issue we were discussing was Christians going to medical science for
their health versus going to the Lord. My wife and I’d never heard anything
about it before and were still too naïve to know the “proper” response to scary
topics was to get real quiet and act as if they’d just said something
embarrassingly offensive, thank them for the chow, and leave. We still thought
Christians were supposed to pull out their Bibles and humbly engage in
Swordplay in order to help each other more perfectly know God’s will. Anyway,
the host couple would read verses like the two at the top of the page, to which
the missionary would respond by protesting that the verses did not mean what
they said, produce a Greek and Hebrew dictionary for laymen, and read potential
meanings for some of the words. Frustrated and embarrassed when it became
evident he was going to have to overthrow a number of verses in the Bible, he
retreated with red face into a little shell right there at the dinner table and
spent the remainder of the discussion silently and futilely flipping back and
forth in his layman’s aid seeking comfort and reassurance. He was apparently
unable to refute the word of God (as was I when I later studied the doctrine on
my own) because he never spoke up again. In addition to learning something
about the health issue it was interesting for me to observe his fear, his
cowardly behavior, his immaturity, and his lack of an open interest in the
things of the Lord – characteristics I thought were the opposite of those that
Christians were supposed to have and demonstrate. I will give the missionary
credit for one thing: he never resorted to the ungodly use of carnal ridicule
and stupid clichés so often used by Christians as last-ditch defenses when
losing a serious discussion about doctrine.
The
next day the missionary was fielding questions from me about various doctrines
when we came to one I had done some studying on and which I knew he and his
denomination disagreed with. I’d point out a verse in the Bible and he’d
respond by picking one of the definitions in his Hebrew/Greek lexicon that
changed the meaning of the verse. So I’d turn to another verse that supported
my position. He’d respond by opening a huge commentary by an author approved by
his denomination and read a section in which the author by fiat decreed the
verse to be incorrect. This pattern went on until it occurred to me to ask him
a question about the source of his belief and about the validity of his method
of argument: “Brother, why is it that every time I turn to something God says
in His Book, you attack it by turning to something man says in some other
book?” (That is not something you say to a supposed King Jameser.) He ignored my question, gathered his wife, packed
their suitcases and left my house. I never saw him again and he never answered
my question. He was apparently offended because he thought I had insulted him.
I thought he had attacked the authority, validity, and existence of the word of
God and was, by his example, unthinkingly attempting to corrupt a young
Christian. His indignation was personal; mine was righteous. I say this only
for your edification.
The two verses
at the beginning of the chapter sum up God’s health care plan for His people
and show His plan has always been the same in both Testaments. You will see
that, just as with the rest of God’s words, I take these words literally and
seriously. I believe Christians will not get sick unless God wants us
to. And when we do get sick – even unto death – we should not run to the
doctor for healing while giving lip service to God; we should let God heal or
kill us while we ignore the doctor. But before we begin this topic I want to
put it into perspective.
You
will likely find this to be the most fearful chapter in this book. It is not
the most difficult to understand and it is not the most important issue in this
book. But because it is a body blow rather than the head jabs common to the
rest of the book, this subject will help reveal to you where your throne is,
that is, where you live. We are married to the Lord for better or for
worse and, from an Enlightened viewpoint, you are about to learn something
about our Husband that makes our marriage take a turn for the worse. You are
going to learn that Scriptures that define our calling,
like 1 Pe 2:19-21; 4:12-19; and 1 Jn 3:16,
do not just apply to governmental and religious persecution; they also apply to
verses like Jb 1:8; 2:3.
We
have seen throughout this book that God gets violently enraged at some issues
that are just not that important in today’s Enlightened Christianity. Aiken at
Ai is a good example, as are Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. None of those
men outwardly harmed any other Christians. And yet when Aiken quietly buried
some stolen spoils of war in his tent, God responded by killing a number of
innocent Christian soldiers in battle and then executing Aiken and his family.
God also dramatically killed Korah and the two
hundred and fifty men who were with him, and their wives, and their sons, and
their little children, and then sent a disease that killed fourteen thousand
seven hundred more of the Christians who agreed with Korah’s
position. (Today that disease would have resulted in 14,700 Christians running
to the doctor in an effort to avoid God’s will and punishment.) Remember also
that King Saul was not a multiple murderer, never committed adultery, never got
his neighbor drunk, never decided God’s design for the wilderness tabernacle
was too rinky-dink and needed to be thrown out in favor of a “better” one, and
never numbered the people like King David did. And yet God dumped Saul and kept
David.
These
and other examples help illustrate that “walking by faith not by sight”
requires us to live in accordance with the Bible. Doctrine must dominate our
minds and rule our bodies. God obviously cares about doctrines on an
idealistic, intellectual plane, something we got a glimpse of in chapter D6, Authority.
He looks at things in ways that are different from the way Christianity has
taught us to view them. By definition, therefore, today’s Christianity has made
us carnal and at enmity against God. We have the spirit of antichrist and we
got it in church. And that’s why I say other topics in this book are more
important than this one because they help you look at things on an intellectual
plane. They help you see through tradition in order to see more of the big
picture in the way God sees it.
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We
must live on a cerebral level (He 11:1,3; Co 3:2; Ph 3:19; 2 Co 4:18;
1 Jn 4:5; 1 Co 1:18,19,21; 3:18-21; 4:6; Ps
119:97-100,104,105,112). For example, you now understand how incest,
slavery, marriage, putting away a wife, sex, authority, expediency, and
dominion fit into God’s orderly way of doing things. And you understand how
philosophy has gotten into the church, made us carnal, filled us with Reason,
and poisoned our doctrines. That understanding will help you grow faster and
more consistently because you will better understand how God does things. And
it will help you be a better ruler in certain situations (1 Co 6:12; 7:6,12). The issues I listed at the beginning of this
paragraph are largely conceptual and don’t really impact your daily life in any
significant way like this chapter might. They are of the utmost importance,
though, because we cannot walk with the Lord except we be in agreement
with him.
Unless
our actions originate on a cerebral level, unless we live and walk with
discernment, we cannot please God (Ro 8:7,8)
and cannot know the things of God (1 Co 2:12-16). Without discernment we
shall die in the lake of fire (Ro 8:6; Mt 16:24-26). That’s why other
issues in this book are more important than the issue in this chapter.
But
this chapter is important as an indicator of your level of maturity. If you
dwell in the cerebral zone of discernment, you’ll be able to handle this topic
without uncontrollable fear because this topic does not threaten your spirit
life. However, if you have not packed up and moved into the temple of the
Holy Ghost and still live in the old man, the flesh, this topic is a threat to
the very life God has told you to disregard as unimportant. If you have a
problem ruling well your old-man household from the conceptual realm of the
discerning new man, this chapter will reveal that problem. You will then on a
daily basis be able to humbly discuss this topic and the applicable Scripture
with the Lord and ask Him to help you work on your level of faith, belief,
courage, commitment, strength, and discipline.
I
have several times used Xmas as a whipping boy in this book because it is an
excellent example of how little we apply the Scriptures to all matters of faith
and practice in our daily lives. Xmas is easy to use because it is so minor an
issue. In general, though, I have deliberately refrained from mentioning some
of the many other things in our modern lives that are unscriptural because,
with the foundation I hope and pray this book will give you, you can learn
about all that stuff from God as you study His word. You need to learn to walk
with Him and depend on Him for guidance and instruction (1 Co 14:35).
And you need to eventually be weaned from my breasts or those of any other man
who may be suckling you. Learning from Him and then incorporating those
lessons into your life are both requirements of growth. I say again, you
need both of those. Knowing all the “right” answers is not
important. But knowing how to sit at the feet of the Master, having ears that
hear Him, and the strength and initiative to be a doer of His
word are what He wants of you. I can’t give you all the right answers
because I don’t know all the right answers. I am but one member of the body, so
I can’t know it all. I need you to grow and learn the things from Him that He
wants you to know so you can then help me. Even if I could give you all the
right answers you shouldn’t want me to. You should want to get your
answers from God (1 Co 14:35; Ac 17:11); He is your Master and
Judge. If you got all your answers from me you’d be a follower of men and
would, like the legalistic law-keeping Pharisees, just be following a laundry
list of rules instead of having a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I
am covering this fearful topic because it is the biggest weapon Satan has in
his arsenal (Jb 2:4), and I believe the
best way to fight in this spiritual warfare is to pick out the biggest and
commence firing! If you go through your Christian service only doing the
little things that don’t intimidate you, you’ll never know if you have the
courage born of love for Christ you are supposed to have. In the absence of
fear there can be no courage. Use that to your advantage; the issues you should
focus your sights on should be those that scare you. Remember, if you always do
just the little things, you’ll never do the big things. I also believe, because
of Jb 2:4, 1 Co 15:31, and Mt 16:24,25, using
God’s health care plan can go a long way toward helping us undo the carnal
effects the Age of Reason has had on our Christianity.
One day as a teenager I disrespectfully
wise-assed my mother. My growth had made me physically
stronger than she, and that gave me the confidence to resist her will. When I
saw her slap coming I easily ducked it; she got nothing but air and looked
clumsy as her continuing swing pulled her off balance. As I smugly straightened
up, full of pride and satisfaction, my mother recovered her balance along with
the realization that I’d crossed the line from the typical youthful inability
to control a glib mouth (Ja
3:8-10) to actual rebellion against authority. She pointed her finger and
looked up into my face and said, “Young man, you’ve done wrong and you deserve
to be disciplined: You stand up and take your punishment like a man!” My pride
and satisfaction melted into shame and regret as my love for my mother made me
realize the truth of what she said, as well as the fact that I was starting
down a road I didn’t want to be on. Too young to realize a spontaneous apology
was appropriate, I silently stood at attention while my mother slapped me.
