The Use Of Medicine

The Use Of Medicine

Carrie Judd Montgomery

A DEAR friend who is beginning to recognize her precious privilege of trusting the Lord for all her needs, wrote me not long--

ago: “It is a great thing to trust God for everything, and still I am growing more and more to feel that not to trust Him is presumption.” In this light it must appear to every

fully consecrated child of God, who has

learned by faith, His blessed will for us.

But how different are the opinions of those

who are not yet acquainted with their Lord’s

sweet will, and who think it is almost presumption

to claim His promises, especially

this promised healing of the body. They

feel and say that they would not dare ask to

be healed in answer to prayer, because they

must be submissive and bear their sickness

patiently.

Still these same persons would doubtless

have no scruples in seeking for remedies with which to prolong life or even effect a cure,

and if raised from their beds of sickness,

would have no question about its having been

best for them to recover. Doubtless, all of

us have been as inconsistent as this at some

time in our lives, even if we have since been

shown our errors, and brought beyond such

a narrow range of vision. If we have not

thought it wrong to seek for medicines to

deliver us from the bondage of sickness, why

should we fear to be cured by the

“

prayer of

faith,” that more perfect healing institution

made ours by Christ’s atonement ?

But some will ask,

“ Ho\v do I know that it

is not my time to die ?

‘ To these I would

say, would you fear to take medicine lest it

might be your time to die ? You would not

be afraid of the medicine’s curing you, if God

willed you to die, neither need you fear that

you will not die at the right time if you obey

God’s instructions and have the

“

prayer of

faith

“

offered for you. With the prayer, the

anointing, and the consecration, would come

upon your soul greater power of the Spirit

than you had ever known before, and He would reveal to you if God’s will concerning

your body was any different from that in His

revealed word. “ Likewise the Spirit also

helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what

we should pray for as we ought; but the

Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with

groanings which cannot be uttered. And He

that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the

mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession

for the saints according to the will of

God.” Our duty is to obey God’s commands,

and then trustfully leave the result with Him.

We most of us know, from a sad experience,

that medicine has been as inadequate to meet

the needs of our suffering bodies, as the moral

law has been insufficient to heal and cleanse

our souls. Medicine is a most imperfect institution,

as all remedial influences outside of

Christ, are, of necessity, imperfect, because

belonging to this sin-stricken world.

“

Every

good gift and every perfect gift is from above,

and cometh down from the Father of lights,

with whom is no variableness, neither shadow

of turning.”

Under the new dispensation, Christ, the ‘ Great Physician of the soul, has promised

to be the Physician of the body also, upon the

same condition, that of faith. As there is a

vast difference between the child of God and

tlie unbeliever, so I cannot but think that our

loving Father would have all of us who have

consecrated ourselves as

“

holy unto the

Lord,” n.id our physical, as well as spiritual,

healing by faith in Christ. The lessons by

which we are withdrawn further and further

from the world, and from dependence on

human help, teach us to rely more on our

Saviour; and is it not a very precious thought,

that by the direct influence of the Holy Spirit,

we may be healed, renewed and energized in

body as in soul ?

We are to be a separate and peculiar people,

“

a holy people unto the Lord,” and as God

instituted for Israel of old, laws and privileges

which other nations did not enjoy, so it is

with His consecrated children now. Whenever

the children of Israel despised, and failed

to avail themselves of their peculiar privileges,

they were brought into affliction. Let us examine

ourselves, lest we, through unbelief, reject our special blessings, and so grieve our

Heavenly Father.

“ There is life for a look at the crucified One.”

We have only to look at Him to have the

bite of the fiery serpent healed, whether the

effect of its venom sin, is in our hearts, or on

our bodies.

But as little as medicine has been able to

benefit us, it is strange how some of us cling

to it, unwilling to give it up even after the

“prayer of faith’ has been offered for us.

While it may not be a sin of itself to use

medicine when we are looking to the Lord

for healing, it often encourages the sin of

unbelief, and is, in most cases, a decided

hindrance to the complete cure which our

Physician would perform, were we willing to

trust Him fully.

