Sometimes patients come to our office carrying handfuls of medications that they cannot even pronounce. All they know is that they were told they needed the medications. These poor sufferers do not know how they got sick or how to get well.

We need to understand as a society that introducing more poison into the system is not a solution for getting rid of the poisonous matter which has accumulated in our system. Let me put it this way: it would be like sinning in order to get rid of sin.

In order to get rid of sin, we must take in the sinless One, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” and, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good”  (Colossians 1:27; Romans 12:21).

Spiritual truths have physical parallels. For example, there is a great lesson in how to get well physically, which can be drawn from how sin is conquered. From a spiritual viewpoint, the reason we cannot make ourselves holy is because we are sinful. Our efforts at self-righteousness can be compared to using a poison to get rid of a poison. And because we are sinners, we cannot heal our sin-sick selves in much the same way that a poison cannot rid the body of poison. True spiritual healing takes the work of Someone who is sinless, that is, Jesus Christ. His pure life, taken into the sinner’s inner self by faith, will cleanse and heal the whole life. Let us apply this most precious truth to our physical bodies: in order to get rid of poison we must add only good, non-poisonous remedies. God’s great work of defeating sin in our lives does not come from the use of subtraction, as in removing sin, but from addition, as in adding Christ.

Drugs or medications produce their own set of symptoms. Then, more drugs are introduced to get rid of the side effects from the previous drug. All drugs are poisons and thus can only add to the misery of an already poisoned condition. It is much like the person who tries to make themselves holy—they will continually keep failing simply because they are a sinner trying to get rid of sin. Like drugs and their side effects, self-reformation produces un-Christlike spiritual side effects such as self-praise. But the Word of God says, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one” (Job 14:4). Do we need to become sinless? Yes we do; but this can only be possible through Christ dwelling in us.

Christians need to change their thinking from that of conquering sin to that of accepting the victory Christ has already gained. Sin is not our enemy. Satan is. The law shows us sin and, in turn, sin shows us our need for a Saviour. Christians usually fail at overcoming sin because they focus on defeating sin, leaving the real enemy—Satan—to attack again and again.

But looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, we move on from victory to victory, through faith in what He has already accomplished. “For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (Romans 4:13). Christ is the only remedy, the only nourishment the poisoned sinner truly needs. Sinful acts are symptoms telling us that there is a deeper underlying problem. Now here comes the physical parallel: from a physiological viewpoint, we also need a shift in our thinking. We have to understand that symptoms are not the enemy of the body—poisons are. Symptoms are the friend of the body, just as the law is our friend showing us that we have been doing something wrong. Symptoms are indicators of deeper underlying causes for our discomfort; symptoms show that the body has somehow accumulated poisonous matter.

Very many lives have been sacrificed by physicians' administering drugs for unknown diseases. They have no real knowledge of the exact disease that afflicts the patient. But physicians are expected to know in a moment what to do; and unless they act at once as if they understood the disease perfectly, they are considered by impatient friends, and by the sick, as incompetent. Therefore, to gratify erroneous opinions of the sick and their friends, medicine must be administered, experiments and tests tried, to cure the patient of a disease of which the physician has no real knowledge. Nature is loaded with poisonous drugs, which she cannot expel from the system. The physicians themselves are often convinced that death was the result of their use of powerful medicines for a disease that did not exist.

Physicians are censurable, but they are not the only ones at fault. The sick themselves, if they would be patient, diet, suffer a little, and give nature time to rally, would recover much sooner without the use of any medicine. Nature alone possesses curative powers. Medicines have no power to cure, but generally hinder nature in her efforts. She, after all, must do the work of restoring. The sick are in a hurry to get well, and their friends are impatient. They will have medicine; and if they do not feel the powerful influence upon their systems that their erroneous views lead them to think they should feel, they impatiently send for another physician. The change often increases the evil. They go through a course of medicine equally as dangerous as the first, and more fatal, because the two treatments do not agree, and the system is poisoned beyond remedy.

But many have never experienced the beneficial effects of water, and are afraid to use one of Heaven's greatest blessings. Water has been refused to persons suffering with burning fevers, through fear that it would injure them. If, in their fevered state, water had been given them to drink freely, and applications had also been made externally, long days and nights of suffering would have been saved, and many precious lives spared. But thousands have died with raging fevers consuming them, until the fuel which fed the fever was burned up, and the vitals consumed; they have died in the greatest agony, without being permitted to have water to allay their burning thirst. Water, which is allowed a senseless building to put out the raging elements, is not allowed human beings to put out the fire that is consuming the vitals.

Multitudes remain in inexcusable ignorance in regard to the laws of their being. They wonder why the race is so feeble, and why so many die prematurely. Is there not a cause? Physicians, who profess to understand the human organism, prescribe for their patients, and even for their own dear children, and their companions, slow poisons to break up disease, or to cure some slight indisposition. Surely they can not realize the evil of these things, or they would not do thus. The effects of the poison may not be immediately perceived, but it is doing its work in the system, undermining the constitution, and crippling nature in her efforts. They are seeking to correct an evil, but produce a far greater one, which is often incurable. Those who are thus dealt with are constantly sick, and constantly dosing. And yet, if you listen to their conversation, you will often hear them praising the drugs they have been using, and recommending their use to others, because, they say, they have been benefited by their use. It would seem that to such as can reason from cause to effect, the sallow countenance, the continual complaints of ailments, and the general prostration of those who claim to be benefited, would be sufficient proofs of the health-destroying influence of drugs. Yet many are so blinded that they do not see that all the drugs they have taken have not cured them, but made them worse. The drug invalid numbers one in the world, but is generally peevish, irritable, always sick, lingering out a miserable existence, and seems to live only to call into constant exercise the patience of others. Poisonous drugs have not killed him outright, for nature is loath to give up her hold on life; she is unwilling to cease her struggles. Yet drug-takers are never well.

The endless variety of medicines in the market, the numerous advertisements of new drugs and mixtures, all of which, they say, result in wonderful cures, kill hundreds where they benefit one. Those who are sick are not patient. They will take the various medicines, some of which are very powerful, although they know nothing of the nature of the mixtures. All the medicines they take only make their recovery more hopeless. Yet they keep dosing, and continue to grow worse until they die. Some will have medicine at all events. Then let them take these hurtful mixtures, and the various deadly poisons, upon their own responsibility. God's servants should not administer medicines, which they know will leave behind injurious effects upon the system, even if they do relieve present suffering.

Be not afraid of man, for My shield shall protect you. It is not you that speaketh: it is the Lord that giveth the messages of warning and reproof. Never deviate from the truth under any circumstances. Give the light I shall give you. The messages for these last days shall be written in books, and shall stand immortalized, to testify against those who have once rejoiced in the light, but who have been led to give it up because of the seductive influences of evil (1 SM 32.3).

The messages God gave Ellen White were for these last days not just for her day.

In closing, I entreat you to seriously consider the information that has been presented in this series of articles. Realize that God needs you to be a blessing to others and to show them that His eight natural doctors are not an alternative, but rather the only way to heal the body while bringing glory to His name.

Look at the misery and suffering that surrounds us because of ignorance and error. Is it not time for the Lord’s children to reveal their Father’s character of love by living and standing for the truth He has so graciously given them? Should we not go to God, trusting that what He has given us through the Spirit of Prophecy is all we need as we seek to regain our health, no matter what the world or science might say?

Lights only shine when the power is allowed to take up residence in the bulb. So it is with God’s children when His truth is allowed to take up residence in them.

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