That
episode was lost in the busy clutter of life until years later when my heavenly
Father brought it to my attention. I realized that starting with that slap, and
because my physical capabilities gave me an option, any punishment I received from
my mother from that day forward was approved by me. I approved or agreed
not because I liked it and not because my mother was always right, but because
it was her job to train me up, and my job to submit to
her will. My parents and I walked together as I matured because we agreed they
had the prerogative to inflict pain on me, and I had the duty to humbly submit
to their will. That’s just the way God set things up.
And as sons and daughters of God our
relationship with Him works the same way: It is voluntary. The Lord has
shouldered the responsibility of a parent; it is His job to train us up in the
way we should go, and He is never remiss in His duty because He is a Faithful
and Good Shepherd. It is our job to submit to His will. Notice the word Therefore
in Dt 8:5,6
teaches us that one of the reasons we are to obey God is fear of His
punishment. See also He 12:5-11, which talks about the importance of acknowledging and
accepting punishment from God. Accepting His punishment is part of our
“subjection” to His authority (v.9). His punishment is for our “profit” (v.10),
but only if after submitting ourselves to His punishment we are then
“exercised”, motivated, changed, and guided by that chastening (v.11). See also
Ps 119:75 and Jn 18:11.
We are God’s witnesses when we obediently submit to His will. If we please Him, Le
26:3-13 will happen. But if we are not obedient, Le 26:14-39 will
happen. These show that God uses sickness as punishment. Therefore, when bad
things happen to us we need to discern if they are tests, guides, or
punishments. If they are punishments we must do Le 26:40,41.
If we do not voluntarily “accept the punishment of our iniquity” (Le
26:41b), we’ll be rebelliously ducking our Father’s corrective slap. In other
words, we have a choice as to whether we accept God’s punishment or fight
against it. Now turn to the sentence in bold print on page H10-11 and apply
King James’ statement to this topic. Our Christian calling and duty is to
humbly submit to His correction and guidance in order that the flesh might be
defeated and the war won. Just as it was Christ’s duty to die, it is our duty
to die. We have wrongly ignored the physical dying part of that duty by always
discussing the part about dying daily to self. For example, when was the last time
your preacher or Bible study group even brought up this topic, let alone taught
a lesson on it? Hmm? Fear of physical death is a great
unmotivator, making this one of the
least-viewed chapters at TheSwordbearer.org. But don’t worry; even the Lord’s
disciples were at first afraid to address this topic.
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Earlier I said it was not important for
us to know all the right answers and that our real responsibility is to learn
things from God and then incorporate them into our lives. That requires
the maturity necessary to know the Lord, accept His guidance and correction,
and put His will into action in our lives. The Bible commands us to be perfect,
and I believe those three things – knowing God, accepting His will, and doing
His will – are essentially what perfection is. Perfection includes the ability
to repent. Repentance requires knowing we have been contrary to God’s will and
then humbly conforming to His will. David was perfect (1 Ki
15:3). The fact that he committed quite a few sins just makes him like the
rest of us. Being perfect doesn’t mean never sinning. Being perfect from God’s
perspective means incorporating and identifying with every verse David wrote in
Ps 119. Perfection is more a matter of character, a matter of the heart,
a matter of who we are. God is looking for people who love and serve Him
in a personal way like David. He is not looking for people like the Pharisees
who ignore Him by focusing their attention on keeping the law. David’s old man
tried to run from God by sinning, but David’s new man always fought back,
regained control, and returned to the Lord. The carnal sides of the Pharisees
tried to ignore God by hiding behind His laws, and their new men never loved
the Lord enough to miss Him and come out from hiding.
We
are now going to examine another great Christian in the Bible, King Asa. Like David, he loved the Lord (1 Ki 15:11; 2 Ch 14:2). And, like David, Asa was perfect in the eyes of God (1 Ki 15:14; 2 Ch 15:17), and therefore God was with him (2
Ch 15:9). Asa lived at a time when Judah had had
its back turned to God for a long time. His love for the Lord gave him the
courage to go against society by instituting Scriptural changes. And the Lord
spoke to Asa through prophets during this time when
He was punishing His people with various wars (2 Ch 15:1,6).
At
one point Asa found his army greatly outnumbered by
the Ethiopian army (2 Ch 14:8-10), but he prayed unto the Lord his God
and asked Him to defeat the multitude (2 Ch 14:11). The Lord blessed him
with more than just that one victory (2 Ch 14:12-15). This all happened
during a period when God was happy with Asa and was
therefore arranging history so Judah was secure (2 Ch 14:6). God told Asa He would continue to bless him as long as he continued
to pass the tests in life that He sent along (2 Ch 15:2). And then Asa screwed up.
It
happened when the Lord arranged another threat to Asa’s
national security (2 Ch 16:1). Why did God do that? Because
the Lord needs witnesses. What is a witness? A witness is
someone who shows by faith that he believes, trusts, and depends on the
Lord to take care of his physical life and welfare. Is 43:10-12 is a
core group of verses within a two or three chapter area that speaks of
Christians being His witnesses to show He really is different from the pagan
gods. He is the only true God who really does heal His people, really does
protect them from their enemies, really does give them food in the wilderness,
and really does take away their sins. All the other gods are graven images that
cannot do anything for their followers. That is a big and very important
difference. But that difference from pagan gods can only be proven if God can
find witnesses who will glorify Him (2 Ki 5:14,15). If God is to win the war He must
demonstrate through witnesses His ability to preserve the physical
health and welfare of His people. That will enable Him to effectively
counter Satan’s biggest weapon (Jb 2:4). For two good
examples of Christians who understood we are to be witnesses for God by
relying on God only to protect, care for, and save us,
thoughtfully read Ezr 8:21-23,31 and Ne 6:9-13. God’s taking
care of our physical lives and welfare is visible proof He can also take care
of our spiritual sins and everlasting life, as shown in Lk
5:20-26.
Well, actually God’s protecting our physical welfare is only half of the story. That’s the “for better” part of our marriage because it is nice when the Lord heals our sicknesses and provides for us materially. However, the other part of our marriage, the “for worse” part, is revealed in Jb 2:10 and in other places: We must be willing to submit to the Lord even unto the loss of all our property and our lives. That willingness neutralizes Satan’s greatest weapon and shows our God truly is our King with absolute authority, power, and control over us. We show – or witness – Him to be everything we claim with our lips Him to be. All of this is a product of faith. For that reason the Lord waits until He finds a man strong in faith before He decides to demonstrate His power. Unfortunately He has not found many Christians strong in faith. When He has He has sometimes used that man as a reason or justification for pardoning the rest of His people (Je 5:1,2; Ezek 22:30). The Lord Jesus Christ is an example – He stood in the gap for us. And Moses interceded for the Hebrews by having the faith to risk his life by boldly standing up to Pharaoh.
You
and I are supposed to grow into that kind of Christian, knowing (with a certain
amount of fear) that someday the Lord might decide to use us for the
good of His church by summoning Satan and saying Jb
1:8 and 2:3 and sending him on an errand such as 1 Ch 21:1, which
is made clear by comparing it with 2 Sa 24:1. When God said He would
punish David by killing David’s son (2 Sa 12:14,15)
(a method of punishment that seems cruel and unfair to the carnal mind),
David wept and fasted, hoping the Lord would forgive him and spare the child.
But once the child died, instead of going through the usual period of mourning,
David surprised people by suddenly going back to daily life as if nothing had
happened. And when they questioned him about it I think David’s glib answer,
“Hey, he’s dead; there’s nothing I can do about it”, was a normal attempt by a
guilty man to hide the real issue. And I’m going to assign David more maturity
and understanding in that situation than he might deserve in order to make a
point: David knew the child’s death was his fault and was God’s punishment.
Once the child was dead, therefore, any continued mourning by David would have
been nothing but the disrespectful recrimination of a child who stubbornly
disapproves of the punishment he received from his parents. David wisely chose
not to risk more of God’s displeasure.
King
Asa, according to 2 Ch 16:9, was chosen specifically
because his heart was perfect and God wanted to use him to show He could take
care of His people. In other words, if you are a good Christian you become a
vessel eligible for special treatment at the hands of God. Our problem is, as
Job shows, we cannot always know if the evil that plagues us is punishment for
sins or if God is just shewing Himself strong on
behalf of His people. Either way, our calling is to suffer for the good
of the church by standing in the gaps left in the front lines by those warriors
who have fallen before us. If we do not suffer it is because God thinks we have
not matured enough in the faith to handle it (Je 12:5; 1 Co 10:13). We
are at war. And we are in training that we might be qualified to go to the
front lines and die for our cause (1 Sa 17:24,26,29).
Today Satan is using fear of physical death to defy the armies of the living
God.
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In
2 Ch 16 evil King Baasha built Ramah as an
effective blockade against Judah. So King Asa did two
things. First, he formed a military alliance with pagan Syria against King Baasha. Second, he prayed to God and asked Him to help them
defeat King Baasha. (Nobody denies that Asa prayed to God about this military threat because even lousy
Christians – whose hearts aren’t even close to being perfect toward God like Asa’s was – pray, especially when they are afraid.) Baasha was soundly defeated, Judah used the building
materials of Ramah to build Geba and Mizpah, and King Asa was filled
with prayers of thanksgiving and rejoicing that God had blessed them.
