AMEN Australia 2019 Conference: Witnesses Unto Me

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Trevor Hurlow

Medical and Dental - Brainstorming for practical application

Dear Lord, as we share ideas, as we look at the way in which your Spirit leads and blesses in the work that we do, Lord, may it be an encouragement to us to continue in the way that you would have us go.

Okay, 1 definition of grand rounds is shifting dullness and those of you who grew up in the good old days remember this.

If you look at the statistics, the most trusted people in any society are your medical people.

If you have a look over there on the left, doctors, 91% rating in Australia, 88% in New Zealand.

Now if you look down to the right, religious institutions are second from the end on the right hand side.

Number 1, doctors and nurses are highly trusted.

On the other end, religious organisations are kind of rather negatively viewed.

It's a bit of a challenge because how do you bring God, and I'm not necessarily religion, but how do you bring God into people's lives when there's this distrust of...and they have pastors.

But I've seen a study too where religious leaders are way down there as well.

This is something that's been probably mentioned at every health congress and so on, but I just wanted to bring it out a bit differently.

We talk about Christ's method alone, but look at the different coloured steps before we get to the Bade Me Follow You.

We see first of all Christ mingled with men.

He showed his sympathy, he ministered to their needs, he won their confidence, and then he got to that point.

So you see there's a lot that happens, a huge commitment before we actually get to that point of He bade them follow me.

Now weird, on my slide all of that is in white.

I want us just to spend, just to take a few moments and be with Jesus as He does a consultation, as he does his work.

So this is in Luke chapter 4, and I'll read it to you.

Jesus left the synagogue and went into the home of Simon.

Jesus has come into town, and he's gone to the synagogue on the Sabbath.

We've spoken about the church, our involvement here.

He'd actually healed a man of mental illness.

He'd been demon possessed, the demon had been cast out.

So already he'd gained a bit of a reputation in that town.

After church, he's invited for lunch to Simon's house.

And we know that Simon had a wife, and we'll call him Miriam for our story this afternoon, and he had a mother-in-law.

And Also in that home would have probably been his brother Andrew and a few other because a number of the Gospels each gospel mentions the story in slightly different ways.

So what we have is Jesus leaves the synagogue He's invited for lunch He goes to the home of Simon and Simon sort of takes him aside and said, Master, I'm sorry, lunch is going to be a bit delayed because my mother-in-law, who normally helps with the, you know, with the food and the cooking is not well.

And they walk into the home and I imagine Miriam says to him, Simon, mum's really not well.

And so they ask Jesus to go and have a look at her and the words of that verse really struck me.

It says, so he bent over her and rebuked the fever and it left her, she got up and began to wait on them.

So that awkward moment on that Sabbath, Jesus was able to restore, but he bent over her.

And I want us to think about what was happening here and we're going to look further.

Then we are told, at sunset the people brought to Jesus, all who had various kinds of sickness and laying his hand on each 1, he healed them.

So being the Sabbath, being in a Jewish community, after lunch, probably not much happened, but the people were getting ready.

And on sunset, that whole community, because They didn't have mental institutions where mental ill people could live.

So all the ill, all the needy in that community were poised to reach out just as the Sabbath ended and seek Jesus' help.

And at sunset, the people brought to Jesus, all who had various kinds of sickness, and again, laying his hands on each 1, He healed them.

I mean, He could have just spoken the word and the whole town could have been restored.

We do know there are stories in the Bible where He did speak and miracles happened.

But when we watch Jesus in his daily activity, we see that he touches people, physically touches them, and gets close to each 1.

So I can just see the chaos in Capernaum, and probably someone would have lit a torch, a lamp, a fire, and he would have gone from person to person, communing personally with them as he touched them and he healed them.

We are told that some demons came out of them shouting, you are the Son of God, he rebuked them.

And then at daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place.

And we've been talking about this here, you know, Jesus, the importance that he attached to his relationship with his Father.

And So we have a very short little snippet here of Jesus in action.

And there's variations in the different Gospels.

And in Matthew, when he spoke about his relationship to Simon's mother-in-law, it says, he touched her and the fever left her.

Mark, he went over to her and took her hand and helped her up and then in Luke he bent over and rebuked the fever.

The same when I call this Kings Cross E.D.

Kings Cross is 1 of the busiest suburbs of Sydney on a Saturday night.

You know when there's a lot of drunkenness and a lot of things going on.

And Capernaum was almost like King's Cross Saturday night when as the sun set the whole town just crashed in on Jesus.

And what we told in Matthew when the sun was setting the people brought various kinds of sickness and laying his hands on each 1.

Every writer emphasises this, laying his hands on each 1, he healed them.

And then the same in Mark and then the same in Luke.

And so the question, and again, this is not going to come, oh, there it is.

I want us to start pondering and maybe just discussing in our group, but I'll share a bit with you still.

What does health evangelism look like in your field of practice, in your workplace?

How has the Holy Spirit guided you in a way you could never imagine or expect?

And then how do you see the blended ministry working in your church?

How do you see, as those respected health professionals, do we have a role in the health ministry of our church, that blended ministry that Glenn shared about today?

Okay, what I want to do is just maybe share some of my own experiences.

And we share these not to brag, not to bring any glory or honour to ourselves.

It's only the working of the Lord and the Holy Spirit that brings these things.

But just to start the conversation, I want to share a few of my own experiences.

The first 1 I want to share with you is the fact that in the practice I'm in, I'm in with folk who are not of my faith.

We have 1 Christian who's a Baptist, we have 1 Muslim, and we have 1 doctor who makes no profession.

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Medical and Dental - Brainstorming for practical application

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