Consulting Spiritualist Physicians
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It was Christ that bade Elijah speak these words to the apostate king.
Jehovah Immanuel had cause to be greatly displeased at Ahaziah’s
impiety. What had Christ not done to win the hearts of Israel, and
to inspire them with unwavering confidence in himself? For ages he
had visited his people with manifestations of the most condescending
kindness and unexampled love. From the time of the patriarchs, he had
shown how his “delights were with the sons of men.” [
Proverbs 8:31
.]
He had been a very present help to all who sought him in sincerity. “In
all their affliction he was afflicted, and the Angel of his presence saved
them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them.” [
Isaiah 63:9
.] Yet
Israel had revolted from God, and turned for help to the Lord’s worst
enemy.
The Hebrews were the only nation favored with a knowledge of
the true God. When the king of Israel sent to inquire of a pagan oracle,
he proclaimed to the heathen that he had more confidence in their idols
than in the God of his people, the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
In the same manner do those who profess to have a knowledge of
God’s word dishonor him when they turn from the source of strength
and wisdom, to ask help or counsel from the powers of darkness. If
God’s wrath was kindled by such a course on the part of a wicked,
idolatrous king, how must he regard a similar course pursued by those
who profess to be his servants?
Many are unwilling to put forth the needed effort to obtain a knowl-
edge of the laws of life and the simple means to be employed for the
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restoration of health. They do not place themselves in right relation
to life. When sickness is the result of their transgression of natural
law, they do not seek to correct their errors, and then ask the blessing
of God, but they resort to the physicians. If they recover health, they
give to drugs and doctors all the honor. They are ever ready to idolize
human power and wisdom, seeming to know no other God than the
creature,—dust and ashes.
It is not safe to trust to physicians who have not the fear of God
before them. Without the influence of divine grace, the hearts of men
are “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” [
Jeremiah
17:9
.] Self-aggrandizement is their aim. Under cover of the medi-
cal profession, what iniquities have been practiced, what delusions
supported! The physician may claim to possess great wisdom and
marvelous skill, while at the same time his character is abandoned, and