God,
however, had not blessed Judah, had not defeated Baasha,
was not impressed with the lip-service prayers, was not happy with Asa, and decided to punish him with a curse. He sent Hanani to King Asa to point out
that Asa had no excuse for relying on the Syrians
instead of on God to defeat Baasha because he’d
already learned with the huge Ethiopian army that God alone could be relied upon
to protect His people. Hanani said the critical
factor in the two incidents was the fact that with the Ethiopians Asa had put all of his eggs in God’s basket, but with Baasha he had straddled the fence and tried to serve two
masters by hedging his bet with a military alliance. The Bible makes it clear
that serving two masters is really only serving Satan. Hanani
went on to explain why God had specifically chosen Asa
to test, why He was so disappointed by Asa’s decision
to foolishly ignore God by running to Syria for help, and that God was going to
punish Asa by sending more wars. Asa
was expected to acknowledge and confess his sin of failing to go to the Lord in
time of need, repent of that sin, and faithfully depend only on God in the
future wars. Whether Asa won the battles or lost them
was not to be his concern; Asa’s only objective was
to be a witness to the authority and glory of God by humbly, submissively, and
faithfully receiving evil at the hand of God – not just good (Jb 2:10).
Asa was at first shocked;
he couldn’t believe his ears. He was not only a good Christian leader who loved the Lord and had done much to reverse the
apostasy that had crept into Judah, but he knew himself to be one of the better
Christians in the country; his heart was perfect toward God! And he had
certainly not ignored God and relied on Syria! He’d gone to Syria for
help only because it was the practical thing to do, but he knew and openly
acknowledged that this military operation would surely fail without God! That’s
why he’d spent all that time with the Lord in prayer and had called upon his
fellow Christians to also pray for God’s help! And besides, God had
obviously answered their prayers because He blessed them by giving them
the victory! Hanani replied by saying the victory
itself could not be used as proof of Asa’s godliness
(1 Ti 6:5). Asa was flabbergasted! This was a
time for rejoicing, and deluded crackpots like Hanani
who thought they were so spiritual and in touch with God were spoiling it! The
more Asa thought about it, the angrier he got. In
fact, he became enraged at this would-be prophet and threw him into prison. And
when other Christians stepped forward and said Hanani’s
message did make sense Scripturally, Asa
oppressed them as well.
In
the thirty-ninth year of Asa’s reign, God sent him
another test. God afflicted him with an exceeding great disease in his feet.
Faced with this situation, King Asa did two
things! Yes, that’s right: He did two things so he could be on both sides of
the fence again! First, he went to the physicians for help. Second, he prayed
to God and asked Him to heal him and/or to bless the physicians and guide their
decisions so he could recover. (Nobody seriously denies that Asa prayed to God about this health threat because even lousy
Christians – whose hearts aren’t even close to being perfect toward God like Asa’s – pray, especially when they are afraid.) The Bible
does not say if God sent another prophet to tell Asa
he should have done only one thing if he really loved the Lord and
trusted Him. Neither does it say if Asa recovered or
if the disease is what he died of. But none of that matters; we know all we
need to in order to profit from this lesson and apply it to our lives. We
should thank God for putting so many screw-ups by His people in His Book so we
could learn more perfectly how we are to please and serve our One Master.
Prayers for help like Asa’s constitute lip service
and are hypocritical and foolish.
2
Ch 16 complements other lessons in the Bible and shows how consistent God is:
● At
first, Gideon had so many men in his army that a victory could be attributed to
numbers. In order for God to get the glory the army was reduced in size. In
that way, when Christians later learned what happened, their faith and reliance
upon God would be strengthened. No Christian’s faith is strengthened when he
hears a Christian army of ten thousand claim God gave
them a victory over an army of five thousand. In fact, God is not
glorified in that situation.
● God needed a man of faith to face
Goliath so He could show His people (again!) that no situation is too much for
the Lord to handle. The only one willing to step into the gap was David; he
would not let his fear of the greatest weapon in Satan’s arsenal stop him from
glorifying God.
● In Nu 14 only Joshua and
Caleb were willing to trust God to keep them from dying at the hands of the
giants and to give them the Promised Land. What really irritated God was the
fact that the people who were frozen with fear were the same people who’d
already seen what He’d done in Egypt and to Pharaoh’s army.
That’s when God decided to disinherit and cast away His people, kill them with
a pestilence, and start all over by making Moses a patriarch. Moses said that
would look to the world like God wasn’t a capable ruler because even His own
people didn’t trust and depend on Him. So God agreed not to send a pestilence
and to allow the lousy Christians to live, but He still disinherited them (the
lousy Christians) by denying them the Promised Land. What was their sin? They
were afraid to die mortal deaths at the hands of giants. No, that wasn’t their
sin; their sin was in letting their understandable fear stop them from being
witnesses of God’s glory. He 3:16-19 and Jude 5 say these
born-again Christians were denied access to God’s kingdom on earth because they
were guilty of unbelief. That’s what the Christians in King Saul’s army
of the living God were guilty of when they faced Goliath. That’s what Asa was guilty of when faced with Baasha’s
army and when faced with an exceeding giant disease. Notice every one of those
fears was natural, normal, and understandable. The Bible makes it clear that
fear of death will stop 99% of Christians in their tracks. Sadly, that helps us
have a better understanding of places like Mt 6:24,25;
7:13,14; and 16:25. The Lord doesn’t want people to hedge their bets
when confronted with the possibility of physical death – whether it is from war
or from disease. He is God, the only God, and He alone is our comfort
and protection, our reality and our life. We must be witnesses of that truth.
2 Ch 16 also helps us understand how God
views alliances between His people and others – He doesn’t like them. If
we want to accomplish something, we are to go to God alone – not God AND
something or someone else. For example, a number of years ago a preacher tried
to get me to become a member of an organization founded and run by Christians
called the Coalition for Religious Freedom. The Christian leaders in the
organization were big names from a number of different denominations. I wrote a
letter to the preacher and thanked him for his good intentions but told him why
I believed no Christian should join the Coalition. I never heard from
him again.
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Because you’ve gotten this far in this
book you are now much more knowledgeable than most preachers so I’ll just give
you the highlights of why Christians shouldn’t join outfits like the Coalition
for Religious Freedom:
● Never voluntarily become a member
or incorporate yourself with any body or organization
that doesn’t comply with the requirements of 1 Co 10:31 and Co 3:17.
This has to do with what members are (1 Co 6:15,16).
The key word is voluntarily. If your government or your employer requires
you to join an organization, God wants you to glorify Him by submitting to the
authorities over you. Because you are given no choice by God or by your
employer in the matter, you glorify God by joining the organization. But any
organization you are a member of that you are not required to join,
means – if you are a good Christian – you sat down with the Bible in order to
determine if that organization glorified God in the name of Jesus Christ. In
that way your voluntary participation in that organization furthers the cause
of Christ. If you did not do that you ignored God and used secular humanism –
Reason – to decide what to do, which means your eternity is not off to a good
start.
● The Coalition for Religious Freedom
says this: “We, heirs and beneficiaries of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers
of the United States, do affirm…our commitment to the principles set
forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We have come to rely
on the fundamental principles of freedom of this great nation.” That’s all
we need to know right there, but it goes on to show that it isn’t a Christian –
or even a religious – organization: “We call upon all people, those religiously
motivated and those others…to join…”
● No Christian should believe in or fight
for religious freedom. The Bill of Rights is not our arm of strength. Let dogs
fight for dominion, freedom to worship Baal, and any other “rights” they want;
you and I couldn’t care less.
Do
you know why the big names supported the above? Because they
be blind leaders of the blind who are causing God to curse America.
Don’t be like them; walk circumspectly.
Now let’s examine another great Christian
– King Hezekiah. When Assyria arrayed itself against Judah, Hezekiah
responded by doing one thing and one thing only: He asked God for help.
Notice that Hezekiah’s great prayer shows he understood the importance of our
being witnesses to the world by depending solely on God’s power (2 Ki 19:14-20).
And when God afflicted Hezekiah with a
fatal disease, Hezekiah responded by doing one thing and one thing only:
He asked God for help (2 Ki 20:1-6). The fact
that God healed him encourages and strengthens us, but that isn’t what should
be important to us; what we should zero in on is the fact that he depended only
on God…even unto death. The only thing that matters is how we fight the good
fight. If we subdue the carnal mind and grow in Christ our only concern will be
everlasting obedient service to Him – not at what point our mortal bodies drop
along the way.
When we compare Asa
and Hezekiah we may wonder how God could decree Asa
to have had a perfect heart toward Him all his days – having failed two big
tests later in life. But God knew Asa, whose early
years were during a time when Judah was apostate, didn’t have enough of a
Biblical foundation to fully understand some doctrines that require more
maturity. So the Lord put those circumstances into Asa’s
life for our edification as well as his. And Asa was
given the second test, the grievous disease, to let him and us
know depending on God applies to more than just national military matters; it
also applies to individual matters like health.
We may also conjecture that Hezekiah
spent more time hanging around strong Christians (like Isaiah and Hosea) than
did Asa (who probably had little choice in that era
of apostasy). Therefore Asa, comparing himself with
other Christians (2 Co 10:12), got
lazy when he aged. He depended on God to protect him against the Ethiopians,
but later got careless and proud of his Christian accomplishments. Pride
strengthens the Natural old man but it weakens the new man. So fear – a factor
that will always be present – caused him to make some later decisions using
Reason rather than reasoning together with the Lord (discerning). Sometimes
we’re afraid to reason together with the Lord because we have a sneaking
suspicion He’ll take us in a direction we won’t want. So gird up your loins and
become the kind of Christian who will glorify God no matter what because
He may decide to do to you what He did to Hezekiah and to Christ (2 Ch
32:31; Mt 27:46) in order to truly probe the depths of your faith.
