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HE FOLLOWING Bible reading has been much blessed of God, as I have given it in different sections of the country. I find that the people everywhere are desiring to know Christ better in His power to heal the sick.

      For my own part I cannot see how we can believe the Bible to be the very word of God and reject the doctrine of healing. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He did heal the sick and He is the same now.

      We read in Heb., 13:8, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever."

      I have recently read this sentence, which I fully endorse: "It is the opinion of many of God's children that as the present dispensation draws to its close there will be among the spiritually minded and consecrated ones of the church a reproduction of the gifts of Pentecost for a last testimony to the world before Christ comes in glory." There is much Scripture that might be quoted to sustain this opinion.

      In our own church in Omaha we have had a number of remarkable cases of healing. And our people believe this truth as much as they believe the doctrine of pardon.

      However, I want it distinctly understood that our faith in Christ as a healer is not by any means to be confounded with Christian Science. That, in our judgment, is the devil's own work. We have not taken leave of our senses, nor will we put false constructions on the word of God.

      Mrs. Eddy's doctrine may be summed up in these remarkable statements, all of which we reject and abhor from our very heart: "Evil is not; sin, sickness and death are unreal; matter and the mortal body are nothing but a belief and an illusion. There is neither a personal Deity, a personal devil, nor a personal man."

      The word of God and common sense contradict every one of these propositions.

      But again we emphasize, We do reverence the word of God; on that we stand though the heavens fall."

      1. Sickness and bodily ailment are from the devil; disease is a part of the law of sin and death.--Mark, 5:1-8; Luke, 13:11-16; Acts, 10:38; First Cor., 12:9.

      2. Christ came to destroy the works of the devil. The work of God is to save, heal and bless humanity.--Isa., 40:28-31; Isa., 59:19; Matt., 12:15; First Cor., 15:26; Heb., 2:14; First John, 3:8.

      3. We claim healing on the ground of the atoning sacrifice. John, 19:30, has often been called the key to healing.--Isa., 53:4-5; Psalms, 103:3; Matt., 8:16-17; First Tim., 1:10; First Peter, 2:24.

      4. God has entered into a perpetual covenant to heal His people.--Exodus, 15:26; Psalms, 89:34; Luke, 10-17-20.

      5. From the word of God it would appear to be the privilege of God's people to enjoy perfect and perpetual health.--Psalms, 91; Romans, 8:2-11, 21-23; First Thess., 5:22-24; Romans, 12:1; First Cor., 6:19-20; Second Cor., 4:11.

      6. The gift of healing has always been in the church. --First Cor., 12:9.

      It is very interesting to read the history of God's true people throughout the past with regard to this matter. God has not left Himself without witnesses.

      The case of Dorothea Trudel, in Switzerland, is of great interest. Her mother was a Godly woman, who took the Lord alone as her physician.

      Dorothea herself was attacked when 4 years old with smallpox and was almost blinded by it, while her brother, who was 14, was seized with epilepsy. Her mother trusted the Lord and both recovered in a short time.

      When Dorothea came to womanhood she engaged in the culture of flowers. Four of her workmen became seri-

ously ill; they grew worse under the care of the physician until their case became alarming.

      She laid the matter earnestly and believingly before the Lord and all recovered.

      Her prayers in other cases were so signally answered that the wife of a nobleman urged her to open her house to receive the sick. She finally did so. Other houses were filled with the blind, lame and deaf.

      She was prosecuted by the physicians of her country and the lower courts went against her. Then her counselor, Mr. Spondlin, of Zurich, made a powerful speech in her behalf and won his case.

      Dorothea Trudel promised no one a cure, nor would she pronounce any sickness incurable, but said to each patient, "If you only believe you may be healed by prayer. Let God decide."

      Miss Trudel felt that she, herself, must be fully consecrated. She aimed primarily at spiritual results in her patients. She believed disease to be aggravated if not caused by sin.

      She desired the patient to pray with her for healing. She prescribed no medicine, but anointed with oil and laid on hands with prayer, though she did not neglect all natural auxiliaries.

      Her patients were most carefully and wisely nursed. She did not claim to be clothed with any miraculous power. She said God often healed the sick, but that no one could tell in advance what God would see to be for His glory in a particular case.

      The case of Pastor Blumhart, of Germany, as a witness for God along the line of this great truth, is widely known. He believed the Bible implicitly, and felt that he ought, as far as possible, to demonstrate it.

      Being a man of deep piety, the sick were brought to him for his prayers. At first the gates of prayer were closed to him, but he kept on praying for eighteen months, when the Lord answered him, and he was wonderfully used in the healing of the sick.

      He said his case was like the man spoken of in the Scripture, whose friend came to him at midnight and

asked for three loaves. He asked, and received, and passed it on to his friend.

      Drs. Gordon and Cullis, of Boston, were both much used in the healing of the sick. Their history and labors are well known.

