God’s Word Is Medicine

(In my book Healing Is For You! I cover the whole subject of healing from God and many of the avenues to receiving that healing, as well as the hindrances to receiving it. Chapter Four of that book discusses seven of the means God has ordained as tools to help us receive His healing virtue into our bodies and souls. One of those means is His Word. This article is an excerpt from Chapter Four of the book and deals with the Word as medicine. I offer it here as an encouragement to any who are facing disease or deterioration in their bodies (or souls). Even if you have found your situation to be particularly resistant to change, this method offers hope beyond what other means can offer.)

TAKING THE WORD AS MEDICINE

Of all the means by which we can receive healing from our Lord, I think this one excites me the most. God has a medicine that works for every disease, injury, deformity, or deterioration in the human body. It also works healing in the human soul – that part of us that incorporates our mind, will, and emotions. {Don’t get the soul confused with the spirit. The Word says that God, who is Spirit, created us in His own image. So we’re first and foremost spirit beings. The Bible sometimes refers to this part of a man as his “heart.” But that spirit – which is the part of us that is born again when Jesus comes in – also has a soul and a body that carry out its will, and the Word sees them as separate and distinct parts of each human being. “… and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1Thessalonians 5:23)}.

But back to the medicine: Our dear Great Physician does not need a pharmacy. He has created one medicine for us, and it will accomplish a complete cure for any illness or infirmity of body or soul. It has absolutely no negative side effects. It has no expiration date. And it will never drain our finances. God’s medicine is His very own Word.

Proverbs 4:20-22 says:

“My son, give attention to my words; incline thine heart unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they [my words] are life to those who find them and health to their whole body.”

The word health here is also the Hebrew word for medicine. So we have a promise here that the very words spoken by God will work on our flesh like physical medicine. Internationally known Bible teacher Derek Prince, who ministered throughout the world for decades, has often shared his personal testimony of how he became totally convinced that God had made provision for healing His people. He said that this one Scripture in Proverbs did the most to help him, because “it was one healing Scripture that no one could spiritualize by insisting that it did not refer to physical healing.”

That attempt to spiritualize all healing scriptures been a problem in our western culture. I say the “western” culture, because the truth is that thousands of people in other cultures all over the world have no problem believing God heals. They believe in all kinds of spiritual manifestations – both Godly and demonic – so they are not open to the traditions of western men who would like to rob them of their faith in the supernatural and relegate them to nothing but man’s efforts at practicing medicine.

(I think perhaps it’s important here to take a detour and clarify a point that is made in chapter one of the book. That entire chapter, entitled “Jesus Is Our Doctor,” is in an earlier post on this blog. The point referred to is this: Medical science is, in no way, God’s designated substitute for what Jesus did when He was on earth – or what God did for His covenant people under the Old Covenant. Medical science is nothing but man’s best effort to help himself. Will God work through those efforts? Certainly. If our faith is at the place where we believe we need the intervention of man for our health, then God, who wants us well more than we want to be well, will use whatever means we allow Him to use. But that does not mean that we should encourage people to stay on the level of being totally dependent on man’s means. The best physicians in the world freely admit that the efforts of medical science are not enough to eradicate, or even overcome, sickness and disease on this planet. Physicians do what they can, but they inevitably come face-to-face with that which they cannot cure. And in the worst scenarios, their treatments have brought about death in their patients. So we must be careful not to discourage people from feeding on God’s Word and allowing it to create faith for His healing in their lives. God simply has a better way to health than man’s imperfect efforts.  And if Jesus truly is “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” and He healed every single person who came to Him for healing – without exception – then He will do the same today.)

The truth is that the Word of God is able to heal our bodies because it is able to change our flesh.  And why not? It was that very Word that created the matter out of which our flesh is made. The first chapter of John’s Gospel tells us that the Word was with God and was God and that all things were made by Him (that Word). It then tells us that the same Word became flesh. Then the first chapter of Hebrews tell us that God originally made and continues to uphold the entire world by His Word. Then Hebrews 11:3 tells us again that the world was made by the Word of God and that “what we see was not made out of things which are visible.”