Glorifying Him must matter to you more than anything else.
When looking at Asa
we saw two examples one right after the other so we wouldn’t miss the point:
It’s wrong to rely on God AND something else. Even though the first example
involved national military matters and the second involved individual health,
the two incidents were identical because the principles involved were the same.
That is a great lesson from God about applying the principles we learn
from the Bible to other things in our lives. And it reassures us because it
shows we can rely on God’s consistency in matters of principle. That’s how I
knew 2 Ch 16 prohibited me from joining affinity with the Coalition for
Religious Freedom. And that’s how David knew he could take the loaves of shewbread and feed them to his men – he understood God
and the way He views things. David applied what he’d learned during
the days, weeks, months, and years he’d spent with the Scriptures. (All the
Pharisees did was learn the rules, not the
governing principles. That’s how they ended up thinking the way to avoid being
unclean was to wash your hands and everything you might touch.)
Now that we have a little Biblical
perspective, let’s review health care and God’s people.
When God created Adam He did not make him
solely a spirit like the angels. He made Adam a little lower than the angels so
he could suffer death. In other words, God gave Adam a physical body that was
mortal. Without God Adam would die because when God created our physical mortal
bodies, health immediately became an issue because mortal bodies suffer
from various diseases – including the curse of time. None of this was a problem
for Doctor God; He issued a prescription for health: Trust and Obey – He
would take care of everything else.
Adam did OK for a while because he stayed
away from the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Without that forbidden fruit Adam didn’t know good
from evil; all he did was trust that God knew good and evil and content
himself with obeying Him. Adam didn’t realize his physical life depended on his
continuing to trust and obey. He didn’t know his physical body was designed to
deteriorate and die unless it regularly took the medicine Doctor God created at
the same time He created Adam’s mortal body. So Adam ate regularly of the tree
of life and received its monthly dose of medicine (Re 22:2).
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When Adam disobeyed God and became at
enmity against Him by eating the forbidden fruit and becoming Enlightened, God
kicked him out of the garden so he could no longer take his medicine. Since his
physical body was designed to die unless it got that medicine, Adam became
mortal the moment he was booted.
Until Abraham the entire human race was
Christian, so there were no dogs in existence to tempt God’s people to be like Asa by solving medical and other problems by going to God
AND something else. But a few generations after Abraham the carnal minds of the
Gentiles, who out-numbered Christians, began increasingly inventing health
alternatives. More and more Christians – like Asa –
began using these remedies. Oh, and they prayed, too – big deal.
The Lord was not pleased; He knew health
alternatives would eventually make Satan’s greatest weapon even more effective.
So He put Ex 15:26; 23:25, Le 26; Dt
7:6-8:20; Dt 28; 2 Ch 7:13,14; 20:9 in the Bible, and He demonstrated over and
over that He meant every word – literally. (Other places are not worded quite
so directly, such as Ho 5:13-6:1, but the principle is still obvious to
all.) God forced His reluctant people to be His witnesses through the
wilderness: He healed them of all kinds of things, provided food and raiment,
and struck fear in the hearts of pagans as they watched a bunch of scruffy
escaped slaves defy Reason by defeating army after army. By the time God’s
people reached Jericho even a whore like Rahab knew
the God of the slaves was the true God and that Jericho would fall. She became
a convert and became King David’s great great
grandmother. The church today is no longer that kind of wall-toppling witness
of God’s power and ability. May God give us humble, selfless men of faith
willing to stand in the gap for Him!
One reason God doesn’t allow the “God AND
physician” method is we won’t know if it is God who has healed us (Ho
11:3; Is 42:8). It was the same when Asa used the “God AND military help from the Syrians”
method against Baasha. Asa
didn’t know God gave him the victory, he only thought He did –
until God sent Hanani to tell him the victory was won
by the alliance with the Syrians.
By the time of the First Coming health
was already big business among Christians. The balm of Gilead is a
perfect example. (There are a number of myths in Christianity that don’t speak
well of our knowledge of the Bible: Just as Christians think Christ is the lily
of the valley, but in reality we are (SoS
2:1-4), they think the balm of Gilead was a good medicine that God approved
of. Both the lily of the valley and the balm of Gilead are even referred to
incorrectly in popular hymns. We can’t even seem to get trivial details like these right because the Lord, unhappy with us, has sent us
confusion of face.) Gilead was a big center of health care known for its
medicine – primarily its famous balm – and for its physicians. And Christians
were willing to spend their life savings trying to avoid death and disease. One
of the ways the Lord likes to express His displeasure is to use derisive
sarcasm. Examples of this are plentiful and well known in the New Testament. He
also did it in the Old. For example, Ju
10:14 is not an endorsement of the gods it speaks of – it is sarcasm
used to point out that the “people’s choice” wasn’t accomplishing anything. Ho
8:5 is not legitimizing the popular calf it speaks of. Is 47:13
is not telling us it is OK to go to astrologers. Elijah is not
saying Baal is a legitimate god in 1 Ki 18:27
no matter how popular a god he was – he’s using mockery and derisive sarcasm to
illustrate that Baal isn’t doing anything. If you read the entire chapter to
get the tone you’ll see Je 8:22 is mocking
the physicians and balm of Gilead. In Je 46:11 God is not
endorsing worldly medicines or physicians. The balm of Gilead was a blight upon Christianity back then, and it remains so
today.
A typical Christian is the woman with the
issue of blood (Mk 5:25-34). This Christian, afflicted with a plague
(v.34), used the old Asa technique – she did two
things. She went to the doctor AND she prayed to God. In fact, she went to
“many” doctors (v.26), used “many” medicines (Je 46:11), and “spent all that
she had” (v.26). For our purposes it is irrelevant whether they cured her or
not. I mean, what kind of Christian would want to gain the whole world but lose
his soul? Aren’t we here to glorify God? Isn’t death preferable to dishonoring
our Head (1 Co 11:4)?
You say, “But the Bible says Luke was a
physician!” Yeah, and it says Matthew was a tax collector, Peter was a
fisherman, and Rahab was a whore – so what’s your
point? The fact is the Bible has nothing good to say about physicians. Any time
they are more than just mentioned it is in a negative way. But let’s go with
what you are implying about physicians with your reference to Luke, and let’s
ignore the fact that the Bible is very sarcastic and negative about physicians
and medicines, and let’s use Luke as an endorsement of Christians going to both
God AND physicians in their hour of crisis like Asa
did. (I know, it already isn’t looking good but let’s play out this hand
because it is a popular one with Christians.)
Luke had something in common with every
Christian physician in history until about the year 1900 – he shunned medical
science. Luke and all the others were more like midwives, candy stripers, and
bedpan changers; they used a little basic first aid such as splinting a broken
arm, recommended some home remedies such as chicken soup and a little wine for
thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities (1
Ti 5:23), and a lot of comforting. And even if medical science had existed
back then Luke would have rejected it because medical science is by
definition ungodly: Modern medicine is the result of the “scientific
method.” The scientific method is also called “philosophy.” It is a search for
knowledge that takes place only in the complete absence of God and the
Bible. (Having gotten this far in this book you should be an expert on that
fact.) Therefore, a Christian who goes to medical science for help is going to
an ungodly system that is a slap in God’s face no matter what procedures and
drugs it uses and prescribes. For example, let’s say a doctor today had just
learned of the latest procedure authorized and sanctioned by medical science,
and your prescription read (in sloppy handwriting), “Take a little wine for thy
stomach’s sake.” Surely you know by now that the fruits of the carnal
mind – no matter what they are – are at enmity against God and cannot please
Him. If you carry out the prescription you are not glorifying God. And this
late in the book I shouldn’t have to explain why that is so.
Now, suppose a Christian had been knocked
unconscious, woke up in the hospital, and was told he’d been examined while he
was out cold. The findings were that his head would be OK, but they’d
discovered his insides were being consumed by cancer. “Oh,” our faithful
brother replies, “so that’s why my guts have been burning like fire lately” as
he walks out of the hospital. His worst fear realized,
he spends a lot of time with the Lord. Later he visits his pastor (who happens
to be a good one). His pastor says, “Well, the Bible recommends a little wine
for thy stomach’s sake, maybe that includes the
burning in your gut from the cancer.” Or maybe the pastor says, “Let’s apply a
little Ja 5:14
action: I’ll call a few of the men and get them over here, and I’m pretty sure
we’ve got an old bottle of vegetable oil in the kitchen.” Both of those
measures meet with the full approval of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because they are based on faith in His word. They depend on
God AND nothing. And guess what? That’s the way Christians lived (and died)
until the twentieth century. Amen and amen, brother!
But we need to delve into the balm of
Gilead a bit because it has reared its ugly head again here in the twenty-first
century. The balm of Gilead was a medicine, and there is nothing wrong with
medicines. A medicine is something that makes you feel better. That’s why wine
is a medicine; it makes the sad heart merry and takes away pain. Medicines are
fine. The balm of Gilead was a blend of 100% natural and organic ingredients
and was reputed to cure many things. So how was it any different from “take a
little wine”? What made it so bad? Christians made it bad by making an idol out
of it. They depended on it. And if they got better they’d say to their
neighbor, “The balm of Gilead did the trick! It’s the best stuff I’ve ever
tried! Uh, and God, too – I give Him all the glory. If I were you I’d rush out
and get a bottle!” It’s not the brazen serpent on a pole that heals us; it’s
God.