Holding on to the medicine certainly implies

a lack of faith, and by a careful and

truthful examination of the motives which

lead any one to use it, after prayer has been

offered, we shall see that most of them proceed

from the sin of unbelief. Are there not many who are dimly conscious of a feeling

that if they gave up the medicine, the Lord

might fail to keep His promise ? It is indeed

a sad thing if we are afraid that He, Who

notes each tiny sparrow, will fail to take note

of us!

Do they not, in their unbelief, desire to use

at least some simple medicine, that they may

not be very much worse off if God’s word

should fail? If Jehovah’s faithfulness could

fail, in whom can we trust ?

We are all apt .to invent names and excuses

for our unbelief, but if we delude ourselves,

we cannot deceive God. We must overcome

these subtle temptations by declaring that our

Strong Helper cannot fail, and that, if He

does, we are ready to let all else fail with

Him ! Satan flees before a conquering trust

like that.

In 2 Chron. xvi : 12, we read: “And Asa

in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was

diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding

great : yet in his disease he sought

not to the Lord, but to the physicians.

And Asa slept with his fathers.” This is a

remarkable passage, and shows that the Lord

makes a great distinction between our trusting

in Himself, and in man whom He has

created.

There is danger in putting too much confidence

in our fellow-beings, for by so doing

we look away from God, and forget to rely

on Him. With sad ignorance and foolishness,

we attribute to earthly helpers much of

the power which belongs alone to our Creator,

and especially do we see this true when we

notice the homage paid to skill in the medical

profession. I believe that some of our

most painful lessons are necessary, because

we stubbornly refuse to recognize God’s overruling

providence in our daily lives.

“ Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man

that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his

arm, and whose heart departeth from the

Lord.” Jer. xvii : 5.

But what could be more comforting and

assuring than the passages following: ‘Blessed

is the man that trusteth in the Lord and

whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as

a tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and

shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf

shall be green, and shall not be careful in

the year of drought, neither shall cease from

yielding fruit.” Jer. xvii : 7, 8. Do you

think it could be possible for us to trust in

the Lord too much”? Trusting in Him, all

our needs shall be supplied from an inexhaustible

source, even the “fountain of living

waters.” Others fail because they trust only

to natural resources, but if we trust in the one

Source of all resources, we “

shall not be careful

in the year of drought, neither shall cease

from yielding fruit.” “My God shall supply

all your need, according to His riches in

glory, by Christ Jesus.”

As I was reading the seventh chapter of

Judges, I noticed a marked lesson conveyed

in the second verse :

; ‘ And the Lord said

unto Gideon, The people that are with thee

are too many for Me to give the Midianites

into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves

against Me, saying, mine own hand hath

saved me.”

The folly and pride of human nature is

still in danger of vaunting itself against God, and we often forget to say with sincere hearts,

“Thine is the kingdom, the power and the

glory.” Our Lord would have us depend so

entirely on Himself, that all who witness His

mighty works, cannot fail of ascribing our

deliverance to Him, Who alone is able to

fight our battles for us.

When we give up all else, and look only to

His power, our Physician can cure us speedily

because we do not hinder His work by

dependence on the

“ wisdom of this world,”

which is “foolishness with God.” i Cor.

iii : 19.

The Lord refused to give Israel the victory

over the Midianites until He had deprived

them of occasion to glory, except in the

power of the Lord. “ There returned of the

people twenty and two thousand, and there

remained ten thousand,” and, even then, “the

Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet

too many.”

Of those ten thousand remaining, only

three hundred were chosen, into whose hands

the Lord would deliver the Midianites.

And so we who are trusting to God to

gain for us a victory, which we are assured. from repeated failures, no human power could

gain for us, shall find that He will not conquer

our enemies for us, until we have relinquished

our hold on every earthly prop,

which might cause us to

“ vaunt ‘ ourselves

against the Lord.

