By John Thiel, mp3, pdf

Scripture reading: Psalm 103:1 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, [bless] his holy name. 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: 3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; 4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

I wish to commence this message with a testimony, to testify of the Lord’s work in my life. It is the testimony of Psalm 34:

A Testimony of Life’s Experiences and Divine Guidance

Psalm 34:1 I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise [shall] continually [be] in my mouth. 2 My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear [thereof], and be glad. 3 O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. 4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

This scripture is my testimony; it is so relevant to what I have been experiencing with the Lord. I just wish to make my boast in the Lord, according to these words. What the Lord has done in guiding me to where I am now. I reflect back to my earliest years, in which I was brought up by my mother to love Jesus. And at the age of ten through to fourteen, I was fascinated with the Lord speaking to me through the Bible. My mother showed me that by reading the Bible through the marginal readings I could go from text to text on a particular subject, and I became fascinated to see how God speaks to people through His word. I went to the lectures and the public evangelisation of the ministers of the day in the Seventh-day Adventist church, and they were proclaiming the prophecies of the original Adventism that was taught, and I was so fascinated by it. I came to the point where I wanted to be baptised, at the age of fourteen. This was the work of the Lord to bring me to such a point. Then, at the age of sixteen, I was introduced to the 1888 message by Waggoner and Jones, and it thrilled my soul. There, discovering the pure gospel of Jesus Christ for my personal salvation, I found a personal Saviour, even more intensely than I had ever found anything in the past.

I continued in my fascination for the Lord, and my education was slowly built by Him. I went to do my general nursing training at the age of nineteen, and for those three and a half years I was being trained by the Lord in the things I learned. I came to the age of twenty-three, and there at that time the Lord drew very close to me and challenged me with the importance of accepting Sister White as His messenger. I was challenged because I wasn’t following the things that were written in her writings. As I came to prove the prophet through the Scriptures, I came to the realisation that I needed to follow what God had said through Sister White’s writings. And at the age of twenty-four I discovered from the Spirit of Prophecy that there lied our safety in regards to finding absolute assurance of truth—through the writings of the pioneer teachers. This became very precious to me. And so, through to the age of thirty, I became thoroughly equipped in original Seventh-day Adventism, which the Lord drew me to study closely.

Walking this way under God’s interventions, letting Him, through the words of the Spirit of Prophecy and the Bible, guide me through life’s experiences via mistakes. I made serious mistakes; but as I made those mistakes, the Lord came to restore me. Through those mistakes, I learned something. I learned something by which I could be used of God to help my fellowmen. I could hear the call of the Lord. I was called into the ministry at the age of twenty-five, and I responded to that call.

One of God’s illuminations and interventions that He especially reinforced in my life was during those three and a half years of general nursing, in which He walked with me and walked me through the many aspects of physiology and hygiene and obedience to the laws of health. He led me through this very deliberately. I could feel Him speaking to me as I was sitting in the lectures, as I was nursing the patients. He was talking to me; He was showing me many, many different things. Too many to recount in detail.

And the Lord brought me then through my marriage to have to train my seven children and safely bring them through their formative years so that they would not suffer the terrible effects of wrong diet, of wrong behaviour towards medicine, etc. I had many beautiful experiences which the Lord led me through in safely bringing those children to their adult years, where it would then be up to them which course they would pursue.

The words of our scripture reading are very poignant, meaningful and relevant to the realities that the Lord led me through:

Psalm 103:1 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, [bless] his holy name. 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: 3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; 4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

This is my testimony; this is the reality. God is real. God has done this, and He has brought me through the years to this point in time, safeguarding me, keeping me so that I can continue to serve Him.

Fear and Disease

I want to focus with you on two very important texts in the scriptures we have read so far.

Psalm 34:4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

Fears. I have been through many fears. The fears did arise. But because of the Lord drawing near to me as a personal Saviour, those fears did not become entrenched. They came and they were quickly conquered, because of what is written in 1 John 4:18. “Perfect love casteth out all fear.” Fear does arise; fear comes upon us. But just because we have some fears arising in us, it should not be regarded as indication that the Lord has forsaken me. No; the Lord is saying, Look up to Me now; remember the love that is between us. And perfect love drives out that torment of fear. I can testify of that; it’s real. I’ve made experiences where indeed, my heart was creating fear inside of my chest, and by turning to the Lord, He was there to take away that fear, because the love of God chased it out. So yes, fears do arise, but they are quickly driven out by love.

The other statement is found in Psalm 103. This is another statement which, many times, we can misread or misapply.

