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Chapter 6 Two Plans For Healing (God Has His Plan and Man Has His Plan) Concerning the subject at hand, "Two Plans for Healing", it is generally believed that God's plan for healing is entwined with a plan that man has made for healing. Seldom can a person be found who understands that the Holy Scriptures, and our prophet, have separated the two. Perhaps only one out of a million will ever see that man's plan is allowed by God for the world and the nominal church, while God's spiritual plan is for the church who has been born again. When the child of God falls ill, is their situation no better than that of the unbelieving world? Must we too lean upon the "Arm of Flesh" when sickness comes, and yield to the dreaded "Death Sentence" so often pronounced in this hour? Must we submit to the surgeon's knife and give up one of the organs or a part of our flesh that our all wise Father saw that we needed to maintain our health? Must we swallow the bitter portions brewed in the pharmaceutical laboratories and suffer the miserable side effects that most drugs cause? These are not questions to be lightly dismissed, but prayerfully pondered in the light of Holy Writ and the prophet's message. In the beginning of this sermon I will set forth the truth I wish to show, which truth is "Two separate and distinct plans for Healing". One a SPIRITUAL PLAN to be found in the scripture, and one a MAN-MADE PLAN that is not to be found in the scripture. Dear friend, you cannot take God's Word and prove that He intended for us to heal ourselves. He gave no instructions whatsoever concerning how to remove body parts, or mix drugs together and make medicines. When doctors and medicine are mentioned in the scriptures, it is in the way of a WARNING. Luke 8:43, "And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any." It seems that the two facts mentioned in the preceding scripture: the woman's poverty brought on by the high price charged by the physicians, and her continued illness because of their lack of knowledge, are still facts of life today. When Mark spoke of this same woman in Mark 5:26 he said, "And had suffered many things of many physicians----but was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse." How much clearer could God make the warning that we should not entrust ourselves into the hands of man. Psalms 146:3-5, " Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God." God warns again about trusting the physicians in II Chron. 16:10-13, "Then Asa was wroth with the seer and put him in prison. For he was in a rage with him----." Verse 12, "And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great. Yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians." Verse 13, "And Asa slept with his fathers and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign." Can you see the warning here Little Eagle? What need has man for a physician when he is trusting the Lord? The physician is for those whose faith, for what ever reason, is not anchored in God the Healer. And yet again in Jerm. 8:15-22, God sets forth His warning. "We looked for peace but no good came, and for a time of HEALTH and behold trouble." Verse 17, "For behold I will send serpents and cockatrices among you (demons of sickness) that will not be charmed (no doctor or medicine will stop them), and they shall bite you saith the Lord." Verse 19, "Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her King in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images and with strange vanities?" Now remember what Verse 15 says. They were looking for HEALTH and only found more trouble. Verse 21, "For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt. I am black. Astonishment hath taken hold on Me." Why Lord? Why are you so astonished? What are you warning your people about? He tells us in Verse 22, "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the HEALTH of My people recovered?" Again they were not healed because they ignored their physician in Zion and turned to man-made vanities. To turn from the Great Physician to man-made vanities provoked Him to anger. In Jerm. 46:1-11, the Word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the Prophet could not be plainer. "Go up into GILEAD and take balm, o virgin, the daughter of Egypt. In vain shalt thou use many MEDICINES, for thou shalt not be cured." We have been taught that true God-called prophets do not contradict each other. If Jeremiah of old stated that healing was not meant to come from MEDICINES, then what did our modern day prophet declare? Did he state it differently than Jeremiah? QUOTE: DEMONOLOGY, PAGE 37, "Now I salute every doctor, God bless them for the help they have been for the people. I thank God for medical science. But, let me tell you something----there is not one speck of MEDICINE that ever did cure any sickness. And there is not one doctor, unless he is a quack, that will tell you he is a healer. There is one Healer, that is God." (End quote) So we see that the two prophets agree. But now comes the great stumbling block for most Message Believers. No doubt most of you have been saying in your heart since you started to read this message, "But Brother Branham went to doctors and also took his family to doctors." And so I must ask you a question. Are you following the Kentuckian, or the Word Message that he brought? Do you recall the last sermon "DEITY SPIRITS AND HUMAN PROPHETS"? Do you recall some of the things that we could not follow Brother Branham in? But let me hurry on to say that Brother Branham had a reason for using doctors. He knew that people were trying to make him God. He knew they were