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Christians today don’t use a brazen serpent
and they don’t use the balm of Gilead. But they might just as well. When you
walk into their homes you’ll often say something during the course of
pleasantries about some ache or pain you’ve got. Hearing that, many Christians
will brighten up and take you to their closet. Inside you’ll be amazed to see
more bottles and bags of herbs, liquids, weeds, leaves, berries, roots,
powders, etc., than you can shake a stick at. Now let me say this very
carefully: There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but the whole scene makes me
uncomfortable. They are too enthusiastic about it, too knowledgeable about it,
and too confident it will work. I get the impression they’ve spent more time
reading all kinds of books by men than they have reading God’s Book. They tell
me to rub this stuff on me for this pain, put this other stuff in my bath water
for another affliction, take a tablespoon of this at meal time for a certain
other problem (“and have a glass of something else handy to quickly drink to
take away the awful taste”), and sprinkle this on my food to prevent something
else because it sure works for them! It’s the best stuff they’ve ever tried,
and I should rush out and get some! There is usually no mention of the Lord,
and if He is mentioned He’s an afterthought.
Some people give the glory to medical
science alone. But Gilead Christians give it to medical science AND natural
remedies. And they mean well: after all, God gave us things like herbs and wine
and honey and bread for our health, so they really get into it. Fine, but be
careful. If in your heart you are going to God AND natural remedies, you are
sinning like Asa. But if, like the good preacher I
invented earlier, you’re just dutifully dragging out an old bottle of something
you have absolutely no confidence in because you are so focused on God, you are
pleasing God and are a man of faith. That’s the way to be. Any treatment you
have faith in is robbing God. Remember, no treatment God ever
recommended was a “respectable” one that inspired confidence in any Christian:
Look at a brass serpent on a pole to cure snakebite; bathe in a river seven
times for leprosy; a little wine for chronic stomach ailments; spit mixed with
dirt for blindness; and some men from your church putting oil on you and
praying. Not one of those is intended to inspire the slightest bit of
confidence in us. They are intended to show that God rewards obedience. What
obedience? Trusting Him to heal us. That is
what He wants us to do. It is what He has always wanted us to do in both
Testaments; He has not changed His mind or His word. We are to be witnesses of
His authority and His power.
If I were to say any of this to the
modern Gilead Christians they would hasten to assure me, with a measure of indignation, that of course their faith is in God
because He has given us these natural remedies and they are
glorifying Him by using them. In fact, they assure me,
they only run to medical science AND God in those instances when natural
remedies AND God fail! But of course, they don’t really make that last
statement because it is too damning. Nobody uses that wording – usually because
they don’t know enough Scripture for it to occur to them to think it through.
God has, in the Bible, given us His laws,
His word. He compared His word to food and told us to eat everything on our
plates. And He told us to eat it every day. And He told it to us already
knowing you and I might not like this morsel or that. But because He’ll both
take care of us and win the war if we eat all He has given us, He orders us to subdue
our self-oriented willfulness and dutifully consume it all because it’s good
for us whether we like it or not. If we insult His providence by complaining we
don’t like something, He’ll send us to bed without any supper (Ps 106:14,15; 78:11,17-37).
All of that can also be applied to
physical food: If we eat balanced and varied meals we’ll receive the
nourishment we need for healthy bodies. And we need not concern ourselves when
modern science tells us God screwed up when He created foods like milk, butter,
and eggs. If I thought margarine to be better for me than butter I’d be
blaspheming God. And that should be the extent of our interest in preserving
our health with food (Mt 6:25). People who make a big
deal of the balm of Gilead, because it is all natural and God gave it to us,
are like the Pharisees were with the law; they think it will save them
(even though the Pharisees insisted their faith was in the laws AND God – just
like Asa). David knew certain foods wouldn’t preserve
his health – God would. David knew keeping the laws wasn’t the key to salvation
– God is. Having a Pharisaical focus on the law or on herbs is idolatry because
it is Asa’s “AND” formula.
When I’m in someone’s home I never
question their hospitality. I gladly and thankfully accept whatever they
provide – as I do with the Lord. I never point to the food on my plate and ask
with suspicion, “What’s this?” I eat it and find something nice to say about
it. If I think it’s some of the man-made, artificial, plastic-tasting,
chemical-laden stuff that medical science approves of these days, I keep it to
myself and thankfully eat what my hosts have provided (1 Co 10:27).
And when I find something in the Bible
that is distasteful to me, I eat it anyway while giving thanks to God – even
if it kills me. My death is not important; my witness is.
Do I believe in snake handling and
drinking deadly things in order to prove my faith? No. Christ wouldn’t jump off
the pinnacle of the temple to prove to Satan He believed Ps 91:11,12
because that would be tempting God. Paul didn’t see the deadly viper in the
firewood and decide to give witness to God’s power by deliberately getting it
to bite him; that would be tempting God. Had he seen the venomous beast he
would have avoided it and yelled, “Hey, watch out, a snake!” But once it did
bite him, he quietly resigned himself to the care of God. That is what I
believe; I learned it from God in His Book while rejecting all human inputs.
I’ll tell you how I live my life as far
as health is concerned. I assign the utmost priority to God and the church. I
emphasize bringing myself into subjection to the Lord by studying His word and
obeying it. If I please Him and if He has further use for me,
He’ll take care of me. If something afflicts me I will not ask God to
heal me; I’ll ask Him to heal me if that is His will because He may be
doing it on purpose (2 Co 12:7-10). I also examine myself to see if I
may be sinning or going in some direction I thought might be
good, because the Lord has used afflictions to discipline me and to redirect me
and I want to follow that guidance. I don’t use drugs of any kind such as
sleeping pills, allergy relievers, aspirin, etc., although I’ve been known to
suck on a lozenge for a sore throat. I do use basic first aid. For topical
scrapes and cuts I use something from the grocery store like iodine. If you
think that’s hypocritical because science approves of iodine, that’s fine and
maybe you’re right. But the Lord and I know how important the iodine is or
isn’t to me – and it’s His approval I crave. If a snake ever bites me, I
probably won’t go through my day normally like Paul did; I’ll probably lie down
or something. If you think that means I’m weaker than Paul was, I can only
reply that you’re probably right and ask for your forgiveness.
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I tend to categorize external stuff like
splints, eyeglasses, canes, wheelchairs, stitches, antiseptics, etc. as first
aid. In other words, minor stuff that is not life threatening I tend to treat
as “accidents” (Ec 10:8,9)
that, yes, God knew would happen, but aren’t necessarily His trying to get my
attention. The Bible allows me to do that. Anything that is internal such as
surgery, radiation, drugs, etc., I avoid as life-saving products of science.
Anytime my life is at risk I put myself in the hands of God because He
specifically indicates in His Book that I have no option in the matter; He is
to be given complete control of that stuff. I don’t want to out-live my
usefulness to Him.
If your daughter breaks her arm, it is
unlikely that you know anyone with any experience applying splints. And
experience counts for something (that’s what midwives are all about). So you
may want to take her to the local temple of science – the hospital – and have them put a cast on her. Some Christians will not want you to
set foot in the hospital because, in spite of the fact that hospitals have
chapels and allow prayers, medical science is an ungodly institution whose
foundation and practices are firmly and irrevocably based upon science.
They have an excellent point. However, they would also object if you went into
a shambles to buy some meat because the meat was part of a pagan sacrifice. And
they’d tell you not to buy a certain brand of toothpaste because somebody told
them the company logo contains a “New Age” symbol! But remember, you and I are
Christians who know false gods don’t exist. It is OK to get meat from
the shambles (1 Co 10:25-27). It is OK to walk into a hospital. It’s OK
to tour a Moslem temple. God knows how you feel about Him and about things
secular and pagan. It is that relationship that matters. And that’s why all
things are lawful for you. So if you have a use for a cast, or a bottle of
iodine, or a tube of toothpaste, go ahead, cut a wide swath; there’s nothing
wrong with it.
Some Christians would tell you not to cut
a wide swath because you might offend the brethren. This offending stuff
is covered in Ro 14 and 1 Co 8. Notice the only Christians who
are offended are the weak ones who don’t know any better (Ro 14:1,2; 1 Co 8:7,9,10,11,12). Now that we know any Christian who
is offended is a weakling, we need to define offending: It means being a
stumbling block to a weak brother (1 Co 8:9); being a stumbling block means
causing a weak brother to fall (Ro 14:13); to be destroyed (Ro
14:15,20); to perish (1 Co 8:11). In other words it means you are faced
with a brother who is so young or weak you might damage or destroy
his faith in Christ so he falls from grace by turning away. Anyway, you can see
that offending and fornication are the same. This is confirmed by
the fact that offending is called sinning against the brethren (1 Co
8:12), and by the fact that the opposite of offending is edifying the
brethren (Ro 14:19). So when a brother tells you he’s “offended”, you must
realize most weaklings don’t like to go around advertising that they are weak.
Therefore there is a real possibility he is not offended. Here is how
you tell if he is offended: Look at him. If he has a panicky, distressed
attitude and is struggling to hold back tears because you are destroying his
Christianity, then don’t buy the toothpaste. But if he has that overbearing,
holier-than-thou, prissy-pants attitude, buy an extra tube or suddenly hold a
tube towards him and yell, “Boo!” to get his attention. Then whip out your
Bible, turn to Ro 14 and 1 Co 8 and start teaching. Sadly, in most cases you’ll
be disappointed with his reaction. If you find he doesn’t want to discuss God’s
word you should end the conversation with a rebuke, but don’t continue casting
your pearls before swine; if he has ears to hear, he’ll hear.