Psalm 103:3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

Diseases do arise. Diseases do come about. In my years of experience with my children, diseases that I feared took place. But it says God forgiveth all thine iniquities, and healeth all thy diseases. Because in life we have not always obeyed; and because we have not always obeyed, that is sin, of course; or we have not always been informed that certain things we are doing would cause certain diseases. But although that happens, the physician steps in; and what does He do? He forgiveth all of our iniquities, and then He comes to heal our diseases. And in His work of dealing with us, dealing with me, frequently we don’t realise that God will heal our diseases according to His will, according to His omniscience. He knows something. And He knows how long to permit a disease to take place in our life. This is what He showed me.

Over the years, since I gave my heart to the service that He called me to, I have experienced profound miracles—miracles of God’s intervention. To the point where someone who had brain damage from alcoholism, was eventually completely restored. To the point of my child suffering under a contagious disease. The Lord restored that child, even though we had made some mistakes which had caused that particular problem. But the Lord stood by His promise nonetheless. I experienced miracles of wonderful intervention.

But I have also experienced situations where there was no intervention, and the disease did its job, and the person died. I used to struggle with that. Why did God not do it there, and yet He did it miraculously in another situation? But the Lord walked with me; He walked me through it all. And how did He walk me through that question? I came to understand that He would not always answer the prayer for healing, that a disease might take hold of a person. At one time we prayed, and it was healed; and another time we prayed, and it was not healed. He spoke to me and identified Sister White’s experience. She had two sick children, whom they sincerely prayed for, but those two children died—one, Henry, as a teenager and the other one, John, as a baby—irrespective of prayers for their souls. The Lord spoke to me very clearly then, that just because a person dies as a result of some disease, does not mean that God has forsaken them.

Elisha’s Example

Consider the following scripture, which the Lord gave to me as answer to my question. Elisha, as we know, followed the work of Elijah.

2 Kings 13:14 Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. … 21 And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band [of men]; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.

Did God forsake Elisha when he died? What a statement. Even his bones, when they were touched by a dead man, the man was restored back to life. God knows what He is doing, and that is what He showed me. Whenever something did not come to pass according to our prayer, I learned from the Lord, as He walked me through these situations from His word, that we do not need to despair just because some disease, or some plague, or some pestilence, has affected us in a negative way. This is what the Spirit of Prophecy has to say about Elisha:

It was not given Elisha to follow his master in a fiery chariot. Upon him the Lord permitted to come a lingering illness. During the long hours of human weakness and suffering his faith laid fast hold on the promises of God, and he beheld ever about him heavenly messengers of comfort and peace. As on the heights of Dothan he had seen the encircling hosts of heaven, the fiery chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof, so now he was conscious of the presence of sympathizing angels, and he was sustained. Throughout his life he had exercised strong faith, and as he had advanced in a knowledge of God’s providences and of His merciful kindness, faith had ripened into an abiding trust in his God, and when death called him he was ready to rest from his labors.  {PK 263.3}

So it was not given Elisha to follow his master in a fiery chariot. Instead, he died of a lingering illness. And so it is that God permits some of His children to suffer from a lingering illness, and maybe even to be laid to rest as a consequence of that.

Here is another statement that the Lord gave me to help me deal with these questions that I was puzzling through. Jesus had to walk me through these moments through His wonderful words of inspiration.

The Christian is subject to sickness, disappointment, poverty, reproach, and distress. {OHC 9.4}

The Christian is subject to all that.

Yet amid all this he loves God, he chooses to do His will, and prizes nothing so highly as His approbation. In the conflicting trials and changing scenes of this life, he knows that there is One who knows it all, One who will bend His ear low to the cry of the sorrowful and distressed, One who can sympathize with every sorrow and soothe the keen anguish of every heart. . . .  {OHC 9.4}

Amid all his affliction, the Christian has strong consolation. And if God permits him to suffer a lingering, distressing sickness before he closes his eyes in death, he can with cheerfulness bear it all. . . . He contemplates the future with heavenly satisfaction. A short rest in the grave, and then the Life-giver will break the fetters of the tomb, release the captive, and bring him from his dusty bed immortal, never more to know pain, sorrow, or death. Oh, what a hope is the Christian’s! Let this hope of the Christian be mine. Let it be yours.  {OHC 9.5}

So when disease/sickness strikes us and we do pass away, the Lord is with us. It doesn’t mean He is against us. It doesn’t mean that we have to become disheartened and think, ‘Well, His promises didn’t take place in my life, therefore I may as well give up.’ Oh yes, that is a temptation that Satan comes to us with. But the Lord is with His people, even if they don’t recover from their sickness. Job did; but Sister White’s brother-in-law, Nathaniel, didn’t. (You can read the story of his sickness and death in Spiritual Gifts Vol. 2, pp. 174-178.) There was this wonderful young man; he was dying of tuberculosis. They prayed for him, and their prayers were not being answered. But the description given of this young man was so beautiful. It gives you comfort in the midst of such a thing as a lingering disease that takes you to death. The Lord spoke to me through all these things, and helped me through, to be of good courage and to impart good courage to the people I was ministering to.

