Continuing the Vision

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Uchee Pines Institute

The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary

Frank Fournier

The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary Part 1

We've got our Bibles open, and we've got our hearts open, hopefully, and if they're not, we just pray that you would open them this morning.

We want to understand our place in it, and we want to ask that you would communicate in such a way that we are left inspired.

So we put ourselves in your hands, and we thank you in Jesus' name.

I'll go down a little bit because I hear drumming in the speaker.

As you know, for sure you know, we're living in a world of sin.

And this world of sin has more of an influence upon us than many of us realize.

I don't think we'd like to admit that sometimes, but it's true.

I mean, we find ourselves to be Christians.

And we think the world doesn't have any influence.

And for an example, and it's amazing to me that I could use this example at all.

As you know, Seventh-day Adventists are very much into education, right?

We're the most educated people in the world, if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway, just last week I was, I had lunch with the president, vice president of a university in Chile, Adventist University in Chile.

And the first thing they asked us as we sat down to eat was, what's your degree?

It's just like, and that happens more than once, and I never know how to respond, just exactly what to say.

So I just had to say, well, I quit school when I was 16, and I went logging, and then I went mining, and then the Lord got hold of me and I became a Seventh-day Adventist and got my education right here.

This is where I can only credit getting my education there.

Nevertheless, still and all, and by the way, I wish I had more education.

It's an amazing tool that we can use in the Lord's work, right?

But many times people get an education to benefit themselves.

They don't understand that it's supposed to be a tool that we're going to use to benefit the people around us.

And so we get an education so we can make money, so we can have a big house and a big car, and so we can be recognized and bolster our pride and all of that.

Nevertheless, we know, at least we should know, that Jesus came into this world.

By the way, He had everything that people in this world wanted.

He had all the recognition that you can want up there in heaven, and yet he came down into this world, and it was not for his benefit, by the way.

He didn't come here hoping to be paid a lot of money or wanting a title or a position or anything like that.

He didn't come here to work 8 hours a day and to have the weekends off.

Jesus came to be a missionary and He was a man with a mission.

Every single 1, every single person in this room should be a missionary for Jesus Christ.

And that means you're a person on a mission and you've got something to do.

And it doesn't matter if the Lord calls you to work more than 8 hours a day, by the way.

And He will, you know, if my experience has anything to do with it.

So this morning I'd like to talk about what it cost Jesus to come here and to serve the people, to minister to the people.

Now someone might like to say, well, it didn't cost him anything.

If you were God and all you have to do in order to get anything done is speak it into existence, that doesn't cost very much.

You know, and at the end of the time it hasn't cost me a whole lot, although I don't know that I always accomplish a whole lot.

And so Why would you think that it cost him anything?

Well friends, it didn't cost him any pain to create man.

As a matter of fact, he was delighted to do it.

And his whole creation was a great delight for him when he created it.

But I'll tell you something, to heal an individual, to redeem an individual, that cost him far more than most of us understand.

And this is really what I want to talk about this morning.

In Matthew chapter 8 we're looking at verse 14 to verse 17.

And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid and sick with a fever.

And he touched her hand and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered unto them.

When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying himself took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses.

Now these are the words that I'm interested in the last few words in these verses that he bear our infirmities that he took our sicknesses and you would think well why couldn't He just speak the Word and go to each individual that is sick and just say, you're healed.

And sometimes it seems that's exactly what he did, right?

The Bible says he took their infirmities and bared their diseases.

Jesus was not a physician in the modern sense of the word.

He didn't see people every 10 minutes or every 15 minutes and write them a prescription.

He wasn't even a medical missionary as we think of it today in the sense that he did fever therapies and all the rest.

Well, sometimes he used natural remedies, but very often he just spoke the words.

You know, we could think of the sanctuary service in those terms.

If a man had a problem, the only way he could rid himself of that problem in ancient days was to go to the sanctuary and confess his sin or confess his problem on the head of a lamb and the lamb would what?

So there was a transfer there, wasn't there?

From whatever it is that the man was suffering or the problem whatever he had was transferred to the lamb and the lamb paid the penalty.

The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary Part 2

Thank you for reminding me that you're needed here.

We want by your Holy Spirit that you communicate to our hearts.

We have great needs ourselves, But as far as we're learning, it is by meeting the needs of others that our needs will be met.

And what a wonderful, what a wonderful concept that is.

And we just pray that you would give us grace to believe it and to bring our lives into harmony with that very principle and we thank you for it in Jesus name, Amen.

So we're looking at the story of the Good Samaritan this morning and there's a good reason why the Good Samaritan was called good.

He came down the trail, whatever the trail was like, and he saw a wounded man, and he stopped to help this wounded man.

Now, it's probably fair to say that if the situation had been reversed, that if the Israelite who was wounded there in the ditch had found the Samaritan lying there, he probably would have spit in his face and kept right on going.

There was a need there and he went out right away to meet that need.

