English transcript

So what happens when the body's not working well?

What happens when it's something as serious as cancer?

I'd like to go back to Romans chapter 12

and I'd like to have a look at verse 2.

It says, be not conformed to this world.

So what does it mean by this world?

Would it mean by the way this world eats and drinks and lives?

Which is totally opposite to God's way of eating and drinking and living.

I'd like to suggest so.

And I know that at our health retreat,

many people who come to us are sick

and some have cancer.

And some come to us when they get cancer

and they've been given the alternatives of what the world would offer

which is surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy.

And then they have a look

and I must certainly add that sometimes surgery may be necessary.

But in many cases people have a look at what's to offer

and they look at the side effects of chemotherapy.

They look at the side effects of radiotherapy

and they think, sometimes the cure is worse than the actual disease.

But unfortunately many people don't know what else to do.

In page 127 of the Ministry of Healing

and I see that the book's up the back,

one of my favorite books, one of my first health books.

On page 127 it's in the chapter The Physician and Educator.

Did you know that the word doctor, physician means teacher?

So in the chapter The Physician and Educator, page 127,

it says the only hope of better things

is the education of people in right principles.

I'd like to suggest, and I think you'll agree with me,

many people are sick through ignorance.

They don't realize.

So I'm going to weave the story of Elizabeth Cott

all through this lecture today.

Elizabeth Cott was having pain in her abdomen.

Elizabeth Cott was early 60s.

She went to the doctor, he did a scan.

He said, you have three tumors in your abdomen.

He said, they're very aggressive.

I suggest that you begin chemotherapy immediately.

That will shrink the tumors

and then we possibly will be able to do surgery.

She said, what it is a good thing to say,

thank you so much for your advice.

I'm going to go home and seriously consider this.

That's why it's very important to consider your options.

2 Timothy 1 verse 7, God says,

I've not given you the spirit of fear,

but of power, of love, and a sound mind.

A sound mind considers these things.

Earlier in the week when we looked at depression,

we looked at the sound mind.

We determined that it's right here in the front of the brain.

It's where our reason and our intellect

and our judgment takes place

and it's where our decisions are made.

When you realize that,

you realize that God designed that every decision we make

should be made according to reason, intellect, and judgment.

I don't know about you,

but I need divine help with my decisions.

God has given us the ability to choose him.

When we choose God, we choose life.

When we choose God, we choose everything that is good.

When we choose him, we choose life.

That's where we choose him.

Earlier this morning, I gave God my prefrontal cortex.

I said, Father, I need your wisdom today.

I need your wisdom to know what decisions to make.

I need your wisdom to know what to say

because he knows each one of us so personally.

And right at this point, I'd like to introduce you to a psalm

before we go back to Elizabeth Cott.

It's Psalm 139 where the Bible says,

O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me.

And then the next verse says,

thou hast compassed my path

and art acquainted with all my ways.

Verse 4 says,

There's not a word in my tongue,

but thou, Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

Thou hast set me behind and before

and hast laid thy hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is high. I cannot attain it.

Whither shall I go from thy presence?

Or whither shall I flee from thy spirit?

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there.

If I make my bed in hell, thou art there.

If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

even there shall thy hand lead me

and thy right hand shall hold me.

If I say, surely the darkness will cover me,

even the night shall be light about thee.

For the darkness hideth not from thee,

but the night shineth as the day.

There's nowhere we can go,

but God is there.