So just because we succumb to an illness unto death, this does not mean that God has forsaken us. That’s what He taught me. God does not always restore after James 5:14-15 is put into practise. “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;” and he will be restored, it says; but not always. According to God’s will.

So I have learned to take from the hand of God what He does after we have prayed. Let His will be done. We have seen beautiful things and so we think, God’s will was done in restoring. But I have also seen some sad stories where there was no restoration, and the person passed away. But my heart rejoices in what I have shared with you here that He gave me to be able to cope through that time.

These things are very relevant to us and to what I am now going to share in the concluding part of this message, with all of God’s counsel that He showed me through all these years, through my nursing training, through the years of ministry, through the miracles that I have seen, and there are even those among us who remember how the Lord acted in miraculous ways in their own experience.

Dealing with Contagion

As we saw in our last message, the Lord is our Physician, and if we are impacted by a contagious disease, the Lord shows us, as our Physician, what we must do. The Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy are given to us to help us to be able to follow the answers that the Doctor, our Physician, the Lord Jesus, is telling us to follow.

When there was a contagious disease among the Hebrews, they were given specific instructions to follow. The most simple way of illustrating that is leprosy. Leprosy is hardly heard of today; but leprosy is a very contagious disease. What was God’s direction there? The leper had to be quarantined, isolated; put away from the others, so that he would not contaminate everyone else. That was God’s direction. So we can see with the contagious disease of Covid that we are surrounded by, that it is quite a biblical principle to quarantine. It comes from the Bible.

And as I followed the development of this, I listened carefully, again, walking with God through all this. When it first came upon the planet, I heard of it before it struck Australia. I could see: Here comes a contagion, a virus, that looks like it is effecting China, and it’s going to spread around the world. And the Lord warned me, He said, Yes, watch it. Now of course, we know what is happening. But all the way through, I was hearing this, hearing that. Some people were saying this, and some people were saying that; and the Lord said, Don’t take it onboard; listen carefully to Me, as I help you through this the way I helped you through in the past. I listened to the Lord as I heard all the pros and cons, along with all the arguments this way and that. “Oh, it isn’t a true disease.” Oh yes, it is. It is definitely a true disease. It is something that was happening. But some people were saying, “It isn’t; it’s something else.” Yes, it is a contagious disease. And the warning is, one day it will get us. And of course, what the people are trying to do, especially those in governments trying to manage the problem, we hear the judgments that are made against the government for certain things they do; we hear all these different arguments, and the Lord says, Follow my guidance. Don’t take things onboard and start verbalising this or that. It is Me that you need to listen to here. So as I listened attentively to the Lord through all the things I heard, He reminded me of all the things that He had walked me through during my nursing training and the years of dealing with contagious diseases and of healing diseases, etc.

We have nothing to fear in reference to this pandemic. He, God, has the answer. And anyone else hearing me speaking now, I want to put it to you that if anyone tests positive and has the slightest symptoms descriptive of the Covid infection, hit it very early in the peace. Don’t wait for it; make sure you do what God says to deal with this infection. Don’t wait. Before it gets away from you, do something.

I have gone through a test for Covid. Do you know where they put the test to pick up the virus? They touch the top of your throat deep inside, just where the nasal cavity comes down, and pick up whatever is on there. Then they also put the buds up your nose as high as they can to pick up some more up each nostril. It is because the virus starts in that place, and then it multiplies and goes down into the lungs and all the other problems arise.

I have met different occasions when a flu wanted to get the better of me, and what I knew, what the Lord pointed me to, is that vitamin C destroys viruses and bacteria. So when I feel a little tickle up there (where the nurses touch with their buds to test individuals for Covid), I place a chewable vitamin C, 500mgrs tablet, and I let it sit back there and let it melt away. Don’t swallow it; you let it sit there. Vitamin C destroys the beginning of the virus, up there. It destroys it. This is one way of treating, to prevent the thing from getting worse and running away from you. It will destroy the virus. I have conquered flus time and time again by this very means. Vitamin C destroys bacteria. And if you keep getting that tickle in the back of your throat, you keep on putting vitamin C there. That is the answer to getting rid of it in the very early stages.

You are also guided and invited by God to take the different vitamins, such as vitamin D (which is of course found in sunshine; you either lie in the sunshine or you take some vitamin D), garlic, turmeric, horseradish. All these things are there to fight this virus. We have to study how to fortify the immune system, which will then do its work faithfully to conquer the contagion, the virus. That is what we need to do, by God’s counsel. This is what I have learnt from Him, and it works. It prevents people from going down.