Now you know also in the story that there's 2 other individuals that go by this wounded man.

1 of them is a priest and 1 of them is a Levite.

And it says there, the Spirit, excuse me, the priest and the Levite had been for worship to the temple whose service was appointed by God himself.

To participate in that service was a great and exalted privilege.

But then they felt it was beneath them to minister to an unknown sufferer by the wayside.

And she finishes this quotation and I've skipped a few lines here, many today are making a similar mistake.

So that's why we need to be awake to what we're hearing this morning.

In volume 3 of the Testimonies, 524, if we neglect the cases of the needy and the unfortunate that are brought under our notice no matter who they may be, we have no assurance of eternal life.

Yeah, it can make a person tremble for sure.

So I have a question for you this morning.

Do you think that being a Hebrew was important to the priest and the Levite?

They put a lot of stock in being the children of Abraham, didn't they?

As a matter of fact, they put so much stock in being the children of Abraham that by virtue of being the children of Abraham, they thought they had salvation.

Because I'm just wondering what they were thinking.

Were there not Israelites around them who were worse than the Gentiles?

Do you think that the scriptures were important to these people?

Do you think that the promises of God and the commandments of God were important to these people?

Yes, it was an amazing thing to see how important these things were.

But apparently, being a medical missionary didn't carry much weight with them at all.

Well, friends, let me ask you a question.

I grew up in a Catholic home until I was 25 and I began reading the Bible when I was 25 years old.

And a lot of you have heard my testimony before, so I'm just going to give you just a little snapshot.

When I began reading the Bible, I immediately recognized in my head that there was no point my going to the priest for an interpretation of the Bible.

There wasn't even any point going to the nearest Protestant minister, whoever they are, Jehovah Witness or Mormon or anything else for that matter, to get an interpretation of the Bible.

Because every single 1 of them would tell me they have the truth.

And I knew for a fact that I didn't have the brains.

I didn't have the discernment to be able to decide who had the truth and who had not the truth.

And so with that I decided to tell God that I would not go and ask anyone to interpret the Bible.

I was going to read the Bible and I told God I'm going to read the Bible and anything you tell me I will do.

He taught me about the Sabbath, the state of the dead, paying tithe, the spirit of prophecy even.

I knew Ellen White was a prophet before I knew a Seventh-day Adventist existed.

I began to pray that the Lord would guide me to His true church.

And all of these things just are replete with miracles in my life, which has held me pretty firm.

It's a blessing when God does something for you.

Do you know that the Lord put me in the Adventist church and the Bible became super important, more than important, just the Lord had blessed.

Because when I got to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, there is nothing I had to change in my thinking.

Everything that God had taught me through the Scriptures was reflected in the Seventh-day Adventist Church or vice versa.

And so the Bible became super important to me, but also the spirit of prophecy.

As soon as I became aware that there was an Ellen White in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a modern-day prophet, I went to the ABC and I bought every single book with her name on it.

And I bought every book, and I have been reading and reading and reading and reading them over and over and over again.

And I credit the Spirit of Prophecy as much as the Bible for what I know of the Scriptures and what I know of the Lord.

The commandments of God and the promises, the promises of God, amazing promises that God has made to us.

It does hardly make sense some of these promises, all things work together for good, you understand.

What a promise that is, especially when so many bad things happen to us and yet we can still believe that the work He's begun in us He will perform.

Well let me tell you what, in spite of the fact that I believe all of these things and I believe it with all my heart, if in the end it does not translate for me to go out and help the people when I see a need, then it means nothing at all.

If like the priest and the Levite we neglect to minister to the people who have a need around us.

And it doesn't matter, friends, what we do to be saved.

Whether we join the church, read the Bible for hours, and pray for hours on end, Organize potluck, eat nothing but tofu, whatever it is.

If we do not love enough to minister to the people, then we are not saved.

Do you know there is a Bible verse, there is a verse in the Bible, that tells us that we can tell whether we are saved or not.

I mean wouldn't that be a wonderful blessing?

The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary Part 3

Heavenly Father, it's been such a blessing to hear from you, from different speakers, to be blessed with the Word of God and the music that angels play.

We just put ourselves in your hands this morning asking that you would communicate with our hearts yet 1 more time.

We need you every moment of every day, and we want to be a blessing to the people around us as well.

And so all of this combined, we need you.

Okay, morning by morning, we've been meeting together, looking at what it means to be a medical missionary.

This will be our last study on that topic.

I have 2 more talks this week, but they're not going to be directly on the topic of medical missionary work, but it is going to be so this morning.

And this morning I want to begin with a little quotation from Councils on Health, page 540.

The work of the true medical missionary is largely a spiritual work.

Implied in this is that it's possible to do medical work and to just deal with the body, the physical ailments of a person, and not concern ourselves as we ought with the spiritual aspects of the person's life.

Our work is mostly a spiritual work, and the physical is a blessing for sure.

And many times we reach them, their hearts, through the work we can do for their physical.