following every move he made, and everything he did. He knew that thousands who did not have the faith to trust God for healing would try and follow his example and suffer and die. But when it came time for the Word to be revealed about this subject, He had no choice but to preach the truth. His ministry was to reveal the Mysteries. It was revealed to him that God did not make man to be doctored on. QUOTE: UNCERTAIN SOUND, DEC. 18, 1960, JEFF., PAGE 5, "Man, in the beginning, when God made him, He didn't make him to be DOCTORED (on). He had his own doctoring in him. He was equipped. He was a unit of his own. Then healing does not come from any outside resource, it has to come from the inside. Now we can take outside aids (If we want to.) such as to kill germs, or whatever it is in us. Or we can take our hands and cut on each other, and take a piece out, like an appendix, or a bad tooth or something (else). But healing does not come from anything that you apply. Healing only comes by the power that's in yourself----. Now listen close and think hard before you pass your thought (judgment) on this." (End quote) The prophet knew, and we also know, that God allows medical science. Brother Branham did not teach that God wants it to be abolished. He knew it has it's place. We know that it can be a TEMPORARY HELP to man, but we also know that it is a snare that leads away from the revealed Word. QUOTE: GOD OF THIS EVIL AGE, PAGE 41, "It's a God of this evil earth, and she had built colleges. She has built universities, she has built HOSPITALS --- she has built all these things for the TEMPORARY help of man. JUST ENOUGH TO DECEIVE THEM INTO GETTING OFF THAT WORD." "And what has she led them to? The whole church world is plunged into death----. Come out of it people. Don't you be caught in there. You get away from that thing as quick as you can." "By her scientific knowledge she has been able to do this without God's Word. God never did ordain us to go out and have schools. He never did. (Brother Branham did not advocate doing away with schools. He just said when they disagree with the Word don't believe them.) CONT. QUOTE, PAGE 41, "He never told us to build hospitals. They are good." (End quote) (Brother Branham didn't teach doing away with hospitals. He just said they are for that other group.) QUOTE: THINGS THAT ARE TO BE, DEC. 5, 1965, "So our schools and things are a blow up. God never said go forth and make schools, or even have Bible schools. Did you know that? He said preach the Word, exactly right. Our educational systems take us further away from God than anything I know of. Not build schools and hospitals and so forth, THAT WAS FOR THE WORLD AND THAT GROUP. I aint got nothing against them. They play their part." (There is the balance: not against them, not condemning people that use them, but this is a message to the Bride.) CONT. QUOTE: "----They play their part, but that is still not there. (Still not God's Word and plan for the Elect.) We build a hospital ever so good, and practice with the best medicine we've got and thousands die daily." "Where now we struggle so hard to find through science---- the more scientific we get the more DEATH we bring to ourselves." (What should we do then, Prophet of God?) "We are fighting a loosing battle there, so turn loose of it and by faith believe Jesus Christ the Son of God." (End quote) Our motive is not to condemn any person for the use of medical science, but rather to point out the two plans and the author of each. It is to show the possibility of trusting God's plan as being separate from man's plan, and being healed by His Word only. (Prov. 4:20-22) There cannot be a more serious and solemn Word concerning the question under discussion than that in Jeremiah 17:1-7, "The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond. It is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your alters----." What is this great sin that was graven so permanently on the hearts of God's children? What had they done that caused God to discontinue their heritage and turn them over to serve their enemies? Verse 5 tells us in no uncertain words what the sin was that caused God to give their substance, and all their treasures, to the spoil. "Thus saith the Lord, CURSED BE THE MAN THAT TRUSTEH IN MAN, AND MAKETH FLESH HIS ARM, AND WHOSE HEART DEPARTETH FROM THE LORD." Their sin was that their trust in man had turned their hearts away from God. To the same degree that we turn to man, so have our hearts been turned from God! VERSE 6, "For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited." On the other hand, VERSE 7 says, "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is." Over and over the Bible warns us about misplacing our faith and becoming Double Minded. "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8) Why is a double minded man unstable? Jesus explained why in Matt. 6:24, "No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." (Mammon is the world and it's man-made knowledge and wisdom.) Again James says in James 4:8, "Draw nigh unto God and He will draw nigh unto you. Cleanse your hands you sinners and PURIFY YOUR HEARTS YOU DOUBLE MINDED." A heart is only pure when it's faith is toward Christ. The Bible says, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the WAYS OF DEATH." (Prov. 14:12) This scripture explains why more people are dying in this age, percentage wise, than in all other ages, and this in spite of all the advances in medical science. We have left the WORD and turned to the traditions of men. In Christian circles our Fathers and our Forefathers, have taught that the Church must combine faith in God with faith in medical