The Lord for the Body.
With Questions and Answers on Divine Healing.
by A. B. Simpson.
Foreword.
In publishing this Colportage Series, the one purpose is to disseminate widely the pure Gospel of Christ. America is being flooded with literature that is designed to turn hearts and minds from the faith of our fathers. Much of the popular reading of the day is either shallow and irreligious or erroneous and misleading.
The volumes in this series are selected because of their lucid presentation of Jesus Christ as the all-sufficient Saviour of mankind. In cheap but attractive form the cream of the writings of great preachers and teachers are offered to the public. No profits will accrue to any one through these books save the spiritual blessing that comes to the readers and the satisfaction that comes to the distributors who thus serve G.o.d and their fellowmen.
Evangelical Christians everywhere may a.s.sist in broadcasting these messages with the a.s.surance that every word will ring true to the integrity of the Scriptures, the vicarious atonement of Christ, and the world"s only hope in His coming again.
The Christian Alliance Publishing Company
Preface.
IN 1903 Dr. Simpson first issued a little volume under the t.i.tle of "The Discovery of Divine Healing" in which he set forth the teaching regarding healing as unfolded in different Books and in the experiences of various Biblical characters. This early volume was not intended to be an exhaustive treatise of this important theme, but was rather a presentation of helpful expositions that gathered around the lives of outstanding witnesses to the possibility of supernatural life for the body.
The present volume is an enlargement of the early edition. Important chapters upon "Paul and Divine Healing" and "Natural and Supernatural Healing" have been added; also one of Dr. Simpson"s strongest pamphlets on "Inquiries and Answers Concerning Divine Healing" has been included.
This contains clear and logical replies to questions that usually arise in the minds of sincere inquirers after the truth. We are confident that this book will prove to be one of the most illuminating and widely appreciated works from the gifted pen of Dr. Simpson. The personal testimony of Dr. Henry Wilson, the a.s.sociate and intimate friend of Dr. Simpson, has been added as an appendix. Dr. Wilson wrote this testimony when, as he states, he had come to his majority, having pa.s.sed twenty-one years of glorious renewed life through the acceptance of G.o.d"s provision.
Because the subject of the Lord"s Healing is now so widely discussed in Christian circles, it is hard to realize that only a generation ago but few teachers ever touched upon this phase of Scriptural doctrine. Probably no one teacher of recent years has been so much used of G.o.d in this connection as Dr. Simpson. In the minds of mult.i.tudes his name is inseparably connected with teaching about Divine Healing. Yet it is well to remember that Dr. Simpson consistently maintained that he was not the founder of a healing cult, nor did he wish to place healing before spiritual blessing and the salvation of the lost.
He preached Christ, the living, all-sufficient Saviour. His dominant purpose was to make Him known in all the neglected lands of earth. His heart yearned over the lost and neglected at home and abroad. While faithful to the whole truth of G.o.d, he nevertheless placed soul-saving, the instruction of believers in deeper spiritual truths, and earnest missionary efforts before any ministry of healing. His teaching is best summed up in one of his own poems.
"Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord; Once it was the feeling, Now it is His Word; Once His gift I wanted, Now the Giver own; Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.
All in all forever, Jesus will I sing; Everything in Jesus, And Jesus everything."
Walter M. Turnbull
Introduction.
These delightfully interesting studies come us as fresh and winsome as when they first fell from the lips of the honored servant of G.o.d, whom many of us held as the Moses who led us through the wilderness of perplexity, the Joshua who inspired us to cross the Jordan into the land of decision.
Some who stood loyally with him in the early years of his wonderful ministry, like the disciples of old, went away. A few to utter repudiation of the truth they had learned through him; others to hold it with cautious reservation. But he lived through all the heartaches which accompanied such departures, sweet and patient, trustful and loving, ever ready to receive them ; for he, himself, never varied in the conviction that healing as he was moved to present it could not be divorced from the message of salvation. If our blessed Lord is the very life of His own, that life must be related to every department of our being.