Those who have become so accustomed to

aking medicine, and especially to the use of

opiates, that it seems impossible, humanly

speaking, to live without them, and who are

sighing under the bondage, will read the

following accounts of healing in this chapter,

with renewed hopes of deliverance.

NORWICH, CONN., November sjd, 1879.

DEAR CHRISTIAN FRIENDS:

I want to tell you what the Lord has done

for my household. For over twenty years

my wife was addicted to the use of laudanum,

that had been prescribed by a physician, and

^he thought she could not do without it. I

taxed my own ingenuity, to its utmost extent,

to contrive how the habit might be broken ;

but all to no avail. The doctors tried sub-

‘itutes with the same result. In 1873, in the month of July, I went to a camp-meeting

at Sea Cliff, L. I.

On Tuesday, the president of the meeting,

Rev. J. S. Inskip, said :

“ This morning we

will have a faith meeting.” A large number

spoke of special answers to prayer ; the president

then said: “Now, we want to see if

this God, Whom we worship here to-day, does

answer prayer. All of you who have petitions

you would like to have granted, write them,

and sign your names and places of residence,

and send them up to the stand. We will rea-d

them, withholding the name. We will base

these petitions on the promises that have been

read.”

I, with some four hundred others, sent up

our petitions. I wrote :

“ For a wife who is

addicted to the use of opiates ; that the habit

may be broken, and she soundly converted.”

I sent the petition to the stand, pledging myself

to pray every day of my life for these

petitions. The next February my wife was

taken sick. She had been using opiates a

great deal. We called our family doctor and

he prescribed for her. On this day, as we came out of the room where she was ill, the

bottle of laudanum was on the table by the

door. The doctor took the bottle in his hand

and brought it out, saying,

“

I hope to God

she will never ask for that again.”

And she never has, nor has she ever seen it,

to my knowledge, for I have it locked up.

The doctors say they cannot account for it,

and I do not attempt to, otherwise than as

God has answered prayer.

1 am very truly yours in faith,

TITUS CARRIER.

HINSDALE, MASS., July 4th, 1880.

Miss JUDD :

You wished me to make a statement of my

long “Uness, and of my wonderful cure. I

was taken sick in 1875. I had not been well

all winter, but kept around the house until

March, when a doctor was called. Two days

after he came to see me I was unable to sit up

any, on account of the pain in my back. I

had used a number of blisters which gave me

some relief. I grew worse, and three weeks

after the doctor was first called, he wished to consult with another physician. The disease

was pronounced inflammation of the kidneys.

All kinds of medicine were tried. I soon got

so I could keep nothing on my stomach, and

would have spells of vomiting, every few moments,

for days. All I could take was ice.

My head pained me fearfully; was obliged to

keep a bag of ice on it day and night.

Leeches were tried on my head and they gave

some relief. Doctors from other towns were

called ; they all said our physician was doing

all that could be done. I was in such pain,

and could take no medicine in my stomach,

so the doctor began to inject morphine into

my veins. I seemed to gain some then ; still

my back was very bad and I could not sit up

any. 1 he doctor carried me from one bed to

another. I had used over fifty blisters. Some

of the time I would be more comfortable, and

the doctor would think I would be able to sit

up a little. A reclining chair was bought

and he put me in it a few times, but it made

me worse.

Mr. and Mrs. Mix came to see me the

twenty-sixth of November, 1879. I was then very helpless, could eat but very little, was

using morphine all the time. After prayer fur

my healing I was enabled to rise up in bed,

and, with a little assistance from Mrs. Mix,

walked a. few feet to a chair; in about half an

hour I walked back to the bed alone. I had

been in the habit of having morphine injected

five or six times in twenty-four hours, and the

doctor said it would kill me to leave it off.

But in answer to the

“

prayer of faith

‘

I was

enabled to do without it entirely. I am quite

strong, now; can walk half a mile to church

and back. I feel that I cannot thank the

Lord enough for what He has done for me.

Yours in faith,

MARY E. MACK,