Chapter 29—The Use of Remedies
To Alleviate Pain and Restore Health
Employ Every Facility—It is not a denial of faith to use such
remedies as God has provided to alleviate pain and to aid nature in her
work of restoration. It is no denial of faith [for the sick who request
prayer for healing] to cooperate with God, and place themselves in
the condition most favorable to recovery. God has put it in our power
to obtain a knowledge of the laws of life. This knowledge has been
placed within our reach for use. We should employ every facility for
the restoration of health, taking every advantage possible, working in
harmony with natural laws.—
The Ministry of Healing, 231, 232
(1905).
Use the Means Within Our Reach—The idea which you hold,
that no remedies should be used for the sick, is an error. God does not
heal the sick without the aid of the means of healing which lie within
the reach of man; or when men refuse to be benefited by the simple
remedies that God has provided in pure air and water.
There were physicians in Christ’s day and in the days of the apos-
tles. Luke is called the beloved physician. He trusted in the Lord to
make him skillful in the application of remedies.
When the Lord told Hezekiah that He would spare his life for
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fifteen years, and as a sign that He would fulfill His promise, caused
the sun to go back ten degrees, why did He not put His direct, restoring
power upon the king? He told him to apply a bunch of figs to his sore,
and that natural remedy, blessed by God, healed him. The God of
nature directs the human agent to use natural remedies now.
I might go to any length in this matter, my brother, but I leave it
now with a few instances. [Then follow the accounts of two instances
of the use of charcoal. See chapter 30.]
All these things teach us that we are to be very careful lest we
receive radical ideas and impressions. Your ideas regarding drug
medication, I must respect; but even in this you must not always let
the patients know that you discard drugs entirely, until they become
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