With him, the espousal of this much-disputed doctrine was not a matter of novelty that would in time wear away and be replaced by other novelties. It gripped his whole being; it compelled his entire devotion; it absorbed his heart and mind. And we who saw the workings of his methods and life could not other than confess that he was moved by a complete surrender to the Holy Spirit.
If only he could be found yielding to His behest in every turn he had to take, it was enough. The critics might pierce the atmosphere in which he lived with the arrows of poisoned unbelief; he was immune from infection. He literally was hid in G.o.d. It was this that made his messages so sacred to us.
The painful fact that teachers of Christian healing are subtly introducing psychology, that evident antagonist to the Holy Spirit, calls for the highest commendation of his manner. For he never permitted his teaching to be intinctured with any element of self-effort, selfintrospection, self-poise. To him, the truth of healing lay absolutely in the gift of G.o.d to His own, by simple acceptance and childlike following in the way of G.o.d. Faith, unalloyed was his foundation. And the death of self that Christ might live was the superstructure of his teaching and experience.
They who did not know him in the flesh, may well pursue these studies with deep appreciation. For thus they will learn to know the man as well as to accept the truth he held so precious.
Kenneth Mackenzie
CHAPTER I.
THE DISCOVERY OF DIVINE HEALING.
"And the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet; there he made for them a statute, and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy G.o.d, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Ex. 15:25, 26).
This was the discovery to Moses of Divine Healing. The branch that was cast into the bitter waters had been there before, but undiscovered, and now the Lord showed it to him and the waters were healed.
A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.
What a wonderful epoch it marks in our lives when we discover the hidden promises whose reality and power we had never dreamed of before! Henceforth life becomes all new. How wonderful to find that ever since the Saviour died our complete redemption has been purchased, and only waiting for our faith to claim it; and how we wish that all the world might know the treasure it is losing and the hidden resources of help and blessing which lie, like undiscovered wealth of some secret mine, beneath our thoughtless feet. The branch which Moses found simply represents the promise of G.o.d. Our Bible is full of such promises, and all we need is the divine illumination to show them to us and then the faith to claim them and apply them in the hour of need.
The sweetening of the bitter waters of Marah is closely connected in this pa.s.sage with the ordinance of healing which G.o.d immediately proceeds to give to Israel. It is evident, therefore, that the healing of the waters was intended to suggest the other healing covered by the divine promise and what a promise it is! It lays the deep and solid foundation of the Lord"s supernatural life for all our physical need. What a difference it makes in our lives when we truly find and fully understand this strong and sure foundation for faith to rest upon.
G.o.d"S PRIMARY SCHOOL.
One should not fail to notice how early this experience came into the history of ancient Israel. Like a fond mother who first cares for her baby"s body and afterwards attends to its education, so G.o.d first provides for Israel"s physical needs, and a little later puts His infant people to school at Mount Sinai and through the deeper lessons of the wilderness.
The Lord Jesus began His ministry with physical healing, and so the youngest and humblest child of G.o.d ought to know the healing power of the Saviour. It is not surprising, therefore, that it comes natural to our simple-hearted converts in heathen lands, who know no better than to trust the Lord for both body and soul.
OLDER THAN THE LAW.
It must also occur to the thoughtful reader that this ordinance of healing in the fifteenth chapter of Exodus is much older than the Law of Sinai, and, therefore, it has not been superseded even by the pa.s.sing away of the Law. Just as Paul tells the Galatians that the covenant with Abraham could not be annulled by the later Law of Moses, so the ordinance of healing stands even after the pa.s.sing away of the Mosaic inst.i.tutions. The very terms "statute" and "ordinance" express permanency in this divine provision; and so it stands today, unless we can find in the New Testament some authoritative statement revoking it, which certainly we shall not find; for all the teachings of Christ and His apostles are but the echo and the fuller expression of the deep truths so well expressed in this ancient Law of Healing.
A TEST QUESTION.
It is announced emphatically in the narrative that this was to be a test question with G.o.d"s people. There "He proved them"; and what a test it is today of Christian life and Christian faith! How few there are that dare to stand it, and how it proves the people of G.o.d! How it brings us up to His heartsearching light and compels us to walk in holy fellowship and obedience if we would find the promises true in our bodies. How rigidly it demands an obedience as deep and spiritual as the profoundest teachings of the New Testament require.
It is not enough that we do our best and sincerely follow the light we have, but we must "diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord our G.o.d." We must take pains to understand His will. We must have a yielded, willing and responsive conscience that fears to offend and jealously feels its way into all His will. And so, while divine healing is the privilege of the youngest disciple, it will not suffer us to continue immature or careless, but will impel us to the deepest spirituality and the most earnest and diligent conformity to all the will of G.o.d. There is nothing that has so chastening, humbling, heartsearching and sanctifying an influence over our spiritual life as to live a life of dependence upon Christ for our bodily strength from day to day.
CONTINUOUS HEALING.
There is another deeply spiritual truth connected with this discovery. Dr. Young translates the last clause of the pa.s.sage in the continuous present tense: "I the Lord am healing thee." This is the aspect of divine healing which the Apostle Paul so frequently emphasizes. It is not a mere or incident occurring occasionally in life, but it is a life of constant, habitual dependence upon Christ for the body; moment by moment abiding in Him for our physical, as well as spiritual need, and taking His resurrection life and strength for every breath and every step.
ATTENDANT BLESSINGS.
Once more, the blessing that follows divine healing is finely expressed in the sequel to this ancient incident. "They came to Elim where were twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters." There is something exquisite about this sentence. It seems to be a sort of crystallized poem. The very tones fall upon the ear with strange sweetness. We can almost imagine that we feel the balm of the soft tropical air, hear the rustling of the palm trees, and see the sparkling waters from Elim"s wells. How refreshing the shade; how exhilarating the fountains; how delightful the rest; how heavenly the overshadowing cloud! It is like a scene from the land of Beulah. It speaks to the deepest senses of the soul of the love-life of the Lord and the peace of G.o.d that pa.s.seth all understanding. And this is just the experience to which divine healing introduces the soul; the spiritual blessing is even richer than the physical.
How real Christ seems to us; how we come to know the Lord as never before, and how He rests us and sheds the fragrance of His love and joy through every sense of our spiritual and physical being until the heart finds utterance in the inspired song, "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
Reader, have you made this great discovery? It is hidden somewhere in your Bible. Perhaps the very trial that has crushed you is G.o.d"s opportunity for revealing it to you. G.o.d grant that the old story may be reproduced in your life. "He cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the water, the waters were made sweet."
CHAPTER II.
SUPERNATURAL LIFE.
Genesis 20 17; Romans 4: 18-22; Hebrews 11: 11.
We have here, from the old story of Genesis, three cases of divine healing, Abimelech, Abraham and Sarah. Abraham in a fit of unbelief consented to tell a half lie. Sarah was his half-sister, and he introduced her to Abimelech as his sister and left the way clear for him to take her as one of his many wives. G.o.d arrested Abimelech before he had done wrong.
THE FIRST HEALING.
G.o.d healed Abimelech through Abraham"s prayer. No doubt they both made humble confession and together believed for G.o.d"s deliverance, and G.o.d emphasized the answer by a distinct physical blessing. This is the earliest instance we have of faith and prayer for healing. It teaches us that sickness often comes as a divine chastening, and when the sin is laid aside, G.o.d takes away the chastening rod and heals the disease.
ABRAHAM"S EXPERIENCES.
Alongside of this it is very natural for us to a.s.sociate Abraham"s and Sarah"s faith for their physical quickening and the renewing of their youth and strength. It would seem as though Abraham"s lesson with Abimelech strengthened his faith and threw him more directly upon G.o.d, for his own personal need and blessing. We find in this transaction that both of them believed, and Sarah"s faith is more emphatic even that Abraham"s.
EVEN SARAH.
The construction of the eleventh of Hebrews is very strong, and suggests that Sarah had made a bad failure at first and met the promise that she should be a mother with keen scorn and laughter at the very idea of such a thing; so it added that Sarah, "even Sarah," as it is in the original, poor Sarah, who had so failed, received supernatural strength to become the mother of Isaac. It shows that even if you did break down the first time you may still pick yourself up and overcome even if you have doubted, and surely there are none of us who have not had our doubts and fears and we know how patient and faithful G.o.d has been in restoring us and then teaching us through suffering the better way. If you have been among the doubting ones, listen to G.o.d and let Him teach you. You may yet be among the princes of faith as Abraham and Sarah were.
A HIGHER KIND OF STRENGTH.
Divine healing is getting a new kind of life, and G.o.d values it more than He does natural strength. He did not want Isaac born through natural, but supernatural strength. He gave divine strength to Abraham and Sarah, something that was a part of G.o.d Himself, because He wanted it to be of a higher order. Divine health is a better kind of health than the natural and it will accomplish a better kind of service for Christ. It is not the health that takes us to the ball game, the dance and theater, but the health that takes us to the slums, the alleys, and garret; the message not only divine, but the messenger endued with divine strength and power.
So we have here the rudimentary principle, the very elementary and essential nature of divine healing. It is a higher sort of life. We believe for it, then we get it and it leads to results more lasting and fruitful than the strength that we get from natural sources.
ABRAHAM"S FAITH.
In the fourth chapter of Romans, this very emphatic chapter on faith, Abraham alone is mentioned. In the first place he believed against hope. It was something that was not easy, not possible. Now this is essentially miraculous, and there is no doubt that G.o.d does sometimes override natural law in healing. I see no place in the Bible where we are taught that the miraculous is to cease with the ascension of the Lord, but we are told that the resurrection and ascension of Christ was the pattern according to which G.o.d was going to continue to work. We may know the "exceeding greatness of His power" today. Do not be discouraged if G.o.d tells you to trust if everything is against it, even natural possibilities.
Again, we are told, and I like to read it both ways, each version gives a fine sense, that when he believed for this impossible thing "he considered not his own body"; he took his eyes and his attention off himself. If he had looked at it perhaps it would have destroyed faith. There are times when we must take our eyes off ourselves. We cannot stand while looking on the dark side. It is the devil that always says, "Pity thyself." He said it to Jesus Christ through Peter, and Jesus said to him, "Get thee behind Me, Satan."
AS GOOD AS DEAD.
The Revised Version is still better and it gives a distinct thought: "Without being discouraged he considered his own body as good as dead." That is, he put an estimate on it at the lowest value and then over against it he put the almightiness of G.o.d and said, "But G.o.d," doubting nothing. When G.o.d created the world He started with nothing, and there are times when He must smash us to pieces, for as long as there is the slightest ray of human hope we cling to it, and do not get hold of G.o.d.
I have been very much afraid since my healing to count upon my strength. I do not consider myself strong-I do not care whether I am or not, but I found after the Lord had given me supernatural strength the enemy was getting me to trust in it, and then it left me and I had to very quickly get the old-fashioned way of depending upon Christ for my physical life and strength. It is counting yourself as good as dead, living each day as though it were a supernatural gift, by the moment taking His life. Do not be afraid to find yourself out in midair with nothing under you but the everlasting arms. Just look at the darkest and worst side of it and then look at G.o.d and say, "does it matter?" It is just as easy or even a little easier for G.o.d to do a big thing as a little thing. He has His almightiness at His disposal and it is not for Him to use it, and indeed He wants to do so.
DO NOT STAGGER.
Again, he "wavered not," "staggered not." Do not have a "perhaps," an "if," or a "but," about it. Do not allow anyone to sympathize with you. Many go through life wavering and staggering all the time. Abraham did not flinch, stagger or waver, but was "fully persuaded" that He that had promised was not only able, but, in the Greek, "abundantly able to perform," more than able, superfluously able to perform. His conception of G.o.d made it seem just like child"s play for Him to do a great thing. Again, there is fine expression here-he not only did not stagger, but he "waxed strong in faith." The more he looked at the difficulties, and the more he looked at G.o.d, the stronger his faith waxedgrowing all the time. The more he felt himself cut off from everything else the more he felt that G.o.d must help him. Are you waxing strong in faith?
Faith does not show what a man you are, but it shows what a G.o.d you have. The more we get from G.o.d the bigger beggars we are and the grander Father is He. That is, He puts us in a position where we must take a great deal, and He is diappointed when we fail to do so.
FAITH GLORIFIES G.o.d.
I have read somewhere of a little street boy who was taken up out of a cellar by the Fresh Air Fund sent to a farmer"s house in Westchester. He had a great big room all to himself, and when he was shown into it at night and a little candle placed on the table, it was a perfect world of bewilderment to him and he thought he was in heaven. Finally he got tired and sleepy and looked at the snowy-white bed. Why, he had never been in a bed in his life! So he slowly crept up to it, and after a while he just laid his little cheek against the soft pillow. He could not believe it was for him, there was some mistake. He began to feel so guilty after a while.
The idea that he should lie down on a white, snowy bed like that-it was presumption or intrusion. But he just went far enough to let his head poke into heaven for a moment, and then he got down on the floor under the bed and said: "This is the place for me," and curled himself up and was soon fast asleep. Early in the morning the landlady came in and saw him, and she cried, "Oh, dear me, what does the boy mean!" And she picked him up and put him in the bed and tried to explain that the bed was for him, but she had the hardest time to make him understand and to induce him to get under the nice clean sheets.
How many of G.o.d"s dear children there are who are sleeping under the bed instead of resting in the bosom of His love. We are so slow to believe all that He has for us and to take what we are ent.i.tled to. Oh, some day when whiter than the snow and higher than the angels, and when all the magnificence of the ages is at our feet, how ashamed we will be to think how hard it was for us to take a little crumb from our Father"s table. G.o.d is looking for princely hearts, who, like Abraham, are willing to believe that He is the G.o.d that He says He is.
We cannot quite understand it, but it is so. Get it into your heart if you do not quite get it into your intellect and be strong in faith, giving glory to G.o.d. He has let that trouble come to you, beloved, just for an opportunity to get you out of it, that it may be a stepping-stone to Himself.
CHAPTER III.
THE LOOK THAT BRINGS LIFE.
Numbers 21:4.
"And the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way." We so easily get discouraged and it is a most dangerous state to get in. It is the very place where the devil strikes us. Do not ever get discouraged.
THE WRONG WAY.
The children of Israel had chosen their own way, and G.o.d had told them it was a bad way before they had chosen it, but still they chose it; and, therefore, they should not have gotten discouraged, because it was the way they wanted to go. Perhaps we are suffering from the results of disobedience, for having taken some way which G.o.d would not have chosen for us; but do not get discouraged, even if it be so, for G.o.d follows us and is there when we have brought our troubles upon ourselves. He will never leave us nor forsake us. Do not be discouraged by your trying situations. Do not look at these things; if you look at them they will mesmerize you.
DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED.
They began to feel blue and to think things that were very bad. Do not ever let the devil know that he has hurt you. Do not ever let him hear you say, "It is hard." If he feels that he does hurt you he will stay and try harder, but if he thinks he does not hurt you he will not waste his time on you. Do not for the world let people tell you about your troubles; do not let them sympathize with you. Always rejoice, always be cheerful. Under no circ.u.mstances get discouraged or be depressed.
UNBELIEF.