But the main goal, of course, is to touch their hearts with salvation in the full sense of the word.

Now there's 3 reasons for that and we're going to look at them 1 by 1.

Reason number 1 I find in Councils on Health again.

Sickness of the mind prevails everywhere.

9 tenths of the diseases from which men suffer have their foundations here.

But you know you have to be careful about this thing this morning because it's not saying that when you have a disease that it's just in your head.

I think very many times there are physicians who might want to tell you, it's in your imagination, it isn't true, you don't have the disease, it's in your head.

But it isn't so, this is not what it's saying.

The disease that it's talking about here is real.

But the cause of the disease is faulty thinking.

And so just in the last few years at least what I've gotten acquainted with CBT, do you know what that is?

Well, apparently it is possible to lie to ourselves, right?

About ourselves to the point where we believe ourselves when we tell ourselves lies about ourselves.

And a lot of people go around telling themselves that they are no good, that they are worthless, that they're useless, and on and on and on.

Because they've made a few mistakes in their lives, they go on with a long face until it destroys them.

Well, you don't have to become sick and I can prove it because of the price that God paid to have us He doesn't think we're worthless It's cost him everything and he wants us at that price and that value is imputed unto us that way So I had you turn with me to Proverbs chapter 23, and we're going to look at just the first part of verse 7.

It's a verse that you know very well, for as he thinketh, that is, as a man thinks or as a person thinks In His heart, so is He.

How we think and very often the things we allow our minds to think about or to dwell upon will create in us health or disease, just that way.

Positive thinking, of course, will produce positive results.

Negative thinking will produce negative results as far as health is concerned.

If there's any reason at all in this world, it should be found in this room, don't you think?

If we as a people know our God, then isn't that a positive thing?

If we could see God as our friend, Is he?

Why is there some people who look at God as an enemy or as someone that's coming after them to punish them for 1 thing or another?

Or they look at something negative that happens in their lives and all of a sudden is, why is God treating me this way?

But God isn't treating us this way, and whatever it is that comes our way, all things work together for good to them that love the Lord.

Last night I had the opportunity with Amy to give a Bible study to 5 ladies at a drug rehabilitation place.

I gave a Bible study on all things working together for good and told stories.

And the reason I do that is because that concept is wonderful.

We have a God that is a friend and whatever the devil can throw at us, he can take it and turn it to our advantage.

We don't have any reason to be pessimistic.

However, there are plenty of pessimistic people and you can recognize them fairly easily.

So, if we live with eternal realities in mind, we have every reason to be optimistic.

But, if we focus our sights on temporal realities, well, you live in a world that is very, very, very negative.

Let me tell you, if you spend any time listening to the news and I happen, I don't know why, but I happen to like to listen to the news.

I mean to listen to the news is just, is just discouraging.

There's so much negativity in this world.

The Holy Spirit is being grieved away from the world.

And so because the Holy Spirit is being grieved away from the world, the crimes are becoming worse and worse and more atrocious.

And it is so cruel out there that it's enough to discourage anyone if you focus there.

But just because the Spirit of God is being withdrawn from the world, He's not being withdrawn from me, is He?

And I have every reason to be positive and to quit the complaining and the criticizing and the moaning and the groaning because we have a living God.

We can afford to have a sweet disposition and with a sweet disposition comes an increase of health.

In any case, our health will reflect our state of mind.

There are other reasons for being sick, of course, And so if someone is sick among you, don't go assuming that it's their state of mind.

But nine-tenths of the time it is just the same.

Swain of Harvard Medical School found that in many cases of arthritis, there was either home trouble or malice in the heart or resentment or lack of forgiveness or something very very negative.

Now brothers and sisters listen the arthritis is real But the cause is from stress that's caused by home troubles or malice in the heart or resentment or lack of forgiveness or something negative in the life.

The cause originated with the improper thinking or improper focus.

And so we need to learn to focus on what is positive.

The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary Part 4

Now, most of us, I think, know that living the Christian, the perfect Christian life is not so easy.

And perhaps I ought to restate that a little bit.

Feeling like we lived the perfect Christian life is not so easy.

In Romans chapter 3 verse 23 it says that all come short of the glory of God and so it doesn't matter to me what it is that you do best.

It's be very hard for me to believe that what you do best you do as well as God can do it.

And the beauty of that, I was going to say the problem with that, but it's really, it's a beautiful thing.

We do come short of the glory of God and it's a blessing that we know it.

Otherwise what would go through our heads, right?

And the second thing, the second reason why this is so is that the world's falsehoods are inbred.

We are cultured by the world to think as we do.

And we don't know to what extent we are corrupted.

We are so corrupted that everything that goes through us is defiled.

And unless cleansed by the blood of Christ, it is of no value with God.

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The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary

The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary Part 5

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The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary Part 1

31m

The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary Part 2

34m

The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary Part 3

36m

The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary Part 4

35m

The Cost of Being a Medical Missionary Part 5

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