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Teaching and Healing
91
several years, both as a physician and as a teacher of the gospel. In
his service as a physician he ministered to the sick and then prayed
for the healing power of God to rest upon the afflicted ones. Thus
the way was opened for the gospel message. Luke’s success as a
physician gained for him many opportunities for preaching Christ
among the heathen.
It is the divine plan that we shall work as the disciples worked.
Physical healing is bound up with the gospel commission. In the
work of the gospel, teaching and healing are never to be separated.
The work of the disciples was to spread a knowledge of the
gospel. To them was committed the work of proclaiming to all the
world the good news that Christ brought to humankind. That work
they accomplished for the people of their time. To every nation
under heaven the gospel was carried in a single generation.
Giving the gospel to the world is the work that God has com-
mitted to those who have taken His name. The gospel is the only
antidote for earth’s sin and misery. To make known to everyone the
message of the grace of God is the first work of all who know its
healing power.
When Christ sent forth the disciples with the gospel message,
faith in God and His Word had well-nigh departed from the world.
The Jewish people professed to have a knowledge of God, but His
Word had been set aside for tradition and human speculation. Selfish
ambition, love of ostentation, greed of gain absorbed the people’s
thoughts. As reverence for God departed, compassion toward one
another also departed. Selfishness was the ruling principle, and
Satan worked his will in the misery and degradation of the human
race.
Satanic agencies took possession of people. The bodies of human
beings, made for the dwelling place of God, became the habitation of
demons. The senses, the nerves, the organs of humans were worked
by supernatural agencies in the indulgence of the vilest lust. The
very stamp of demons was impressed upon the countenances of men
and women. Human faces reflected the expression of the legions of
evil with which the people were possessed.
What is the condition in the world today? Is not faith in the Bible
as effectually destroyed by the higher criticism and speculation of
today as it was by tradition and rabbinism in the days of Christ? Do