So think about it: Genesis 2:7 tells us that God made man’s physical body out of the dust of the ground (that dust that was created out of nothing but His Word). Then he says that he created woman’s body out of the bone of man – still the same substance. So the physical bodies we live in are nothing but the substance created out of God’s living Word. Well, no wonder that same Word can change those physical bodies, destroying rebellious cells and creating brand new healthy ones in their place.

Then Hebrews 4:12 adds,“The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and morrow …”

How interesting that it enters into the very morrow of our body. That is the root source of our blood and cell production. Every new cell manufactured in our bodies is made in that bone morrow. Can you see that the Word in the very manufacturing center of a human body can completely remake that whole body?

So how do we get it to work? The more we study the Word, meditate on it, and speak it out of our mouth, the more it works its way into our whole system, producing its life there. However, when we are facing a specific physical problem, we can take doses of this priceless medicine just like we do a prescription from a human doctor. I have done this so often and know of many other believers who have done the same. Taking the Word of God as medicine has cured migraine headaches, kidney infections, paralysis from strokes, broken bones, cancer, tuberculosis, mental deficiencies, and multitudes of other illnesses of body and soul.

Find the healing Scriptures that relate to your particular malady, or the ones that speak to your own spirit, and begin to read them or speak them to your body. Put your own name into them.  They were written for you. You may need to take a dose three or four times a day. In a particularly critical case, I have known believers to read their Scriptures every fifteen minutes for several days.

Derek Prince, whom I mentioned earlier, has shared his personal testimony of a physical problem that even a long hospital stay could not cure. His doctors told him they had to discharge him without being cured, and that he must be sure to stay away from extreme heat and moisture, because those two things would seriously aggravate his problem. Unfortunately, his work where he was stationed in the armed forces required him to spend most of his days in just those two conditions. Nevertheless, by the time he was diagnosed, he had come to believe that God’s Word could be taken as medicine. So every day for several months, he set aside time after each meal and read the Word of God – just as if he were taking a doctor’s prescription. At the end of those months, his body was complete free of the disease, and he was totally well.

Dr. Lillian Yeomans, a medical doctor who was healed personally and walked away from her medical practice to minister healing through God’s Word, had a patient in the last stages of tuberculosis. She began to read her Scriptures from Deuteronomy 28, which referred to her specific condition, and read most of the day for several days. The patient, who was almost dead and virtually without faith for healing to begin with, gradually became strong enough to read for herself, and as she did so, the Word itself created faith in her heart. Suddenly, one day, the reality of her healing exploded in her heart, and she jumped from her bed completely healed by the Word of God.

I have had many personal experience of using the word as medicine successfully. One of those times concerned a relative who was experiencing some very alarming physical problems. One day he suddenly began having severe chest pain and feeling extremely weak and sleepy. By the next day, he could hardly stay awake at all, and when he was awake, his speech was sluggish and slurred. He had a personal physician whom he saw periodically, but in this case his decision was that he wanted to receive his healing from the Lord rather than to go through all the medical channels. I prayed and called on several other believers for agreeing prayer. The symptoms persisted, and my relative lay in bed, almost constantly asleep. He was unable to stay up and alert for any lengthy periods. As I sat beside his bed on the worst day, praying and speaking the Word, the Lord quickened to me His Word from Psalm 118: 16-17. I grasped it like a life preserver, which it was. I knew the promise was for this man as much as for anyone because the Word says that every promise is already answered ‘yes’ in Jesus. (2 Cor. 1:20). So I put his name into the Scripture and began to speak it to him: “The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. Richard shall not die, but live, and tell of the works of the Lord.” I realized that this one verse had everything in it that he needed at the time. It covered his need for life to drive out death, which was obviously at work, and his need for complete restoration of his speaking faculties.