A pastor’s mother was a member of his
congregation. She was quite old. One day in church, right after singing How
I want to see Him, look upon His face; There to be forever in His saving grace,
she stood up and made a request of the congregation. She had cancer and wanted
them to pray for her recovery. She had already gone to the hospital and asked
them to save her. She was told the therapy would be very expensive, would make
her bald and weak, would be very painful, and might not work. I don’t think she
literally dropped to her knees, but that old woman begged secular science to do
anything and everything to save her mortal life. Oddly, no matter how much she
might “yearn to be with Jesus”, she was still
insistent upon doing everything she could to put off seeing Him as long as she
possibly could. The only people in the entire congregation who saw the
hypocrisy in her actions were the two elderly people who introduced me to what
God says about this topic. If Christians were true believers there would be
only two groups of people going to medical science: evil Christians who are trying to put off going to hell for as long
as possible, and unregenerate pagans who have nothing but this brief mortal existence.
Here are some testimonies you won’t hear
because you’ll get the lip-service version:
● “I’ve got a deadly ailment. I
want you to pray for my recovery. I don’t know what God’s will is, so I don’t
want you to pray that His will be done; I want you to pray that I
recover.”
● “I’ve got a deadly disease. And
I’ve been around God long enough to know He saw it coming
a long time ago and could have prevented it if He’d wanted to. Obviously He
chose not to. And I think He had a reason for afflicting me. It’s a test of my
Christianity. He wants to test me to see if I’m selfish or if I truly love Him
and go by His word. For example, death would be a good deal for me, but
not such a good deal for you (Ph 1:21-24): The people at work
would lose my good testimony, the church would lose my good works, and my
family would lose its breadwinner – so if I die willingly I’d be worse than an
infidel (1 Ti 5:8). And that’s God’s test: If I fight to stay alive I’m
a good Christian whether I live or not. If I take the selfish route by not
fighting the good fight against death I’m no better than Judas. So I’m going to
prove I’m a good Christian by asking medical science to heal me.”
● This
testimony would be a “half blessing”: “I have a potentially fatal ailment. I’m
going to pray that God might reveal to me if it is His will that I live or die.
That way if He wants me to die I can avoid resisting His will by staying home
and not going to the doctor.” What half of that testimony do I not like? The
unspoken half: “If God’s will is that I live, I’m going to go to the doctor in
order to rob God of the credit and the glory.” Why do I even like half of it?
Because at least the guy truly acknowledges God as if He were
real by wanting to submit to His will. Most other Christians
ass-ume God never wanted them to get sick,
that He can’t do anything about it, and they always automatically go
prostrate themselves before the secular god of science for salvation.
Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
Clichés
and specious analogies are the usual arguments in favor of Asa’s
health plan (God AND science) because the Scriptures cannot be used. A typical
cliché is, “God helps those who help themselves.” A typical analogy would be:
“Just as our Blessed Savior doesn’t mind if we pray for a bountiful harvest AND
ask the hired man to weed the garden in order to help produce a bountiful
harvest, neither does He mind if we pray for a healthy recovery AND ask the
doctor to treat our illness.” As you read that analogy you cannot help but see
the Reasonableness of it because that’s the way we’ve been trained to think!
We are Enlightened products of the Age of Reason. And
we want to agree with it because we like it. But let’s reason
together with the Lord by examining both counts in the analogy: First, God’s
Book specifically tells us to weed the garden because He created weeds
so we’d have to get our food by the sweat of our brows. (Weeds are also types
of the carnal cares of this life that will choke our Christian growth if we
aren’t aware of them and don’t eradicate them.) Second, His Book specifically
tells us not to use Asa’s health plan, and it
tells us to go to Him and only to Him for healing. The analogy ignores both of
those specifics. (As the Brit once said, “So thehr
you havit: You’re wrong on both counts, now, ahn’t you?”) Please notice how easy it is to ignore
Scripture by listening to Reason instead. Discernment is something we must
constantly work at if we are to live by revelation instead of Reason.
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The
modern Christian reliance on medical science is a result of Reason replacing
revelation in our lives. Enlightened religion claims God gave us medical science so we can accumulate more
knowledge about how to preserve our own lives, and God gave us religion to comfort us about the
dwindling number of health threats we haven’t yet mastered through science.
Sadly, the more we “learn” the more we agree with science’s blasphemous decree that
the Bible is the result of superstitious ignorance: Two to four thousand years
ago when it was written, mankind had not yet discovered the causes of disease
and therefore attributed diseases to the gods. Science has now decreed disease
to be a thoughtless, random process. And that was all it took to get Christians
to reject what God taught them about the subject. The way modern Christians
view disease and react to it is based upon their complete acceptance of what
science has told them. And not a single Bible verse mentioned in this chapter
has any real relevance or impact on their lives; all of them have been
explained away by Reason. And here’s what scares me: It doesn’t bother
Christians in the slightest; they have no fear of God whatsoever. They are
completely blind.
Let me give you an example of how Reason
has replaced revelation. Recently the national news media carried a story about
a Christian family that has long believed in shunning (to some unreported
degree) medical science. However, when one of the family
was stricken by God with a serious (but not life-threatening) ailment, the
family publicly came out in support of increasing the fetal tissue research
medical science has been doing because it might someday lead to a cure.
The stricken Christian looked somberly at the camera and said, “I don’t want to
go against God’s will…” and then he smiled in triumph and said “…but who knows
what God’s will is?” Today’s Christians are not afraid to say that! They don’t
think God has revealed His will even about such important and fearful subjects
as sickness and saving our mortal lives! Do they think He forgot or do
they think He was negligent? Christianity has become just another carnal
do-what-you-think-is-best farce just like pagan religions. We are serving a
false god; we are serving self.
Discernment will help you stay focused on
God’s instructions in His Book when you are challenged by a group of immature,
carnal Christians who say: “You don’t go to the doctor!? Haven’t you heard the one
about the guy trapped on his roof by rising floodwaters? When a rescue crew in
a motorboat came by he sent them away, telling them he was trusting God to save
him. This happened three times. He was later swept away by the flood and
drowned. In Heaven when he asked God why He didn’t answer his prayers and save
him, God said, ‘Heck, I sent a crew in a motorboat to you three times!’”
Notice the subject of the joke has nothing to do with sickness because it does
not start out with; Did you hear the one
about the guy God afflicted with a grievous disease? In order to justify
their sin of direct disobedience of God’s order to go to Him alone for healing,
Christians must avoid what the Scriptures say, and they must
appeal to their carnal knowledge of good and evil.
A preacher once called upon me during his
sermon to go up and help him introduce a new subject. He had me remove my shoes
and stand ten feet away from him with my eyes closed. He said, “I have just
spread broken glass on the carpet. I want you to walk toward me with your eyes
still closed.” Unbeknownst to me, he was introducing the topic of “walking
circumspectly” and intended for me to slowly probe the carpet for glass before
each step. And unbeknownst to him, I thought he was using me to demonstrate faith
in God and obedience to the directives of authority. To his surprise I boldly
strode right toward the sound of his voice with no regard whatsoever for any
glass. “Why didn’t you slowly test for glass?” he asked. To which I replied in
effect, “Because you told me to walk toward you: I was demonstrating my
faith, trust, and confidence in your instructions, and demonstrating selfless
obedience without regard for potential harm to me.” That Biblical Christian
viewpoint is how I view healing; it’s how I view everything in the Bible.
Walking circumspectly means to walk with discernment. Once I’ve discerned from
the Bible what God wants of me, I instantly obey, in faith believing the Lord
knows about any broken glass. I would rather die than make God look bad.
If I am afflicted with a deadly ailment I
may go to medical science for help if I can answer any one of these questions
with a No:
●
Did God know
the life-threatening ailment would occur?
●
Could God have prevented it?
●
Did God
therefore want me to be afflicted?
● Does He deal with the issue of health consistently in both Testaments?
●
Am I a
Christian?
I may also go to medical science if I can
answer any one of these questions with a Yes:
●
Did my life-threatening ailment catch God by
surprise?
●
If my ailment
did catch God by surprise, is it now too late for Him to heal me?
●
Does God need
medical science because He hasn’t the ability to heal me?
●
Was God
pleased with Asa?
●
Do I suspect
I shouldn’t go to medical science but still haven’t fully searched the
Scriptures on the matter?
●
Do I know
I shouldn’t go to medical science but admit I haven’t yet got the faith,
strength, and maturity to overcome my fear?
If you answered one of the last two
questions with a yes I have no more problem with that than I would if my
son were too young to mow the lawn or drive a car. Christianity is a growth process. It is urgent that we mature because
there’s a war going on and we are needed, but our Family has people of all ages
and levels of maturity in it and we are here to help each other. If you or
loved ones have health problems, this chapter has been very difficult. In that
case you might have to deliberately and wisely back away from this topic until
you are ready to examine it Scripturally. Just be
honest with the Lord and say something like, “Lord, I can’t even begin
to deal with this issue from the Scriptures; I instantly get defensive and
attack the very idea that we should rely only on You
for our health. Yes, Sir, I admit I’m terribly afraid to even take an honest,
discerning look at the issue. And even if it turns out that medical
science is OK, I still have to admit to You
this may be something in life that if You ever did ask me to do, I might
not love You enough to do it – and that lack of faith upsets and frightens me
more than the medical issue.” In the meantime, spend your time concentrating on
other ways you can serve God. The Lord will understand and He will help you
grow. Remember, our objective is not losing our dependence on medical
science; our objective is growing closer to the Lord and glorifying Him in
accordance with His word. We are trying to develop the kind of intimate,
trusting relationship with a very real God that we’ll have for all of eternity.
So if you aren’t ready for this issue, don’t push it.
