Medical Missions Series

Everyone of us lives with a doctor, and to make it even better the doctor we live with can write

prescriptions and get the medicine delivered immediately. If you think you don't take drugs, it is

only because you do not know what your doctor is doing. Your doctor is your brain. I have had a

lot of doctors in my life, but my most personal and faithful doctor is a real brain. He is my brain,

and yours is your brain.

Richard Bergland of the Harvard University School of Medicine has presented evidence that the

brain of man is a literal pharmacy. It is more than the center of consciousness. It is a gland which

secretes a prolific number of drugs which keep the body healthy, or help it fight to get health back.

The brain has the capacity to write out prescriptions in an almost infinite number of combinations to

meet the body's varied needs.

Dr. Carmine Clemente of the UCLA Brain Research Institute has confirmed these studies, and

says the number of the secretions the brain can produce are almost beyond calculation. The number

of them he says can be activated by mere thought or emotion. If we just imagine a challenge or a

danger the brain will produce a chemical that prepares the body for defense. The brain produces a

whole family of substances called endorphins. The word means, "The morphine within." In other

words, our brain has the power to produce its own narcotics to relieve the body of pain. We are all

walking drug stores because of the marvelous medical organ God created for us in the brain.

But like all wonderful things it can be misused and lead to harmful rather than helpful effects.

The brain was used by Satan to destroy the people of New Guinea. About 40 years ago a dreaded

disease called KURU threatened to wipe out the Foie people there. 43% of the women and a lesser

percent of the men all died of this mysterious illness. Dr. Carleton Gajdusek went as a medical

missionary to these people. He discovered the disease was spread through the black art of sorcery.

The brains of dead people were mixed into the food of unsuspecting victims, and this lead to the

disease. It was a dormant virus, however, and may not show up for several years, so nobody could

see any connection.

There is no cure for the disease, but it can be easily prevented by avoiding sorcery. Missionaries

began to teach the people the cause of the disease, and in those villages where people listened there

were no more cases. They used their brain and stopped eating dead brains, and so they eliminated

that disease that almost eliminated them. This true story from Wycliff Bible Translators illustrates

how essential medical missions are to the task of fulfilling the Great Commission. People cannot

hear the Gospel and read the Word of God if their bodies are being destroyed by demon designed

diseases which rob them of life.

People have to be saved before they can be saved. That is, they have to be delivered from

temporal death in order to be delivered from eternal death. One of Satan's most effective ways of

insuring the doom of masses is to kill them by their own ignorance, and keep them in bondage to evil

practices. We have no idea what caused the madman in our text to be mad, but one thing is for sure,

he was not a likely prospect for the 4 spiritual laws, or the Romans road, or any other presentation of

the Gospel. The man was in bondage to demon power, and the only way he could be of any value to

himself, others, or the kingdom of God was to be released from that bondage. That is the essence of

what medical missions is all about.

Under the heavy oppression of starving to death, or dying of a disease, people are not open to the

Gospel. But if you can set them free from these temporal tyrants, they may be open to hear about

what else they can receive in the name of Jesus. That is why medical missions have been a key

factor in winning people from all cultures to Christ. What we want to focus on in this complex text

is a couple of simple facts. The first thing this text reveals is that-

I. JESUS WAS A MEDICAL MISSIONARY.

Jesus did not heal Jews only. He was open to healing any Gentile that came to Him. The

Roman Centurian came to Him and He gladly healed his servant. The Syrophonecian woman came

to Him and He healed her daughter. The feeding of the 4000 was in a Gentile area, but the feeding

of the 5000 was in a Jewish area. Jesus healed any who came to Him, but this is the first text