Teaching Health Principles
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to answer Satan’s charges by showing the result of obedience to right
principles. He desires our health institutions to stand as witnesses for
the truth. They are to give character to the work which must be carried
forward in these last days in restoring man through a reformation of
the habits, appetites, and passions. Seventh-day Adventists are to be
represented to the world by the advance principles of health reform
which God has given us.—
Medical Ministry, 187
.
Education Better Than Miraculous Healing
Some have asked me, “Why should we have sanitariums? Why
should we not, like Christ, pray for the sick, that they may be healed
miraculously?” I have answered, “Suppose we were able to do this
in all cases; how many would appreciate the healing? Would those
who were healed become health reformers, or continue to be health
destroyers?”
Jesus Christ is the Great Healer, but He desires that by living in
conformity with His laws, we may co-operate with Him in the recovery
and the maintenance of health. Combined with the work of healing
there must be an imparting of knowledge of how to resist temptations.
Those who come to our sanitariums should be aroused to a sense of
their own responsibility to work in harmony with the God of truth.
[35]
We cannot heal. We cannot change the diseased conditions of the
body. But it is our part, as medical missionaries, as workers together
with God, to use the means that He has provided. Then we should pray
that God will bless these agencies. We do believe in a God; we believe
in a God who hears and answers prayer. He has said, “Ask, and ye
shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened
unto you.”—
Medical Ministry, 13
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When Prayer for Healing Is Presumption
Many have expected that God would keep them from sickness
merely because they have asked Him to do so. But God did not regard
their prayers, because their faith was not made perfect by works. God
will not work a miracle to keep those from sickness who have no care
for themselves, but are continually violating the laws of health and
make no efforts to prevent disease. When we do all we can on our part