Healing and Doctors
Bob Yandian
Let’s look at what the word of God has to say about doctors. So often when divine healing is taught, never is there a mention of doctors. Never is there a mention of the human element that God has placed in this earth. I am for doctors, I believe that God has placed them here to assist in healing.
Doctors can’t heal you, but they can help get you healed. Any doctor should admit that healing comes from God or that healing comes from nature. They cannot heal you; they can only help. They can only assist nature, healing has to come from God.
The Great Physician
Exodus 15:26, “I am the Lord that heals you.” The Hebrew word is Jehovah Rapha. And Rapha does not only mean healer, but it means the Lord our physician. God would never tie His name to something unholy, something unrighteous. God calls Himself a shepherd, God calls Himself an architect, God calls Himself a builder, God calls Himself a provider. He calls Himself our Father, but He also calls Himself the Great Physician.
He comes as the Lord our Physician. He is our Healer. In fact, there’s another place where God calls Himself our physician. In Jeremiah 8:22 it says there, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” The balm here was talking about a medicine. God was referring to a medicine. “Is there no medicine for the people?” He also goes on to say, “Is there no physician there?” (Jeremiah 8:22). He was referring to the healing of the nation of Israel, and He called Himself a physician and called His word medicine. The same thing is found in the book of Proverbs chapter four, that His word is medicine to us.
Healing is in Nature
Creation shows us God’s attitude toward sickness. Look around you. Even nature teaches you that God is a healing God. Satan did not make nature; God did. And He put teaching in nature to show us that He wants us healed. Plants and animals are our food. Plants and animals also are our clothing. Nature also keeps us well. You look at nature, and it’s built in there.
Think about this—plants, trees, all around us, and us, we both exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide. We breathe out carbon dioxide, and nature breathes it in. Nature breathes out oxygen, and we breathe it in. God has placed nature around us not only to keep us well but too keep us alive. This is God’s desire.
Medicines to help cure sickness and disease come from plants around us and from animals around us. Aspirin is found in willow trees, and it’s been in willow trees since the Garden of Eden. It just took us this long to find it out. Science found it because God has placed within nature the healing ability to keep us well.
Doctors are not against the will of God. They are for the will of God. Thank God for doctors. Thank God for born again doctors. But mostly, thank God for doctors that understand they really can’t heal. They can only assist nature in healing. Only one true Healer exists, and that’s God Himself. The God who made us is the God who wants us well. He’s the God who heals us and this is seen around us.
Over the years there have been many teaching and even believing that doctors are not of God. Yes, they are. Is it wrong to go to the doctor? No. It’s not wrong to go to a minister to get saved. It’s not wrong for you to go to a minister to get spiritual help. Oh, yes, you could go directly to God, and it will work. But sometimes we need people’s help to help point us in the right direction.
Thank God for Doctors
There was a time back years ago when I was ministering in Ireland. My wife and I went to minister for a friend over there in the church, and something was wrong. When I was going over on the plane, I just felt something inside of me pressing against the outside. I ended up at a hospital in Ireland. They took an X-ray and said, “Right here. It’s a tumor in your colon, and this thing is growing fast.” And they said, “This thing is really not good. And we need to take it out immediately.”
I said, “No. I’m going to go home and have it taken out.”
On the way back, my wife and I were talking on the airplane. And I said, “Honey, I prayed about this.”
And she said, “So did I.”
And I said, “I’m supposed to go to the doctor.”
And she said, “Yes, you are.” She said, “I was going to pray for healing and the Lord said, ‘No, I’m going to work through a doctor this time.’”
Isn’t it good to listen to God? I got back and called my doctor. He said, “We need to go in right now.”
The Lord told me two things. He said number one is this surgery usually takes four hours. It’s going to last an hour and a half. Next, they are afraid because it’s been growing so rapidly. And what they won’t tell you is they think it’s spreading to your body. But it’s totally encapsulated. When they cut it out, it’ll be totally gone, and there’ll be no more traces of cancer in you.
When I came to, my doctor came to me and said, “This was just amazing.” He said, “We thought this was going to take four hours. It took an hour and a half.” He said, “We thought this thing had probably spread through your system, but it was still encapsulated. And we cut it out and there’s not a trace of cancer left in you.”
I came back for checkups after that and was cancer free every time. Wonderful! But you see, that’s what God did. Those two doctors went to my church. I had them stand up and thanked them in front of the entire congregation for accepting the call to be a doctor and help open doors we couldn’t open.
Open Doors
And I found in our church, if we’re going to send missions groups out, it’s best to put doctors with them because they can open up doors that other people can’t open up. They can work on people, or dentists can take teeth out and get them saved at the same time, accepting Jesus.
If God doesn’t like doctors, why did He put one with Paul and they traveled together? Luke and Paul made a team. Don’t you know that Luke could open up doors when they got there being a physician? They were leery of apostles, but the two worked together. God had a doctor write two books of the Bible in the New Testament. Luke and Acts were written by Luke.
Whether it’s through medicine, a doctor, or God heals us, it all comes from God in the first place. He made nature around us.
