A Call for Seventh-Day Adventist Medical Missionaries
By L. A. H.
There is no question but that a man or woman with a medical education can be much more useful as a missionary than one without this training. There is great advantage in knowing how to treat those who are sick in body as well as to minister to sin-sick souls. A laborer thus qualified will find ready access to many hearts and homes that might otherwise never be reached. Intelligent care of the sick and sound instruction in health principles will gain the confidence of many to whom no other method of labor would appeal. Spiritual instruction and prayer will often find acceptance and response on the part of those who are brought low in spirit through sickness, and may readily lead them to him who can give complete healing. The worker who has a medical education and a good knowledge of present truth is doubly equipped, and his possibilities for usefulness many times increased. This is true of the minister, Bible worker, or canvasser, as well as of the physician or nurse. It was not chance that associated the health work with this people and made its truth a part of our message. Its place in the cause has been as clearly defined as have the relations of other phases of our denominational work. In the first instruction given regarding health reform among us, we are told that “it is a part of the third angel’s message, and is just as closely connected with it as are the arm and hand with the human body.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. I, page 486. Its special place in connection with the basic doctrines of our message is given very clearly in a later statement, as follows:— “Health reform is one branch of the great work which is to fit a people for the coming of the Lord. It is as closely connected with the third angel’s message as the hand is with the body. The law of ten commandments has been lightly regarded by man; but the Lord would not come to punish the transgressors of that law without first sending them a message of warning. The third angel proclaims that message. Had men ever been obedient to the law of ten commandments, carrying out in their lives the principles of those precepts, the curse of disease now flooding the world would not be.
“Men and women can not violate natural law by indulging depraved appetite and lustful passions and not violate the law18of God. Therefore he has permitted the light of health reform to shine upon us, that we may see our sin in violating the laws which he has established in our being. All our enjoyment or suffering may be traced to obedience or transgression of natural law. Our gracious Heavenly Father sees the deplorable condition of men, who, some knowingly but many ignorantly, are living in violation of the laws that he has established. And in love and pity to the race, he causes the light to shine upon health reform. He publishes his law, and the penalty that will follow the transgression of it, that all may learn, and be careful to live in harmony with natural law. He proclaims his law so distinctly, and makes it so prominent, that it is like a city set on a hill. All accountable beings can understand it if they will. Idiots will not be responsible. To make plain natural law, and urge the obedience of it, is the work that accompanies the third angel’s message, to prepare a people for the coming of the Lord.”—Id., Vol. III, page 161. We have been especially blessed in having committed to us the light on health reform, but with the blessing comes proportionate responsibility. We are under obligation to God to let this light shine, and will surely be held guilty if we do not make a right use of it. This is true of us as a people and as individuals. Individuals who are qualified to work and instruct in health lines owe it to the Lord, to his cause, and to their fellow men to make wise and faithful use of their talents. The identity given our health principles because of their connection with other truths and their adaptation to physical conditions and needs, makes it particularly essential that they be disseminated as fully as possible. Health lectures in connection with regular evangelical meetings should be given. Schools of health are important. Frequent lectures in sanitariums should be presented. Personal instruction in right living is nearly always in place. Health literature, tracts, journals, and books should be freely used. In every proper way, by pen or voice, should we make known these Heaven-sent truths. The instruction that has long come to us about combining our medical and evangelical work finds echo in many places. The very need of it answers back from one situation and another in corroborating appeal, and every effort to carry out the instruction confirms its value. The call is strong for Seventh-day Adventist medical workers, those whose first adherence is to the truth. Those are needed whose conception of their abilities is governed by the needs of the cause and whose course is controlled by loyalty to its advancement. We may ask, What other motive should our young people have in taking any special training or securing advanced education than to be better prepared to work in the cause, giving the soul-saving truths of this time? I take the liberty of quoting from our office correspondence to indicate some of the sentiments expressed on this question. A union conference president, a worker of long experience, says:— “If it is important that ministers should be prepared by a medical knowledge to create openings for the presentation of the message, is it not vastly more important that the medical man should be prepared to present the living message for which his medical work may create openings? If an individual can be trained for one line of work only, then by all means let that training be to prepare him for the work of preaching the message, the all-important work. The evangelical and medical lines will never be successfully united for the advancement of the truth so long as they are not united in the individual. Men are sanctified through the truth. An individual who is not thus sanctified is unfit to minister truth to others. The unsanctified doctor can not, in any way, be helpful to our field workers.
“The minister who is wholly without knowledge of that which is declared to be the right arm of the message is greatly lacking in power to create opportunities for the preaching of the message. The doctor who is wholly without a training as to how to impart the great message of truth to mankind, has power to create opportunities without power to deliver the message for which opportunities are created. And another individual who has the power to use the opportunities created can never compensate for the failure of the doctor to be able to do the same. Our sanitariums afford a wonderful opportunity for the doctor to present the truth. If these opportunities were faithfully embraced and improved, it would be a wonderful help to the advancement of the work in general.” It is encouraging to note that in many places in the field, in and out of sanitariums, in conference work and out of it, work is being done in the spirit herein outlined. It is being demonstrated that medical work may be most successfully carried forward as a distinctive missionary factor, and that there is great advantage in its close relation to our denominational interests. We shall be pleased to make mention of some instances of this kind at another time.
L. A. H.