The Vaccine Question

Then comes the other question, that of dealing with the authorities; because these circumstances will bring us ultimately to their attention. And there we have to approach the issue again from God’s teaching. He has shown us, He has shown me, how to meet the authorities, how to deal with them, how to speak to them. We can tell them that we have a deep religious conviction, that we cannot partake of the drugs prescribed by allopathic medicine. When they want to mandate that we receive the Covid vaccination, let them know that what you are doing to fight and to destroy the virus is successful, and that this is your conviction—to follow Bible principles. Tell them that you agree with them, that you will isolate yourself; that’s quite a biblical point.

But when it comes to the vaccination, let them know that for such diseases as polio and smallpox, vaccines have been successful in preventing people’s lives from being destroyed. Those are true vaccines, where the bacteria has been brought to a weakened state so that it can just arouse your immune system and enable it to destroy the bacteria’s progress in the body, that way the immune system is ready for any contamination of polio or smallpox. But this particular vaccination is a completely different one. This one, we have to tell them we are conscientiously unable to take it. Why? Our religious conviction needs to be intelligent. We need to show them intelligently; not just say, It’s religion. We have to show them the counsel of the Lord. This particular vaccine we cannot partake of at all, because it is a genetically engineered substance. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and my religious conviction is that I cannot take into my body something as defiling. It defiles my internal condition. My immune system can deal with the Covid infection. But when the substance that they call a “vaccine” is introduced into the body, it is a defilement. We cannot participate in that. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; such things defile it.

Tell them that we have safe and effective means of treatment that come from the Bible, and that will help them. This is what I said when I was supposed to be receiving a yellow fever vaccine: I was able to let them see that I didn’t need to worry, and I was exempted from that requirement. So they might fight with us, they might not agree with us; but this is a deep religious conviction, that we follow the Bible system of dealing with sickness. We have the answers for this.

So we must appeal for exemptions on the grounds of biblical methods. And it’s important for you to understand, as you reason with them, that the general public does not follow this biblical principle that we stand on. If they would, there wouldn’t be as much of a problem. But because they don’t, therefore the authorities have to deal with it the way that they know best. But our approach to the authorities is not to jump on the bandwagon of those people who are rubbishing the governments. I already shared this in our previous message. We want to be Christians; we are to be Christlike. We want to ask, What would Jesus do? and what would He not do in this particular circumstance?

What Would Jesus Not Do?

In the following statement we address the question of, What would Jesus not do? and how would He react? Today we are observing that the authorities are sometimes violating people’s personal rights; how should we react to that?

The government under which Jesus lived was corrupt and oppressive; on every hand were crying abuses,–extortion, intolerance, and grinding cruelty. {DA 509.3}

What did the Saviour do?

Yet the Saviour attempted no civil reforms. He attacked no national abuses, nor condemned the national enemies. He did not interfere with the authority or administration of those in power. He who was our example kept aloof from earthly governments. Not because He was indifferent to the woes of men, but because the remedy did not lie in merely human and external measures. To be efficient, the cure must reach men individually, and must regenerate the heart. {DA 509.3}

The question came to me, Are we not to raise our voice against the abuses? Well, according to what we just read, Jesus didn’t do that. What did He do? He encouraged and strengthened the individual to be able to be faithful and deal with the challenges that came across their personal life. This is the counsel that comes from God to us, that we do not raise our voice against what the authorities are doing wrong or right, or whatever; that we just simply respect them for their position, and that we follow Christ’s example in dealing with the diseases and sicknesses that come upon us, while we appeal to the authorities to let us live like that.

We are to go forward quietly, and when our way is apparently blocked in one direction we are to make no condemnation of the powers that be, for in thus doing we are teaching other powers how to work to hedge up our way. We are not to stir up opposing elements or provoke retaliation or revenge. {TDG 250.5}

We are not to do that. These are the counsels that the Lord has given me over the years, and that my mind has been brought very much into a deeper understanding of, as I listen to this and that. We are in danger of picking up and becoming animated by the things we hear from others. We are to let the voice of God guide us through in our individual cases. Let Him help you individually. This is what the Lord has done for me, and I’m sure that He will do the same for you, as you and each one of us follow the guidelines that come from the God who intervenes in all of our circumstances.

Let us take the message that He is trying to speak to us; let Him take you through, like He took me through. It is up to each one of us individually to walk with God and find the right answers that He is illuminating us with, to speak the right word at the right time to those that we are brought face to face with.

May God help us to be able to do this. And as Jesus said, If ye will do His will, then you will understand the doctrine; then you will understand what I am talking about. May God bless us, so that we will be able to steer our life through this crisis at this time in the way that God wants us to.

Amen.

(Additional resources: Natural Healing Through the Laws of Health)