I spoke that Word to him consistently throughout the day, whether he was waking or sleeping. I sat beside the bed for long periods of time, speaking it over and over and over. By the next day, he showed definite improvement. I continued to speak God’s Word, and he continued to improve, reading and speaking the Word for himself as well. By the following week, he was back to normal, and for the rest of his long life, never had a recurrence of that problem. Nor could his doctors find any cause or need for treatment concerning it later on.

One of the most rapid healings I ever received personally by applying the Word as medicine was for an abscessed tooth. When I awoke early one morning to prepare to go teach school, I noticed a severe pain in and around a broken tooth in my upper right jaw. I couldn’t stand to eat on it, so I had something warm to drink, took a dose of the most potent pain killer I could buy over the counter, and went on to work. I also took along a bottle of medication to apply topically to my tooth and gums. You may ask, “Didn’t you pray?” Yes, I did pray, but it was more or less on the run. I was blessed to be teaching in a Christian school, so I asked for prayer at work also.

However, by the time my first class was over, the pain was going all over my jaw, up the whole right side of my head, and part way down my neck. It was the most excruciating, indescribable pain I’ve ever experienced. I applied and re-applied the topical medication, with no appreciable benefit at all. I took a second dose of painkiller as soon as the time limit on the bottle would allow – again with no effect. By 11:30 that morning, the pain had become so debilitating that I could no longer function at work, so I went home – barely able to concentrate on my driving. I had the overwhelming conviction in my heart that if I could just close myself away with the Word of God for a while, I would receive my healing. (Often we receive when believers lay hands on us or when we are in a meeting where faith is high and the gifts of healing and working of miracles are in manifestation. However, when we don’t have those opportunities – or they don’t seem to bring the manifestations we need – the Word is still reliable as a sure source of God’s healing virtue.)

When I arrived home, my husband and a friend were working on the television antenna. Knowing it was odd for me to come home at that time of day, my husband followed me into the house to see what was wrong. As I told him, I was already getting into bed and putting a tape of healing Scriptures into the tape recorder on my nightstand. He prayed for me briefly and went back outside to finish his work. I turned on the tape of healing Scriptures and began to let my spirit and body absorb their medicine. I fell asleep listening to the Word. I awoke about an hour later with all of the pain completely gone. I was able to eat on that tooth and do whatever I liked, totally free from pain. The abscess was gone, and I was well. The Word of God had done what God had sent it to do.

A similar testimony comes from internationally known evangelist and Bible teacher Marilyn Hickey, who has shared publicly on television about finding a lump in her breast and facing possible surgery. But she believes God’s Word when it proclaims itself to be medicine for every part of our bodies, so she chose Scripture passages that spoke particularly to her spirit about her condition, and once every hour, for twenty-four hours, she laid her Bible on the lump and spoke those scriptures to her body. She did not sleep that night, but continued to apply the medicine of the Word around the clock. At the end of the twenty-four hours, the lump was completely gone.

A few years ago, my husband had a broken hip that would not heal. For a period of two or three months, the doctors could see no indication of improvement in the bones at all. The orthopedic surgeon said tests indicated the bones were failing to get proper blood supply, due to other tissue damage caused by the break. He also told us that without good blood supply, the bones could not heal and the only other option would be a complete hip replacement. But we chose to believe the Word of God would heal both the blood vessels and the bones. We took Scriptures of healing, especially some relating specifically to bones, and applied them in faith, speaking them to my husband’s body several times a day for many weeks. We also prayed, of course, and many strong believers in our church and family also prayed for us faithfully. The enemy tried to discourage us. He tried to convince us that after so much time had passed, even God’s Word would not cause healing to begin again.

But, dear Christian, the devil is a liar, and God is faithful to His Word. That holy medicine worked itself into my husband’s bones and blood vessels and produced healing. All of a sudden, those bones began to knit together properly by the power of God, and in every examination that followed, the doctor was able to report that he saw no indication of problems with the blood supply either. It was sweet victory when the doctor was able to look at the x-rays and tell Richard that his hip was completely healed. In fact, he was amazed that he could see no fracture line and explained to us that the physician can always see a fracture line even after the bone has healed. (This situation is a good example of a time when Richard and I felt the need for some human medical help also, and the Lord had graciously led us to a doctor who continually encouraged us to keep praying and believing God for our miracle. He knew also that the outcome lay in God’s hands alone.)

