Monday, March 4, 2013

Healing

Dr. C. Everett Koop died at age 96 on Feb 25, 2013.  He was the Surgeon General during the Reagan administration.  Dr. Koop was president of Evangelical Ministries and had been for many years an elder at the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pa.  I recently noticed an article that he wrote in a book that I had in my library entitled “The Agony of Deceit”.  He was asked to write this piece for the 1990 book by Michael Horton, editor.  His article is entitled “Faith-Healing and the Sovereignty of God”  Here are a few quotes from the book by this great pediatrician and surgeon-in-chief at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia:

"A surprising number of Christians are convinced God will not be believed unless He makes tumors disappear, causes asthma to go away, and pops eyes into empty sockets.  But the gospel is accepted by God-given faith, not by the guarantee that you will never be sick, or, if you are, that you will be miraculously healed.  God is the Lord of healing, of growing, of weather, of transportation, and of every other process.  Yet, people do not expect vegetables without plowing."

"The proper response of Christians to affliction is not to demand healing but rather to witness to the world that through the grace of God a Christian is able to accept affliction, trusting in the sovereignty of God."

"If it were the sovereign will of God that humans be healed of all illness and of all afflictions, all humans would be immortal.  Isn’t death, after all, the ultimate illness?
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