science. I know that the vast majority of you readers believe this emphatically. Therefore, I would respectfully ask you if you believe the following portions of the prophet's message? QUOTE: DEMONOLOGY, PAGE 37, "The whole armor of God is our FAITH. We haven't got one NATURAL THING of this world that we can depend on. Everything of the Christian is a faith act. Everything supernatural, nothing natural. So we don't look at things natural, because we are operating in the supernatural." (End quote) QUOTE:THE ABSOLUTE, PAGE 33, "The churches build hospitals, that's all right. We appreciate that. BUT GOD NEVER REQUIRED IT. HE SAID PREACH THE GOSPEL." (End quote) QUOTE: INVISIBLE UNION, PAGE 16, "Not make institutions and HOSPITALS and so forth. Those are all right, BUT THAT IS NOT THE CHURCHES DUTY. Their duty is to preach the Gospel." (End quote) But, Brother Branham, we believe that God gave the doctors the knowledge they need to heal us. Let the Prophet answer you. QUOTE: GOD OF THIS EVIL AGE, PAGE 30, "Satan, the God of this evil age, by his KNOWLEDGE, causing the people to eat from his tree of good and evil, he says he is building a greater civilization by his KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. But Christ's little Virgin Word Flock don't care for his KNOWLEDGE. She keeps free from him." (End quote) I Cor. 1:19, "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." Verse 20, "Where is the wise? (Are they not dying also?) Where is the Scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" But Brother Branham the whole Christian world teaches that we are to rely on both man and God. QUOTE: GOD OF THIS EVIL AGE, PAGE 31, "And knowledge causes death. What caused death in the Garden of Eden? Knowledge! It can't be of God, so it's of the Devil." Page 44, "You've got to worship EITHER THE GOD OF KNOWLEDGE-----you can rely on what you hear by knowledge, or rely on GOD'S WORD BY FAITH." QUOTE: GOD OF THIS EVIL AGE, PAGE 44, "Oh people of this U.S. where this message is going, flee as hard as you can from this knowledge, and (from) this scientific age that we are living in. Flee to the WORD OF GOD." (End quote) QUOTE: GOD OF THIS EVIL AGE, PAGE 46, "You can't mix knowledge with God's Word. It's faith (in God) not knowledge." (End quote) Is our prophet following the WORD when he makes such statements? Ps.118:8, "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in MAN." Ps. 60:11, "Give us help from trouble, for VAIN IS THE HELP OF MAN." Ps. 108:12-13, "Give us help from trouble, FOR VAIN IS THE HELP OF MAN. Through God we shall do valiantly, for He it is that shall tread down our enemies." Isa. 30:1, "Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me, and that cover with covering, but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin." Verse 2, "That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at My mouth----." Egypt in the scriptures is a type of the world and sin, and over and over God warns His people against trusting in these things. It is beyond dispute, for those who know the scriptures, that God's plan for healing is a spiritual plan. It always has to do with our faith and trust in Him. He instructed Moses to raise a brass serpent on a pole. The people were to look in faith, then live. Naaman was told to dip in the muddy waters of Jordan to heal his leprous sores. Hardly a wise thing in the natural; it was a spiritual plan. The scriptures tell us to anoint with oil, call the elders, and that the prayer of faith will save the sick. We are told to lay hands on the sick and they shall recover, always a spiritual plan. You may ask, "What is wrong with trusting both God and man?" Namely this: it constitutes a divided loyalty. It leads to a time and place, in many instances, where our faith in man must ALL be transferred to God or we die. I refer to the death sentence that the doctors so often are forced to pronounce on their patients. We all know that when the doctor gives you up there is an immediate void in your faith. The truth is that not many people are ever able to recover from this blow. They are never able to trust GOD ONLY. For this reason it should be evident that faith that has to be transferred was misplaced in the beginning. Faith placed in Jesus Christ never has to be moved. Knowing beforehand the controversy this sermon will arouse, I still maintain that to preach one hundred percent faith in Jesus Christ cannot be proven wrong with the Word. It is also the message of the hour preached by a prophet. QUOTE: GOD OF THIS EVIL AGE, PAGES 30-31, "Knowledge and civilization, and true Christianity has nothing in common --- and knowledge causes death ---What caused death in the Garden of Eden? Knowledge! Well, it can't be of God, so it's of the devil. Whew! Was that a good one! Knowledge, science, and education is the greatest hindrance that God ever had. It is of the devil. Now I will get some letters on that I know. I'm waiting for them." "Look what culture has got us into now. Look what it has done. Where are we at? We've leaned to those things through our own understanding, by science." (End quote) And so we conclude that there are two plans for healing: God's plan and man's plan. It is this writer's opinion that our Lord wants to bring His Bride back to His plan, back to His Word. He has not changed since He said in Ps. 107:20, "He sent His Word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction." The world is full of diseases that man cannot heal! Does the Bride have to succumb to these so-called incurable diseases? No! By no means. God has sent His Word to heal us. Can we believe it? |
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