DO WE WANT HEALING FROM SATAN’S AGENCIES?
By Chas. T. Everson
In the course of a conversation with a woman who belonged to a growing modern healing cult, the teachings of which are opposed to the Word of God, I asked her how she came to embrace that belief. She said that she was sick at the time, and had spent much money doctoring, but still seemed to grow worse. This cult as a means of cure was suggested to her by her sister. She had no faith whatsoever in it; but as she seemed to obtain no relief from the doctors, she finally said that she was willing to give herself into the hands of these healers to do whatever they said, only so she could get well. Thus this woman was willing to jeopardize her eternal life for temporary relief from physical suffering. She was no doubt like the woman whom Christ healed after she had been bound by Satan “lo, these eighteen years.” Luke 13:16. But in her case Satan himself loosed the bands with which he was holding her; for relief could not have come from God, as the belief to which she gave up her mind is diametrically opposed to His Word. The result was that having received her wages from Satan, she necessarily entered his service, and to-day is solacing herself in the Christian Science belief. There are many who are doing as she did. Instead of sowing for health, and abiding the time when God will give them a harvest, they compromise with Satan, with the result that they lose eternal life. Many want a short cut to health even if it does mean a compromise with Satan. They desire to retain their perverted habits, and to make the least possible effort, and still obtain health. Like Naaman of old, they do not like the water-cure, they want a prophet who can come out to them and “stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place and recover the leper.” They do not like to be bothered with dipping themselves in the water seven times, nor of being dipped into water. They seek some “faith-healer,” who can strike his hand over them, and pray for them, and thus heal them. But to obtain anything in a short space of time, without effort, and by compromise with evil, is contrary to God’s plan. Moses might have argued that if he waited until he became king of Egypt, he could more easily liberate the children of Israel; but rather than compromise with evil, he forsook the throne of Egypt, and united his interests with those of a band of slaves, and spent his life in working for their liberation. Instead of receiving the flatteries and compliments of courtiers, he was harassed by the murmurings of the people for whom he had forsaken all. Yet he chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” Satan offered to give Christ the kingdoms of this world if he would bow down and worship him. Jesus came to gain the dominion of the earth, and here he was offered apparently a short, easy way, of obtaining his object. But rather than compromise with Satan, he chose the rough pathway that led to the crown of thorns and the cross of Calvary. Whenever we accept wages from any one, we expect to render him service. Those who are seeking health from the devil’s agencies should remember that by so doing they are putting themselves into the service of Satan. And it is better to suffer, if need be, than to go into destruction. “If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell. . . . And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell. . . . And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out; it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell.” It would cost some suffering and inconvenience to cut off a hand or a foot, or to pluck out an eye; yet it is better to suffer pain and inconvenience than to take a course that will cause us to go into destruction. Jesus can heal the sufferer; but He does not always do it out of the regular channels. He once made water into wine to meet an emergency; but He usually makes wine on the regular plan of letting the water pass through the vine. Jesus sometimes heals instantaneously when the case requires it; but he usually heals through nature in the regular way. Because Jesus healed many instantaneously, it does not necessarily follow that all shall be healed in that way. We could just as well argue that because Jesus made water into wine instantaneously, therefore all wine must thereafter be made that way. We can afford to trust God to heal us in His own way. It has been aptly said, “Work as if everything depended upon yourself, and then trust as if everything depended upon God.” But whether we are healed or not, we never can afford to compromise with Satan.