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If your state has laws requiring you to
take your children to the hospital in cases of life-threatening situations, I
suggest you’d be glorifying God by obediently submitting to the authority over you
by taking your child to the hospital. The laws in those few states are usually
based on “what seems Reasonably prudent to the average
carnal mind.” (In other words, the laws are based on the Enlightened
philosophy that “man is the measure of all things”: the state thinks your life
should be governed by what the masses think,
not by what God says.) That means, if your
child dies, they aren’t going to be impressed when you respond to their charges
by bringing up the Bible, because they’ll just bring a local Baptist preacher
into court and he’ll testify he thinks it’s OK to go to the doctor because Luke
was a physician. If you protest to me that Joseph and Mary resisted the
government by taking their Child to Egypt, I’d applaud your reliance upon
Scripture in your thinking, but would suggest two things for your
consideration: First, Herod was trying to kill their Child, but your
state is trying to save your child. Second, Joseph never resisted
Herod’s authority; he simply got out from under his authority by fleeing his
jurisdiction. You, on the other hand, have apparently chosen to remain in your
state.
If you are charged with a crime, you
won’t need a Self-defense
attorney because your objective is not to resist
the authorities (even wrong and froward ones), it is to submit to and please your
authorities: Simply admit you are guilty of inadvertently violating the intent
of state law, that had you understood the law you would have obediently
complied, and humbly declare you were merely trying to glorify God by
submitting to what He says in the Bible. Do not appeal to Caesar by claiming a
right to freedom of religion. Even if we are innocent, God has ordered us to submit to authority, not fight it.
If
you are in the military or have some other employer who requires you to go
abroad, you will find some areas of the world require shots. Since you are
under authority, submit and get the shots. If, on the other hand, your travel
is voluntary – a vacation – I recommend you pick another destination. If you
are a missionary, get whatever shots may be required in order to get in and
out.
Many of you who are already knowledgeable
about medical science will not like my advice to take the shots, because you are
aware that science is now learning a number of these shots have serious
long-term side effects. In fact, many people – both saved and unsaved – are
beginning to avoid doctors if at all possible because the leading cause of
accidental death in the United States is not traffic accidents, firearms,
falling, fires, or drowning – it is mistakes committed by medical science. That
includes mistakes during major surgery and minor surgery; it includes
prescribing and/or administering the wrong medicine/dosage; performing
procedures incorrectly or on the wrong patient, etc. The annual accidental
and preventable death toll of patients under the care of the medical
community in the U.S. alone is 180,000. (That means medical science
unnecessarily kills someone every 2.9 minutes. No other cause of death even
comes close.) And the annual number of avoidable non-fatal health problems
caused by mistakes in the medical community is 1.3 million. Even if you look
only at the number of accidental, preventable deaths inside hospitals
caused by medical science and its health care professionals, you’ll find
hospital mistakes kill more people each year than the combined total of
all fires, all motor vehicle accidents, and all types of homicides. That
means in the U.S. alone medical science kills and injures over 4,000 people every
day – not counting the usual
unavoidable deaths.
Therefore, some will wonder how I can
recommend submitting to medical procedures required by employers and other
authorities. And the answer, of course, is always the same – to glorify God.
The Lord has ordered us to obey the authorities over us. If He doesn’t want the
shots to harm us He will protect us. No health risk is too great for Him to
handle.
How shall we view our Christian comrades
who are doctors? Should we tell them to quit their jobs and go pump gas? No, we
should look at them the same way we do the soldiers who killed the babies in
Bethlehem: They are doing their jobs just like any of the rest of us. By doing
our jobs we are all making the world “better” and are helping it come
together under the Antichrist. God has ordained that the Antichrist will rule,
therefore it is good for him to rule. But ideologically we must be on
God’s side. If a Christian doctor is doing his job to the best of his ability –
like Daniel and Joseph did when serving the pagan world – he is to be respected
and appreciated. If he is a slacker as a doctor he is not a good Christian.
When I said earlier this would likely be
one of those “for worse” subjects in our espousal to the Lord, I meant this
topic would likely produce fear and offense. That is normal and is a necessary
part of Christian growth. And this subject, because it involves the possibility
of our death, is a good time to address being offended by the Lord and His
doctrines.
Being subordinate to the Lord – like
being subordinate to any lord – can be turbulent at times, especially if the
master is trying to teach and train the subordinate. It is normal for the
subordinate to be, in his ignorance, offended at times with his master. If you
are a parent you know what I mean. You’ve seen your children overstep the
bounds of respect; you’ve seen them get hurt and offended when you spared not
the rod; and, ideally, you’ve seen them grow through the suffering into maturity
and perfection (He 2:10; 5:8,9), into adults in
whom you are well pleased. In retrospect you are glad you maintained your
vigilance and discipline and put your willful children through whatever
hardships you deemed appropriate for their proper development.
Peter in Mt 16:22 demonstrated
immaturity. A subordinate, for several reasons, had better be very careful when
overruling his master. Peter wasn’t careful and he deserved punishment for that
alone. But I want to show you why Peter reacted the way he did. He was afraid
of Satan’s greatest weapon – death. He was afraid for the Lord and for his own
life. The situation with the big-shot Christians, the Pharisees, had reached
the point that there were rumors they would have Christ and His followers executed.
Peter was trying to save their skins. That seemed like a good thing to him, and
he was surprised and offended when the Lord rebuked him and told him how
offensive He found Peter’s actions. Here’s my point: Peter faced a wall of
offense around the Lord. Peter was dead set against going to Jerusalem because
of what that meant. Peter could either stay where he was on his side of the
wall of offense (Jn 6:61,66,67)
or he could go through to the Lord’s side. Only on the Lord’s side is it
possible to enjoy life from His perspective. Peter later tried to please the
Lord by dealing with his fear by following Him when He was arrested. But fear
is a powerful enemy (Lk 22:61,62) and is not easily overcome. I think when the Lord
saw Jn 21:7 He knew Peter would one day
be ready to glorify God as a witness (Jn
21:18,19).
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A careful reading of Jn
11 will show that all the disciples shared Peter’s reluctance to go
anywhere near Jerusalem. They feared they’d all be taken and executed. Satan’s
greatest weapon is fear of death. So they tried to manipulate their Master into
doing their will. In fact, the disciples were so afraid of death that when the
Lord merely brought up the subject they retreated into silence (Mk 9:31,32; Lk 9:44,45).
John the Baptist, too, found himself in
jail staring at the wall of offense around the Lord. Satan’s greatest weapon
was at work and was causing John to be offended with the fact that Christ was
doing nothing to save his life. That’s why the Lord told John’s men to
tell John (page D23-11) it’s a blessing when Christ does not offend you.
The Bible commands us to rebuke, to
reprove, and even to not spare the rod of correction. All of which cause
emotional and/or physical suffering and pain. In other words, God has designed
life so those who do endure suffering will profit from it. He has
designed it so each of us is going to stumble over the Rock of offense
at one time or another. We will find some doctrine in the Bible we don’t
like and/or are afraid of. That’s the way the Lord designed it – these things
are tests. If these tests didn’t exist nobody would object to being a Bible
believer. But they do exist and they exist for our good. We have to gird up our
loins and deliberately face our fears (pick out the biggest and commence
firing!) in order to grow and achieve true fellowship with the Lord. Take this
book as an example. Is there any doubt in your mind that most Christians will
reject most of what this book has to say? If you’ve been faithfully searching
the Scriptures as you’ve been going through this book you’ve seen this book is
correct. That means Christians who are offended by the Lord and His doctrines
just have to get over it! That is their test. He and His doctrines are
not going to change and Jn 12:48 is a
big day on all of our calendars and it’s getting closer. So don’t worry if you
are afraid and reluctant to face this issue; that is normal and is something we
all have to go through.
Even Christ was
afraid. In Mt 16 He rebuked Peter and called him Satan for savoring the things
that be of men (staying alive by avoiding Jerusalem).
But in the garden of Gethsemane His fear and anguish not only caused Him to
sweat blood, but to actually ask the Father to let the cup pass; His mortal body
was staring at the wall of offense surrounding God. But His love, dedication,
and courage caused Him to submissively add, “nevertheless not as I will, but as
thou wilt.” Two points: First, there was a tremendous amount of pressure on the
Lord Jesus Christ for Him to even mention the cup passing. Second, in spite of
the pressure, He didn’t succumb to Satan’s biggest weapon, and humbly went to
His death in accordance with His Father’s will. What a witness! What an
example!
I want to make three points that have to
do with fear:
● Think about all the ramifications
of life under a king where Ec 8:4 is
true. Godly order makes men completely at the mercy of the king. You and
I have no idea what benefits to our Christianity that kind of life would give
us in the areas of humility, duty, submission, self-discipline, fear as a
motivator, and understanding the truth, simplicity, and importance of pleasing
the king over keeping his laws. But God’s health plan, no matter
what form of government we live under, does put us completely at the
mercy of God. And that fear teaches us some of the above.
● Most Christians in history have
lived daily with the possibility of death. Medical science didn’t even exist a
hundred years ago. And as popular as the myriad natural remedies have always
been, they have usually been subject to, popularized by, or dependent upon fads
that fade, localized folklore, superstition, and wishful thinking. And they
have never been considered to be reliable treatments for deadly ailments. When
God afflicted His people, they simply had no option but to trust Him. Medical
science is now an option. And thanks to philosophy’s scientific method it has
worldwide favor and respectability because of its universal appeal to the
Natural Reason in all of us. Medical science cannot be refuted with Reasoned debate. It can only be seen for what it is through
faith in what the Bible says. No part of a Christian’s thought processes should
involve the logic, Reason, common sense, scientific
fact, and morality that Thomas Aquinas and the Age of Reason have taught are
good and necessary in order for mankind to “progress.” Because of the Age in
which we live, immature Christians will simply not be able to believe
this doctrine. It is good to teach them about it, but do not overdrive the
flock, and do not be offended when fear causes them to resort to Reason in a
desperate attempt to save the very life Christ told them to disregard. Skin for
skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
● From a
modern perspective the Bible has way too many references to fear of God.