      Christ commissioned His disciples to heal.
      The Disciples--Matt., 10:1-8; Luke, 9:1.
      The Seventy--Luke, 10:1-9.
      The Believer--Mark, 17-18.
      Means to be used. Not physicians nor medicines, --Jer., 17:5 and 46:11; II Chron., 16:11-13.
      But laying on hands.--Mark, 16:18.
      Anointing with oil.--James, 5:14.
      And the prayer of faith.--James, 5:15.
      Will Christ heal now?--Heb., 13:8.

"The healing of His seamless dress
      Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life's throng and press,
      And we are whole again."

      II Cor., 7:1, "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."

UR SUBJECT tonight is "Why I Fight Tobacco." People have a right to know my reasons for my position on this subject. We do not take people into this church who use the weed, and wherever I go I fight the habit with all my might, and it is only fair and right that I should let people know why I do this.

      Before I give my reasons allow me to say that the tobacco habit is very common. Thousands use it. They dip, or chew, or smoke, and sometimes they do all three. Old men, with bent forms and snow-white hair, are slaves to the habit. Only the other day, at Seward, an old man 87 years of age gave up smoking, giving me his pipe as a souvenir.

      Men in their prime, proud of their sense and will, indulge. The young man knocking at the doors of society has his hair and his watch chain parted in the middle and the omnipresent cigar in his mouth.

      Little boys of 8 and 10 years of age think it a manly thing to be found smoking.

      Pimps and prostitutes use tobacco, and what is most remarkable, professors of religion and members of churches use it, and even ministers of the Gospel are by no means free from this practice. I have heard of one minister who had a spittoon in the pulpit, and he would throw the quid he had been chewing into the spittoon and read from the Bible for the morning lesson, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

      Men have reasons for using tobacco, but in my opinion these reasons will never stand the test of judgment. Sam Jones told me he smoked for corns and chewed tobacco so he could spit yellow. Others use tobacco as an antidote to fat; but walking as an exercise will beat

tobacco for that purpose and will leave no bad effects. Try it!

      A certain eminent minister used tobacco for its soothing, restful effect, but he quit it and went to Christ for rest. Christ does not need the weed or a drug to help Him out.

      Many use the weed because they have learned the habit when young, having been taught it by bad boys, or they were taught the vile practice by men who lacked both sense and principle. The habit fastened on them and they are slaves.

      Others tell me they use it for toothache and neuralgia. But in my judgment many use it because they like it.

      While a large number have inherited the craving for tobacco from their parents, many use it for the same reason that men use liquor, or opium, or any other harmful drug. They like the bewitching narcotic.

      1. I have never yet found a man who would advise me to begin the use of tobacco, but the wisest and best men speak against the practice.

      Benjamin Franklin said, "I never saw man in the exercise of common sense who would say that tobacco did him any good."

      Thomas Jefferson said, in speaking of the culture of tobacco, "It is a culture productive of infinite wretchedness."

      Horace Greeley said, "It is a profane stench."

      Daniel Webster said, "If those men must smoke, let them take the horse-shed."

      2. Again, it is very uncleanly.

      It pollutes whatever it touches. I have been told that the tobacco worm, the filthiest of all worms, eats it, and the rock goat of Africa, the filthiest of all animals, enjoys it--and dirty men cling to it.

      The beautiful white snow in winter is stained by the tobacco juice from some loafer's vile mouth. The railroad coaches, on which so much money is expended for

cleanliness, are often pools of filth. And the floor of God's house is often the cuspidore for the men who must chew every precious minute of their lives. The tobacco habit is filthy.

      3. My third point is--it is very expensive.

      There are two kinds of tobacco, the cheap and the costly. The cheap kind is composed of a compound of burdock, lampblack and a little bad tobacco. If you make any pretension to being a man you will not smoke that stuff. But what is called the first-rate tobacco is very expensive. I find many men who are too poor to take a religious paper which costs $2.00 a year, but they never hesitate to pay $15.00 for plug tobacco every year.

      A man in New York, 30 years old, smoked six cigars a day. He decided to save that sum. This money he placed on compound interest and it remained there for thirty years. At that time it amounted to $29,103.00. With this money he bought a handsome country residence for his family.

      In our own country we burn up for cigars alone more than one hundred millions of dollars annually, and a noted authority in the city of Chicago says that the people of the United States pay out every year for tobacco, in all its forms, $700,000,000.00. And if the money was all we wasted we would not say a word.

      4. Again, tobacco is an awful tyrant.

      This weed has conquered wherever it has gone. It sprang up in Yucatan, on this continent, a good many years ago. It crossed the Atlantic Ocean and captured Spain. Then it put its hand on Portugal. Then the French minister thought it would be a nice thing for his people, so he took it to France. Sir Walter Raleigh took it to England and it captured the English.

      When once this vile weed has seized a man he is in its clutches. Men sometimes choose tobacco instead of bread.

      I have lately talked to an old soldier who lay for some time in one of the southern prisons. The prisoners had a pound of corn bread issued to them daily, but there were no regular rations of tobacco issued. Oh, how the

© 2003 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole Miller.