2 Chronicles 16:12-13 And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great… Here is King Asa with the gout. In defiance of God he sends for certain conjurors or quacks. With the result "And Asa slept with his fathers." That is, the doctors killed him. In this sharp and graphic way the Bible sets forth the truth that you have no right to shut God out from the realm of pharmacy and therapeutics. If Asa had said, "Oh, Lord, I am sick; bless the instrumentality employed for my recovery! Now, servant, go and get the best doctor you can find," he would have recovered. The world wants Divinely directed physicians. Men of the medical profession, we often meet in the home of distress. We meet to-day by the altars of God. As in the nursery children sometimes re-enact all the scenes of the sick-room, so to-day you play that you are the patient and that I am the physician, and take my prescription just once. I. In the first place, I think ALL THE MEDICAL PROFESSION SHOULD BECOME CHRISTIANS BECAUSE OF THE DEBT OF GRATITUDE THEY OWE TO GOD FOR THE HONOUR HE HAS PUT UPON THEIR CALLING. Cicero said: "There is nothing in which men so approach the gods as when they try to give health to other men." II. The medical profession ought to be Christians, BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY TRIALS AND ANNOYANCES IN THAT PROFESSION THAT NEED POSITIVE CHRISTIAN SOLACE. III. The medical profession ought to be Christians, BECAUSE THERE ARE PROFESSIONAL EXIGENCIES WHEN THEY NEED GOD. Asa's destruction by unblessed physicians was a warning. There are awful crises in every medical practice when a doctor ought to know how to pray. I do not mean to say that piety will make up for medical skill A bungling doctor, confounded with what was not a very bad case went into the next room to pray. A skilled physician was called in. He asked for the first practitioner. "Oh!" they said, "he's in the next room praying." "Well." said the skilled doctor, "tell him to come out here and help, he can pray and work at the same time." It was all in that sentence. Do the best we can and ask God to help us. IV. The medical profession ought to be Christians, BECAUSE THERE OPENS BEFORE THEM A GRAND FIELD FOR CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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