I’m not talking about those contexts in which fear may, or clearly does,
mean respect. I’m talking about the sobering kind of fear related to
dread that silently grips your heart. Democracy and medical science have
liberated us from the here-and-now kind of helpless fear associated with the
two points above. Some situations during combat and natural disasters can still
result in the kind of helpless fear I’m talking about, but they are not usual,
everyday experiences. Old-time Christians better understood why God put “too
much” emphasis on “negative fear.” The clueless modern church, on the other
hand, has almost completely rejected that stick aspect of Christianity in favor
of the carrot method. Therefore, lacking a real threat from any quarter,
Christians no longer fear God because they have no real way to know
fear. That will change for those of you warriors who abandon Asa’s dual-pronged health care and turn to the Lord your
God only; you will live with fear on a daily basis. You will find yourselves
under a King Whose power over you is completely
arbitrary. If you do not please Him, He will spank you. You’ll begin to
pay more attention to your Christian walk because you’ll begin to fear God’s
punishment in a way you never did before. You will also find as you mature that
the presence of medical science can be a blessing. It exists as an option, as a
way to duck the correcting hand of God. But you have chosen to stand in the gap
like a man and accept whatever cross your King gives you to bear. That attitude
or outlook will help and strengthen you in other areas as you develop into the
kind of man God has always wanted you to be. Therefore medical science will be
just another mountain your faith in God has moved aside. It will become a major
milestone in your Christian growth.
This
is an important subject, so I’m going to discuss how we win the war by
not going to the doctor.
In
Ge 6:13 God was contemplating what I
call the Final Solution to this War of Rebellion. What was He contemplating? The end of all flesh. Compare Ro 7:17,18,24 with He 2:14 to help gain some
perspective. That means getting rid of the flesh is good for God and bad for
Satan. But Satan didn’t really understand all the ramifications until after the
cross. Had he completely understood the subject he would not have crucified the
Lord of Glory when God gave him permission to do so. Why? Because when he
killed Christ’s physical body, Christ showed him His death fulfilled the legal
requirements of Ro 7:2 and thereby legally freed the captive saints in
Abraham’s bosom from their marriage to Satan. Christ then took the saints to
heaven for the first time in the history of this planet. Here’s the point:
Christ’s physical death was good for the church in more ways than the one you
hear about from the pulpit every Sunday. And Christ’s death was bad for Satan.
If Satan had it to do again he would not crucify Christ.
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And Christ is still at work because we are
Christ’s body carrying on His work (Jn
14:12). Our work, like Christ’s, involves fear, suffering, and death (1 Jn 3:16; 1
Pe 2:21; 4:12-19; Co 1:24; 2 Co 1:5-10; Ro 12:1; 1
Th 3:3,4; 2 Th 1:5). Ro
7:18,23 tells us the war takes place between
our mortal old carnal man and our spiritual new man. That’s why the Bible says
stuff like Mt 6:24,25,33;
16:24-26; Ro 6:16; Co 3:2. The Devil’s body is the old man; God’s body
is the new man. We must bring the old man under complete subjection. I said complete
subjection – that means even unto death. And I say it not just because all
flesh is our enemy, but also because the Devil may use his greatest weapon (Jb 2:4) to get us to destroy our witness. Which brings up my next point. Just as Satan learned it was
a mistake to kill Christ, he does not want to kill us because we are
Christ’s body. Satan does not want you dead; he just wants to scare
you into trying to save your life so he can win the war. If you are the kind of
Christian who goes to the hospital, Satan is going to do everything he and
medical science can to keep you alive because you’re just the kind of
Christian he needs to win the war! If you die he has lost your carnal
influence on the rest of us.
If,
on the other hand, you are the kind of Christian who rejects medical science in
favor of God, Satan still does not want you dead. Why? Because if he
were to inflict you with a deadly disease, and you faithfully put your life in
God’s hands, that kind of witness – that willingness to die – is exactly
what God is looking for! God is looking for men (if He can find any) who are
willing to stand in the gap for the rest of the church. God uses the “end of
all flesh” to win the war. It’s a war of brinkmanship: Satan tries to scare us
with a death he doesn’t want us to undergo, and God tries to get us to accept a
death we don’t want. We are born in complete agreement with Satan about death.
Then we are born again to suffer that very thing. We are to do it figuratively
daily, and once literally if the Lord so chooses.
Because
of Jb 1:8,10,12; 2:3,6,7,10; 2 Sa 24:1; 1 Ch 21:1; 1
Co 5:5; 1 Ti 1:20 we know that King Satan, like King Nebuchadnezzar, is a
servant of the King of kings. The Lord sends Satan on errands that include
physical punishments for sins, which are intended to get our attention and help
train us up in the way we should go. Satan does not want us to humbly
submit to the afflictions God sends; he does not want to teach us not to
blaspheme; he does not want to save our spirit; and he does not
want us to die a witness’s death. He is merely carrying out God’s orders.
I
don’t fully understand how our unheralded, misunderstood,
considered-to-be-wasted deaths can be so important to God (Ps 116:15).
But before the cross nobody understood the importance of human sacrifice,
either. I’m just a soldier faithfully carrying out the orders of my General. He
knows what He’s doing, and none of us does. I believe if we all trust and obey
Him by no longer trying to duck His slaps, we’ll develop into strong soldiers
who march in step with our King and He’ll win the war. Just like God wanted His
Son to die, He wants us to die – or at least be willing to die. It is sad that
so many Christians are willing to die for democracy, but so few are willing to
die for the Lord.
Philosophy convinces us that our deaths are bad
and undesirable. Medical science allows us to save – or die fighting to save –
our lives. And Reason fully supports both. Revelation does not. Christianity always
gets down to whether or not we believe the Bible (Jn
12:48).
To refresh your memory about the seriousness of
covetousness please turn to page D6-3 and reread the entire last section
entitled Why Authority Is. With
that in mind let’s look at three examples of covetousness:
In the first example, a man who has secretly
been grazing his livestock on his neighbor’s land finds out the neighbor knows
what he has been doing. So he goes to the neighbor, says he always meant to
come over and ask permission before now but would it be OK if he continued
grazing his animals on the man’s property. The neighbor replies, “Because I now
need to use that land, and because you didn’t come to me in the first place,
you have to stop grazing your animals on my land.” If the trespasser gets angry
and protests that he really needs someplace to graze his critters, and tries to
convince the neighbor to change his mind rather than humbly rendering to his
neighbor that which is his neighbor’s, he is guilty of the sin of covetousness
(Dt 5:21), which is idolatry (Co 3:5)
because the covetous trespasser has exalted something over God. And by coveting
physical property that belongs to another, he has become a robber (apply Mt
5:28).
Second example: God gave Lucifer some of His
physical possessions so he could husband them for God. But Lucifer grew
attached to the physical property God loaned him and became covetous – he
didn’t want to give it up.
Third example: God gave us physical life so we
could serve Him. We have always known He has only given us physical life temporarily
and that one day, sooner or later, He would require that which is His – our
lives. But in order to win the war, Satan wants to get us to covet our mortal
lives. God wants us to believe we have spirit life so we won’t fear physical
death. And He has reassured us that any sickness we get is from Him and is an
opportunity to glorify Him by voluntarily allowing Him to take back that which
He gave if He so desires. Therefore, when we turn our backs on Him and
fearfully run to medical science, we are guilty of coveting His physical
property – we don’t want to give it up. In addition to coveting our physical
lives, we tend to covet youthful physical appearance and to resist God’s ageing
process by using hair dyes, wigs, etc., because we
want to look physically younger. We should honor God by humbly submitting
to His will and His way.
As I conclude this chapter, let’s put it into
perspective with the rest of this book. The issue in the Bible is authority. We
are God’s witnesses when we submit to His authority. The rest of this book is
important because it clearly shows carnality has taken over the church. This
chapter, however, is not as good at delivering that message because our
instinctive and often blinding fear of this topic tends to obscure Scriptural
discernment. The other topics merely offend tradition; this subject offends us.
The other topics are more general; this subject picks out Satan’s biggest
weapon and commences firing. And that’s why I say this chapter cannot and must
not be pushed on anyone. Maturity is produced only by a combination of time,
experience, and understanding. Not all of us are capable of walking at the same
pace – do not overdrive the flock.
Turn to Jb 2:3,4 and apply Is 43:10-12 and Is 44:8 and Ex 33:16 to
v.3. Think about being witnesses of God’s glory, power, and authority for all
of eternity. Then think about how and why v.4 is Satan’s biggest weapon, and
why Satan believes v.4 can defeat v.3. Now I want you to think about the fact
that there are two ways to accept, believe, and do all of the things in the
Bible. The first way is the legalistic way of the Pharisees. Their selfish
carnality made them turn away from God by religiously adhering to a long
laundry list of rules. That means they did not die daily to self. The second
way is the loving way of expediency. Your love for God will make you want to
exalt Him by being an obedient doer. That is dying to self. And that is the
only way you can understand this chapter. Only in that way can concepts
like love, authority, obedience, duty, eternity, and the everlasting spirit
life of the new man defeat Satan’s v.4. It’s v.3 vs. v.4. This chapter takes
aim at v.4.
Then
said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For
what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul?