"Two Parts of Divine Healing"

There are two parts, or two ways, that we must take in order for God’s Divine Healing to be brought to pass in our bodies. First, we must be well acquainted with the scriptural teaching that all germ related diseases are caused by a demon spirit that has entered our bodies and contaminated some of our body cells and turned them into what science calls germs. The spiritual side to this part of Divine Healing is resisting these spirits by the power of the Holy Ghost that is in us. We lay hands on each other, we pray the prayer of faith, we call the elders and anoint with oil. We cast these spirits out through use of the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

These things are very necessary. They are part of God’s answer for our Divine Health and Healing, but they are only one part of the overall plan that God has given us. There is yet another part that the Lord has made you and me responsible for and that is the keeping of our bodies pure and clean. I Cor. 3:16-17, "Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the Temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the Temple of God is Holy, which Temple ye are." There are many ways that people can defile their Temple.

We will look at the sins you and I commit that are not so obvious as are doping, drinking, smoking and adultery. For through some of these "not so evil thought of sins" we are defiling the Temple of the Holy Ghost, which is our bodies, and in so doing, we are failing in the other part of God’s Divine Healing Plan. We must remember that we are responsible for the care of this body, which is the place our God has chosen to live. Have not we wondered many times why the people in our churches either remain sick after prayer, or either stay well for only a short time? This writer has learned by hard experience that we must not ignore either of the two sides of God’s Divine Healing Plan. We must cast out devils, but we must also maintain good eating and drinking habits. It is my confession that for too long I have majored on the spiritual side, while I ignored the responsibility that God has laid on me to keep my body (His Temple) clean. America has become a nation of drug addicts, and I do not refer only to cocaine, heroin, and etc., but we will look at some of the more acceptable "drugs" that we Message people use, for in this we are miserably failing in the keeping of our Temple. If America has a national drink, it would be coffee. Whether we like to admit it or not, coffee is a drug! Webster’s definition of a "drug" is, "a substance other than food used to affect the structure or function of the body." Coffee has no food value at all, but it does contain caffeine, harmful oils, and other toxic substances. Therefore, it fits the description of a "drug" in that it has no food value and does adversely affect the functions of our body. At first, the caffeine gives a sensation of exhilaration, but its after affects are mental depression, nerve exhaustion, decreased muscular power and damage to the liver and kidneys. It can do great harm to the body while there is no chance at all of it doing it any good.

While we are "meddling" we may as well go all the way and show some other ways in which we are destroying the Temple of the Holy Ghost. We are clearly warned against any habit or practice that harms our flesh bodies.

I Cor. 6:19-20, "What? Know ye not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not your own? For you are bought with a price; Therefore, glorify God IN YOUR BODY, and in your Spirit which are God’s." Can we honestly say that some of the things we put into our bodies are taken to glorify God?

Colas and soft drinks have become one of the leading industries in America. Most of them contain caffeine, and most of them contain large amounts of another deadly killer that we call SUGAR. This may come as a surprise to you, but sugar, in the way that man manufactures it, is an addictive drug. Most of us can hardly be satisfied after a meal unless we have a large, sweet desert. Eating sweets is very addictive and easily becomes a life-long habit, which habit is killing thousands of Americans, including some Message Believers. (This Message Believer is speaking from personal experience.) One 12-ounce can of Cola contains about 8 teaspoons of the kind of sugar that is harmful to us.

Glucose is a form of sugar found in fruits, vegetables and honey. In this form, it is slowly released into the body and does us good. Sucrose, on the other hand, is a sugar that is man-made and is a physically and mentally addictive drug. It causes great harm to the body over a period of time. As consumption of unnatural sugar continues, the pancreas starts to have problems, and if not corrected, the result is a deadly killer called diabetes. Most Christians consume large amounts of the wrong kind of sugar daily, failing to realize that it is an addictive drug that eventually can kill. You might find it helpful and interesting to check your daily intake of this wrong kind of sugar called sucrose. In his book, "The Golden Seven Plus One," Dr. Samuel West states, "If you fail to do something about your simple sugar intake, beginning today, you will be committing willful suicide."

Unknown to most of us is the fact that salt is also an addictive drug. In the form of SODIUM CHLORIDE, it can become a killer when used in excessive amounts. For years the doctors told us that we should replace the salt lost through the sweat glands, especially in hot weather. After causing untold physical suffering to mankind, because they didn’t understand how the body works, they finally admitted they were wrong. Now, they have reversed themselves and say we should not take extra salt into our bodies, but rather eliminate it, or cut down drastically on its use. What was really happening when science found all that salt exiting the body through the sweat glands was that the body was using the glands as a means of ridding itself of this poison. God has made a marvelous body. It is always trying to cleanse the Temple of the Holy Ghost and make it a fit place for Him to live.

Salt is an antibiotic, it kills life. It is used as a preservative because it kills the life in food to slow down its decomposing. In our bodies it is just as much a killer of life as it was in the old salt meat box that we used to have in our homes. At hog-butchering time, a layer of salt was put in a big wooden box, then a layer of meat and another layer of salt, until the box was full. It is remarkable how long the meat stayed good during hot weather. Does the body have a need for sodium? Yes, but only in very small amounts, and that needs to be in an organic form which is found naturally in most fruits and vegetables.

In this short sermon, we cannot go into detail and discuss all the ways that we habitually defile the Temple of the Holy Ghost, but we pray that we can say enough to help us understand that there is also a natural, physical side to God’s Divine Healing Plan. I fear that many in the Message are as I have been, leaning to the spiritual side while mostly ignoring the natural side that God has assigned us as our duty. When the Bride of Christ becomes sick, and the elders are called and prayer is made, why do we often remain sick, or else only temporarily recover? I believe one main cause is that we do not correct our wrong eating and drinking habits.

If we had unknowingly been consuming poison, and the doctor was able to rid our bodies of it, making us well, but we went right back to consuming the same poison, the doctor would be fighting a losing battle. But, is this not exactly what we do when we unknowingly, or perhaps willingly, continue to eat and drink harmful things? How can prayer keep us well when we keep pouring poison into the body? This writer would suggest that every reader that is interested in obeying the Word of God regarding keeping the Temple of God (our bodies), start at once to attend to this natural side of Divine Healing. Some good books have been written on the subject of diet and health, but also some that would lead us astray. Find one that has been proven and study what it has to say.

Message Believers, are we not very discouraged with the present situation in our churches concerning our sick? Could a part of the reason for our many illnesses be that we have failed to recognize our personal, God-given responsibility for our health problems? We have studied much about the influence of some germ or virus that causes our problems and this is indeed a must. This spiritual side must be attended to. But, are we ready to confess that in many cases we have caused the problem ourselves by defiling our Temple with improper food and drink? The Bible teaches personal accountability concerning care of our bodies. Gal. 6:7, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Whatever we put into our bodies will produce a crop of either health or disease. I Cor. 3:16-17, "If any man defile the Temple of God, him shall God destroy." Stern words indeed, but if we violate God’s natural laws pertaining to the body and health, we will personally reap the consequences of that violation sooner or later.

I may well be accused of forsaking the Gospel to preach diet laws, but it needs to become a revelation that we will be held accountable for what we do to our bodies. Physical health laws are very much a part of the Gospel, and must be preached. When these laws are violated, the body shows forth the violations with different sicknesses. Colds, fevers, headaches, stomach aches, indigestion, heart burn, tonsillitis, appendicitis, pimples, boils, rashes, arthritis, asthma, kidney stones, gallstones, cirrhosis, constipation, diabetes, heart failure, stroke, high blood pressure, tumors and cancers (as well as other diseases), these are all manifestations by the body of violations of God’s natural laws. These violations break down the body cells and give the spirit-life that produces germs opportunity to enter our body.

Devils love filth, therefore, when Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt, God gave him cleanliness laws to keep their camping area, their tents and their clothes and bodies clean. These people were not spiritual, and God was protecting them from devils and sickness by setting forth His Laws for Cleanliness. Today, those laws still work for us, but we now also understand that we are not only to keep the outside clean, but the inside of our bodies as well. Accumulated filth in the body from unused food still attracts devils who in turn produce germs of diseases in us.

Lack of exercise is another great killer in America, especially in those who are sixty and over. The inventors have set out to build a machine of some sort that will allow man to do his work with little or no physical exertion. We actually glow with pride as we start a motor, or push a button and see our work done while we sit and watch. Yes, we have some very intelligent people, but they are only intelligent in certain areas. They are very ignorant when it comes to understanding this body that God has made. If we use it in connection with our work in ways that it is vigorously exercised, then it continues to function well, but once this exercise is done away with, the body cells at once begin to die, and without proper exercise, new cells are not produced. This is another cause of waste piles in our bodies that attract devils, piles of dead cells that are not eliminated for lack of exercise.

It is well known to us what will happen to a muscle on the outside of the body when it’s never used. It shrivels up and becomes weak and useless. What is not so well know is that the most important muscle inside the body (the heart) will do the same thing when not properly exercised. It must be made to exert itself more than just its regular beats per minute in order to stay strong. Of course, always taking precautions not to overdo or start off with too much exercise.

Dear Christian Friend, are you sick in body? Perhaps the doctor has even said he can’t help you! That is no time for a Christian to despair. By putting the two parts of God’s Divine Healing Plan together, we can see miracles. Understanding that we have authority over devils, to cast them out in that wonderful Name of Jesus Christ, and at the same time start to obey God’s natural health laws about our food intake and exercise, will cause many of our problems to disappear. It is clearly a two-part plan and when we do our part, we will not have to worry about our Lord doing His part. He will send us His Faith and we will rejoice in newness of Life.

Daniel was a man who had the revelation concerning the keeping of the Temple of the Lord (his body). In Daniel 1:8, he purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank. Being in favor with the Prince of the Eunuchs, Daniel was allowed to refrain from eating the food that the king had ordered for them and was given "Pulse" instead for a ten day trial. The Bible dictionary says "Pulse" was a mixture of vegetables, which included beans and lentils. In other words, Daniel and the other three Hebrew Children chose to eat a vegetable diet.

At the end of the test the scripture says (Daniel 1:15), "And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king’s meat." We are not teaching that everyone must become vegetarians. We know that in the New Testament God has cleansed the meats for us, but we do say that most American’s have strayed very far from God’s original plan for food, which was fruit, nuts and vegetables. We are now allowed to eat meat because of the hardness of our hearts, but in the beginning it was not so. Moses was allowed to teach divorce under certain circumstances, because of the hardness of the peoples hearts, but it was not so in the beginning.

There is a terrible price to be paid in sickness and death for defiling the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Some of us, in times past, have paid more attention to the kind of gas and oil we put in our vehicles than to the food and drink we put into the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Would you think of putting cheap, low grade oil into your new vehicle? Certainly not! Nor would we put in gas contaminated with water. We know better. Yet, we pour gallons of health defiling coffee, colas, teas, and etc. into God’s Temple. At the turn of the century, the annual consumption of sugar in the form of sucrose (the bad kind) was seven pounds per person in the United States. By 1964 the figure had climbed to 95 pounds per person. Today, the average intake of the wrong kind of sugar is in excess of 125 pounds. Most Americans are addicted to the harmful drug of sugar.

Heart disease is the cause of one out of every two deaths in the U.S. Over one million Americans die every year from heart diseases, at a cost of over seven billion dollars annually. Recent figures show a slight decrease in the percent of deaths caused by heart problems. We are told that the reason for the slight decrease is improved diet. People are seeing their error and making some changes. If the worldly people are waking up to the benefit of proper diet and exercise, should not the Elect of God do the same? Certainly! I do believe that the Bride of Christ wants some guidance along these lines, but whether we want it or not, we need it.

The following statement is a statement made a few years ago by Dr. D.M. Heigsted, Professor of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, "The diet of the American people has become increasingly rich, rich in meat, and other sources of saturated fat and cholesterol, and in sugar. It should be emphasized that this diet is every where associated with a similar disease pattern (This kind of diet causes disease.) It causes heart disease, certain forms of cancer, diabetes and obesity. These are the major causes of death and disability in the U.S." (End quote)

After a long and hard six-month’s battle with sickness, the Lord has brought this writer into balance by clearly showing me the side of Divine Healing I had been mostly ignoring. As I stated earlier, I have been guilty of paying more attention to the gas and oil I put in my vehicle, than to the food and drink I was putting into God’s Holy Ghost Temple. Thanks be to a merciful God I am now slowly recovering from the damage done over the years. It is being proven to me that a proper diet, made up to a large degree of raw fruit and vegetables, will greatly assist God’s body in healing itself.

May the Lord use this sermon to encourage any who are in need of healing. When we pray and cast out the spirit causing our disease, then see to it that we correct our wrong eating and drinking habits. Miracles will take place. Amen!