One concept that is essential to the principles of health is the intimate relationship between the spiritual and the physical. Those who are in medical missionary work need to understand this.
Owner’s Manual
The Bible is the greatest medical book that has ever been written. “Know ye that the Lord he is God: [it is] he [that] hath made us, and not we ourselves; [we are] his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” Psalm 100:3. There are two schools of thought in this world upon which hinge all other philosophies, thinking, and modalities—either creation or evolution. We believe that there is a Creator God. At the same time, since we believe that God is the author, the manufacturer, the producer, and the inventor of this fearfully and wonderfully made body of ours, then we realize also that He has given us an owner’s manual.
Every automobile that comes off the industrial line contains an owner’s manual. Would you think it logical for the Ford manufacturers to ask General Electric to produce the owner’s manuals for their automobiles? No, because General Electric did not make the product. The one who made the product is more knowledgeable about the product than anyone else. So if your car broke down, you would not consult General Electric. The same logic applies with the body. Since God made the body, He knows more about the body than anyone on the face of the earth. Those with whom He entrusted gifts of ministry should get their direction from Him.
Do you trust the preacher or anyone else with your salvation? No. So why should you trust anyone else with your health? Even though God raises up men and women to preach, to do Bible work, and to work in the medical field, He has not given them authority, absolute power, over you. We have a personal responsibility for our own lives. God has given us an owner’s manual. Its purpose is to give us instruction on how to operate the product—even how to troubleshoot the product if something happens.
Read the Instructions
Before I became a Christian, the hardest thing I had ever done was learning how to dribble a basketball. I did not know how to use a hammer; I thought beans grew in a can, until God thrust me into this work, out in the country. Then I told my wife that we were going to build a house. She looked at me like I was crazy, because we had never done anything like that before.
Once we built our house, I began to learn a little bit about electricity. I did not know too much, but I began to install some electrical apparatus. This particular product had an instruction sheet with numbered steps. I assumed that I knew how to put a red wire with a red wire, so I saw no need to read the instructions. I thought I did not have time to go through all of the fine print, and that I was intelligent enough to put it together, until I began to blow out circuit breakers and so forth. There is an old saying, “When all else fails, read the instructions.”
We have tried everything else, except God. God has given us an owner’s manual, and in that manual He has given us some very basic instructions. “Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.” Psalm 119:73. It is one thing to have knowledge, but we also need understanding—the ability to apply what we know. Sometimes we get a lot of knowledge, but we become spiritually constipated. We get overloaded, and we are not able to share that which we have received. Once we get knowledge, we need to learn how to make the right application of that which we have received. If we do not do that, it is all wasted.
God has given us principles, laws, and with those He wants to give us understanding. These principles are trust, air, exercise, sunshine, rest, water, temperance, and nutrition. All of these anyone in this world can afford. They are so simple that we do not see their impact. In my 25 years as a medical missionary, these principles have been all that I use.
As Thy Soul Prospereth
There is a favorite text of many Christians that is quite significant. It says, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” 111 John 2. Notice the phrase, “even as.” What does that mean? It means to the same extent, proportionate. That text tells us that, as we grow spiritually, our physical awareness and willingness to preserve the integrity of these bodies will develop proportionately. No one who walks in the Christian life and grows in grace will neglect the house that God built for the dwelling of His Holy Spirit. If we say we are spiritual yet we are not conscious of our health and the house in which we live, then there is something wrong with our spirituality. This text tells us that, as we learn to know God, we will become more conscientious about our bodies. Health is not an option; it is an integral part of our walk with Jesus. Keeping the Sabbath, eating the right things, drinking the right things, or wearing the right clothes will not save us, but these are evidences of our love for Jesus, of our relationship with God. If anyone says that health is just a matter of fact, something is wrong with his or her spiritual barometer!
Mental, Spiritual, Physical
You cannot separate the gospel from the health message. No ministry or church can be successful without the health message. The health message does not take the place of the gospel. It is the very means by which the gospel finds entrance into the heart. God wants us to become awakened to this health message. The Bible tells us that since we grow spiritually and our health grows proportionately, then we need to know what God wants us to be like.
God took dirt, and He exalted that dirt by making it into His image. From that dirt He formed a man into a specimen of Himself. We are nothing but dirt, but we have been exalted by God’s grace. With the molecules and the atoms that God placed into the earth, He constructed a house. “And the Lord God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Genesis 2:7. Man is made up of three aspects: mental, spiritual, and physical. The social and emotional are inclusive in those three aspects.
Made Whole
Do you want to be made whole? That sounds very inviting. The Bible says, “There was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep [market] a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time [in that case], he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?” John 5:1–6.
