Chapter 15: Myth—God Heals Everyone

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Myth—God Heals Everyone

Sirach also contains important instructions on using the help of

medical doctors and pharmacists. Listen to Sirach.

“Honor physicians for their services, for the Lord created them; for their gift of healing comes from the Most High,

and they are rewarded by the king. The skill of physicians makes them distinguished, and in the presence of the great they are admired.

The Lord created medicines out of the earth, and the

sensible will not despise them. Was not water made sweet with a tree in order that its power might be known?

And He gave skill to human beings that He might be

glorified in [their] marvelous works. By them the physician heals and takes away pain; the pharmacist makes a mixture from them. God’s works will never be finished; and from Him health spreads over all the earth.” Sirach 38:1-8 NRSV

You can clearly observe that we are not to ignore medical resources when it comes to our illnesses. Nor are we to treat our bodies poorly. Many people today violate biblical health and food laws and cram stuff into their

bodies that we are not supposed to. There are many excellent books written about biblical nutrition. Get some to read and start observing what you are doing to your own body. If you smoke and drink alcohol, you are slowly poisoning your body. This has led many to a premature death. Instead of

the natural death God had planned, many intervene with poor health habits. When asked if smoking would keep someone out of Heaven, a pastor I know answered No. He then emphatically added: “In fact, it will help get you to Heaven faster!” When you treat your body poorly, you sin against your own

body and accelerate your own earthly “shedding of the flesh.”

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and

you are not your own?” 1 Cor. 6:19