1904

January 1904

“Healing through Faith. (Concluded.)” The Medical Missionary 13, 1.

EJW 

E. J. Waggoner 

(Concluded.) 

Healing power is only the same thing as living power intensified. It is seeing how God’s life is manifested, and bringing ourselves into right relation to it. Just to illustrate: we know that we cannot live without sunlight; the sun is the great healing agency. The ordinary rays of the sun will of themselves alone heal many diseases; many persons if they were only brought out doors and given plenty of fresh air and sunlight, would be healed. The ordinary rays of the sun will in a comparatively short time destroy any disease germ that lives. And we know that it is the life of the Lord swallowing disease; it is death swallowed up of life. But there are some conditions in which the life is so far gone that the ordinary degree of light will not cure. MEDM January 1904, page 11.1

Then what? We go to some institution where we will find the light concentrated. It takes more than the ordinary amount, so we gather up a vast number of rays and concentrate them upon the diseased part, and they do what the amount which ordinarily comes would be insufficient for. You see that it is simply the ordinary life intensified. MEDM January 1904, page 11.2

Now what is done in the healing of any disease? Why, when the vitality is lower than what we call normal,-although our lives are none of them normal,-it takes more of the gift of life to bring us up to the standard than it does ordinarily. It takes more life to bring us into a proper condition than it does to keep us there when we are going on well. It takes more power to start an object than it does to keep it going. So when our vitality is low, the problem is simply this: to bring into operation for us, and to make us appropriate, a larger share of life than would have been needed if the vitality had not been lowered. MEDM January 1904, page 11.3

Here is a river; it has a regular flow but it meets an obstruction. Now what is needed? There must be an accumulation of force before that obstruction can be swept away. The ordinary flow of water will not sweep away that obstruction, for if it would, the obstruction would not be there at all, it never could have formed; but when that obstruction which dams up the stream is there, then there must be added force; and as the water continues coming down, by and by the amount accumulated is more than the obstruction can stand, and it is swept away, and there is the regular flow again. It is not any new flow of water, but a larger flow than usual. MEDM January 1904, page 12.1

Even so with life, the water of life, the stream that comes from God. It is sufficient to keep us in health; but when we have got out of harmony with it,-when we have transgressed, when we have put something athwart the stream, and dammed up its flow, then there must be an increased amount, to sweep it away. That is the problem of healing; it is concentrated life. If we keep in a right condition, the ordinary light will keep our skin healthy. When we have tuberculosis of the skin, lupus, we must get more than the ordinary amount of light upon it, in order to bring the skin back to a normal condition. MEDM January 1904, page 12.2

Faith will accelerate that process very much, because faith means the seeing of things that are unseen. If a man has faith, he will conscientiously bring himself into harmony with the life that is manifested, and will use all the means which God has provided for the conveying of life. He will come into harmony with those means. And if he does that intelligently, through faith, he gets a great deal more than the man who does not recognise the life nor the means by which it is conveyed. MEDM January 1904, page 12.3

But a day comes very often when the measure of obstruction is greater than can be removed by the measure of life that is taken in through the ordinary means with which we are familiar. Then we recognize the fact that God has more abundant life. We have come to the end of our ability to co-operate with God through the use of the ordinary means that he has provided for life. We have acknowledged God in all our way; but here is a case that baffles us. We do not know how God works to give life here. We have not learned his secrets any further than this, except that “he gives the Spirit without measure, and “the Spirit is life.” We have been able to co-operate with him up to this point; but now we can no more. We do not claim that we have done work, we have only followed his orders, and we give him thanks for the results day by day. Just as we pray for our daily bread, and then go and get it as he has provided for us, and thank him for it, so we pray for healing of our disease, and then take the means that he has provided for health. And when those means have proved efficacious we thank him just as much for the healing as though nobody ever lifted a finger and we know and acknowledge that it comes from the Lord just as directly as though it had been instantaneous and invisible. That is healing by faith, although it is not what is described in James 5:14, 15. MEDM January 1904, page 12.4

But now we come to a place when we cannot see how God works, but we know that he has the power, for he has all power in heaven and earth, and nothing is too hard for him. So we ask him in this case, that if it be his will we may receive the more abundant life,-that life which is so vast that exceeds all the life that is contained in all the things that are made,-and that he will simply let that life stream flow through us, and give us healing. No, we are doing in that case exactly-except in degree-what we were doing before, when we took the healing means,-not the death-dealing thing but the things which contain life. We are putting ourselves into harmony with the life. That is, when we use the water, the air, the sunlight, food, and the exercise, we are putting ourselves in harmony with the stream of life as much as we know now. And now that there is a case that requires more concentrated life, and a larger measure of life than can be concentrated in any of these visible agencies, we do the same thing still,-we put ourselves absolutely into harmony with that life, and pray that the larger measure may fill us. We simply stand still now and see him work by invisible means. MEDM January 1904, page 12.5

Now it seems to me that, clumsily expressed as this has been, it does really set before us the whole thing. It guards against the two extremes, of saying the God must do everything without our co-operation, without our losing the means that he provides; or saying that we do it all, and that he has no visible hand in the matter. We recognize that God always does it all, but we are to learn his ways, and co-operate with him, giving him thanks all the time for every measure of healing of disease, even though it be a little wound which needs nothing but to be bound up. In that case, what have we done? Nothing; we have simply let it alone, and let the Lord heal it. We bring the edges of the cut together, and then let it alone, and let God heal it by his life, and we have faith in him, but he will do it. MEDM January 1904, page 13.1

A physician who does not really know God, does really exercise faith in God, although unintelligently, unconsciously; because he has that same confidence. He does nothing but bring the edges of the wound together and cover it up, and keep the germ-laden air away from it, and he has faith that it will be all right. He believes that there is a healing agency, but he does not know that it is God that is working. But that does not alter the fact that it is God who heals, though men are not always ready to recognize it. MEDM January 1904, page 13.2

Faith is not inconsistent with law. There would not be any faith, if there were no law. If everything were haphazard, sometimes one way, and sometimes another way, and sometimes not at all, who could have any faith? Who could depend upon God if he moved erratically? In order that we may depend upon God, it must be that “with him there is no variableness neither shadow of turning.” So we can depend upon him in faith. Why?-because there is a universal, an unchangeable law. Instead of it being, as some people say, that there is no use of prayer, because everything is done by a fixed law, the only thing that makes prayer of any value is the fact that we know what to depend upon. We know that we shall find God faithful every time that we depend upon him, and that he will do the thing that he has promised to do, for upon his doing so depends his character as God. MEDM January 1904, page 13.3