What does it mean to be made whole? The Bible answers that question: “[Jesus] saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Mark 2:17. Wholeness is the very opposite of being sick. This wholeness not only involves the physical aspect, but the spiritual, because Jesus is associating repentance with wholeness. Most medical missionaries focus primarily on the physical, but no one can be physically well unless they realize what Jesus is saying in Mark and in Deuteronomy 6:5: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart [that is mental], and with all thy soul [that is spiritual], and with all thy might [that is physical].” Again the Bible validates that man is physical, mental, and spiritual.
We can define whole as being complete, entire, and total. The word salvation means to save—to preserve from destruction, to heal. “That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.” Psalm 67:2. To heal, to make whole—Christ came to restore the whole person.
The Blueprint
There is a wonderful book that transformed my life 25 years ago, before I even knew who wrote it. Some of you are familiar with the book—it is called The Ministry of Healing. Another title for it is Health and Happiness. If you do not have the book, please get it. If you have it, blow the dust off of it and read and study it. It is the blueprint. Inspiration says that that book contains the wisdom of the Great Physician. (See Testimonies, vol. 9, 71.) On the very first page of the very first chapter in that book, we are given our example. Christ came to restore the whole man, to bring him health, to bring him peace, and to bring him a moral regeneration. Christ came to restore the whole person.
Whole or Holistic
“They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” Matthew 9:12. Again Jesus raises the question, wilt thou be made whole? True health is wholeness. The New Age community uses the word wholeness too—they say holistic. The devil does not come up with anything original; he always counterfeits. He speaks enough truth mixed with his error to make it all error. In the New Age philosophy, we find that they believe man is a unity, that he is departmentalized—his spirit is over here, his mind is over there, and his body is somewhere else. God says man is not a unity, man is a unit; he is complete.
If the world has mental problems, they consult a psychiatrist. When a person is physically sick, they see a physician. When they have a spiritual problem, they go to a preacher for counsel. We know, in a general sense, people trust their minds to psychiatrists, their bodies to physicians, and their spirituality to preachers. Do these professionals agree with one another? No, not usually. That is why people are still sick, because they put their minds in one area, their bodies in another, and their spiritual lives in another. The doctor does not agree with the preacher, and the preacher does not agree with the doctor; the psychiatrist does not agree with either one—and we wonder why we are still incomplete.
A true minister will be a medical missionary. A true physician will be a preacher. “The minister will often be called upon to act the part of a physician. He should have a training that will enable him to administer the simpler remedies for the relief of suffering. Ministers and Bible workers should prepare themselves for this line of work; for in doing it, they are following the example of Christ. They should be as well prepared by education and practice to combat disease of the body as they are to heal the sin-sick soul by pointing to the great Physician.” Medical Ministry, 253. “The presenting of Bible principles by an intelligent physician will have great weight with many people. There is efficiency and power with one who can combine in his influence the work of a physician and of a gospel minister. His work commends itself to the good judgment of the people.” Counsels on Health, 546. Any preacher who is not a medical missionary cannot be as effective as he should, and a physician who incorporates the gospel in his work is more effective than without it.
Do you think that God would lead me to give you a Bible study only, when you are sitting there with a headache, or with tumors? No! Jesus is the primary example. His ministry was more involved with teaching and healing than with preaching. Preaching is only the beginning for a minister. His work is outside of the pulpit; it is with the people; it is in their homes. Jesus is our example.
Humanism
Let us return to the pool of Bethesda (John 5). Here was a pool of water with impotent folk lying around it. Think of yourself in this position. You are lying beside this pool with a debilitating disease, and you know that if you get into that pool you might be healed, if you are first once the angel stirs the water. If that were a reality, would you do it? Yes, many of you would. So if there were 1,000 people around that pool, it would mean that only the strongest survived. Because we are so desperate, when we take our eyes off of Jesus, the world presents something that we think is better. The pool of Bethesda is what I call the pool of human philosophy and the pool of human message.
Humanism leads us to believe that we can solve our own problems. We go to human beings; we can solve our financial problems; we can solve our marriage problems; and when we have children who are going astray, we do everything we can to try to solve their problems. We cry; we weep; and we wonder what we have done to fail them, instead of trusting them to the Lord. Wipe those tears away. If you have given them to God, He knows how to care for them. He had a child who went wild, so God can relate to us. The pool of Bethesda is humanism—trusting in self, trusting in man, trusting in man’s inventions.