Another very encouraging testimony of healing through application of the Word concerns a friend of mine who is a praise and worship leader at a full gospel church. She had been having problems with high blood pressure. She went to the doctor, who put her on medication, but it just wouldn’t bring the pressure down. Finally the doctor decided to send her to the local hospital for a special shot that would make her pressure go down rapidly. For a few minutes after she had taken the shot, everything seemed to be all right, and the nurse left her alone to rest a few minutes before going home. Suddenly she began having an allergic reaction to the drug in the shot. Her left arm became numb. Then her heart began to pound as if it would come out of her body. (Her description).

By the time her daughter had brought the nurse and doctor to the room, my friend’s whole body was completely out of control. She said that her mind still worked, but all it would do was tell her she was going to die. She was able to speak periodically to the doctor at first, but finally even speaking became more than she could handle. She could hear the nurse talking to her daughter about a rash that had broken out on her body, and she could tell that they were hooking her up to some monitoring devices. The other thing she could understand was that the doctor himself was very alarmed, and, naturally, fear began to work on her too.

Her daughter had called other believers to pray, and, before long, my friend’s pastor came in. She was still in this crisis situation and said that, by this time, she could not communicate at all, but could feel herself sinking deeper and deeper toward oblivion.. Her pastor walked to her bedside, laid his hand on her head, and began singing the Word from Isaiah 60:1: “Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”

She said she could hear him, but she could not respond. “He sang this song over and over and over,” she said, “and as he did, I could feel my spirit respond. I gradually began to feel myself being drawn back up, up, up.” She was so aware that the power in that Scripture song was what was drawing her back to normalcy that she said although she couldn’t talk at this time, she kept thinking, “Don’t stop. Don’t stop singing.” Her faithful pastor, led by God, kept singing, and everything in her body gradually came back to normal. Her doctor, who had been sitting at his desk in the room with his head down, most likely praying as well, rejoiced and praised the Lord with them. The pastor himself later related that he had never been led to minister in just that way before, but all he felt to do was to sing her that Word. That precious Word! It heals and brings life when nothing else can!

Dear sick one, these experiences happened to real people. And there are hundreds of testimonies just like these in the halls of faith down through the centuries. Best of all, they are backed up by the Word itself. Psalm 107: 20 says of God’s people in the Old Covenant that “He sent His Word and healed them.” And as we have already discussed, He is still the same today. (Hebrews 13:8). If we will be as faithful to apply God’s medicine to our physical bodies as we are our prescriptions from a human doctor, we will get the most wonderful results.

Even people who aren’t sure they do believe have found that by applying the Word with an honest heart, the faith has been created in them by the Word itself. (Romans 10: 17 tells us that faith comes by hearing the Word.). Then the physical results come. So open up God’s Medicine Chest. Read the Word. Sing it. Play it on tape. Have others read it to you. Use any or all methods of getting this divine medicine into your being. For whatever the diagnosis, this precious Word is the cure.

(You will find a separate page on this site, listed in the navigation tabs as “God’s Medicine Chest.” It is full of healing scriptures, in order to help make your search easier. Click on that tab and make use of those scriptures whenever you need them. And feel free to print them out if you’d like to do so. The only thing I ask in return is that you leave me a comment to let me know that the article and the scriptures are a blessing to you.)

If you are interested in a copy of the entire book  Healing Is For You!, you might want to visit the publisher’s website at StEllenPress.Com.

(Scripture references taken from the following:
The New American Standard Version, Copyright  1960,1962,1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by Permission. 
The King James Version of the Bible (KJV).
The Amplified Bible, Old Testament. Copyright  1965, 1987 by The Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified Bible, New Testament, Copyright
 1954, 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation.
Used by Permission.)