The Bible tells us, “For thus saith the Lord, Thy bruise [is] incurable, [and] thy wound [is] grievous. [There is] none to plead thy cause, that thou mayest be bound up: thou hast no healing medicines.” Jeremiah 30:12, 13. Man has no healing medicines; even in the medical field there are no healing medicines. The medicines may give some temporary relief, but there is no true, healing medicine.
At our lifestyle center in Tennessee, the majority of our guests are cancer cases. Prior to a recent session, a friend of mine was desperate to attend. Over a year before she had been diagnosed with cancer. She had had a year to come to the lifestyle center, but she chose not to come; she decided to go the traditional medicine route. Yes, sometimes surgery might be necessary, but she went through chemotherapy and radiation, and now she was dying and wanting to come to the center. If we do not seek God, before we take human action, things do not work out; then we want God to perform a miracle for us. If He does not perform a miracle, then we say that His Plan did not work. There are no healing medicines.
“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black;”—He is touched with the infirmities of every suffering soul—“astonishment hath taken hold on me. [Is there] no balm in Gilead; [is there] no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?” Jeremiah 8:20–22.
God Heals
Who makes you whole? “Peter said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole.” Acts 9:34. “I [am] the Lord that healeth thee.” Exodus 15:26. Keep this in mind, no matter what—God is the one who heals you.
I used to be a professional athlete. God had to get my attention, because I would not listen to Him, so He allowed King Arthur to rule my life. King Arthur is arthritis. I was diagnosed at the age of 17, and it lasted until I was 27. It ruined my career, but it kept me out of the United States Army during the Vietnam War, for which I am eternally grateful. I could not have lasted a week in boot camp. My knees and joints were so bad, even steroids did not work anymore, and I began to take street drugs just so I could continue playing basketball.
My team physician looked in my eyes and said, “Tom, you are a good basketball player, but you will never be able to overcome arthritis.” He was a medical doctor, so I accepted what he said. He told me, “You are going to be on drugs the rest of your life.” He also told me there was no known cause for it. As I look back on this I ask, How do you prescribe a remedy for something you do not understand? Sometimes the remedy is worse than the cure.
Different Team
But God got my attention, and He told me He wanted me to trade my basketball for a Bible. Instead of going down the hardwood court, He coached me to go up and down the earth court, to be on a team that will never lose. For 25 years I have been on that team, and I have the best Coach. The pay is wonderful, and the retirement plan is out of this world.
When I picked up the Word of God, I was not a Christian. I grew up in a single-parent Baptist home; and I had a very loving, Christian mother who instilled biblical principles in me. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6. The child may go out of the way, but when he is old, he will return. My mother saw her youngest child return back to the Lord. I am 54 years of age; it has been 27 years, and I have no traces of arthritis. I realized that it was Jesus who had the answer to every disease, to every cause, when man did not know. I went first to the Word of God.
“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23. What does that say? Spirit, soul, and body. When we are talking about holy flesh, about this flesh becoming perfect, we are talking about this body becoming a fit vessel so that it can run the race. We are not going to get new bodies until Christ breaks the clouds of glory, but at the same time, that final church, the 144,000, will be health reformers. Each one of us has the privilege to be part of that elite group, whether we are young or old. God’s grace is sufficient. God said, “As thy days, [so shall] thy strength [be].” Deuteronomy 33:25.
No Healthy Sinners
Man is made up of three aspects—mental, physical, and spiritual. Jesus asks, “Wilt thou be made whole?” We cannot enjoy true physical health without mental and spiritual health. Many medical missionaries might do a little praying and talk a little about Jesus, enough to say they are Christians, but their whole focus is on the physical. Why is it that a man will gain the whole world and lose his soul? Why is it that a man can be healed of cancer of the body but still have cancer of the soul, so he dies, to just die again? God is not in the business of producing healthy sinners. I am not in the business, as a medical missionary, to get you well so that you can turn a gun on me. My point is this: The business of a medical missionary is to prepare people for eternity, and a Christian should not fear dying. If I have cancer, I am going to go God’s way, and if I die with cancer in the Lord, I have been victorious, because healing continues in the resurrection. If my focus is only on giving the person the physical therapy apart from the spiritual and mental, I have done nothing but contribute to Satan’s army.
Only God can teach us His true message. I thank God for the way that He led me. Before I read any other man’s book on health, I read the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. I challenge every medical missionary to spend more time studying the principles from the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, for then you have a barometer by which to interpret or decipher all of the other things that you read from other books. I challenge every medical missionary to go back to the Manual.
Thomas Jackson is a health evangelist and Director of Missionary Education and Evangelistic Training (M.E.E.T.) Ministry in Huntingdon, Tennessee. He may be contacted by e-mail at godsplan@meetministry.org or by telephone at 731-986-3518.