“Just say no to drugs.” How many times have people heard this advice, yet still think nothing of going to the local pharmacy to pick up their drug prescriptions?
Drugs have become so mainstream; North America is awash in a sea of drugs, both legal and illegal. Prescription drugs have become so prevalent; traces of them are now showing up in the food chain and in our drinking water.1
What perhaps is most astounding is the number of people who die every year from adverse reactions to prescription drugs. The tally is so high, USA Today listed adverse drug reactions as the 4th leading cause of mortality on their list of Top Ten Killers in the USA.2
With such a record, the pharmaceutical industry (and the medical profession which prescribes drugs) would be considered criminal by any other civilized standard. However, prescription drugs are not only legal, they are encouraged by both modern medicine, and the Christian Church in the U.S.A. That is interesting because the Bible, the standard by which Christians live their lives, condemns the everyday use of any kind of drugs, potions, or spells, as well as poisoning or witchcraft. It’s called pharmakeia in the original text and can be found in Galatians 5:19-21.
When confronted with the teaching that God condemns pharmakeia, most Christians believe the Apostle Paul had to be referring to illegal drugs (like marijuana and heroin), when he wrote his letter to the Church at Galatia, surely not prescription drugs. They are at least right about the first part.
Narcotics and hallucinogenic drugs were not uncommon in 1st century AD. For instance, the Oracles of Delphi apparently used Datura, a kind of Jimson plant that contained powerful alkaloids, during their quests for visions. So Christians have no trouble in defining pharmakeia within the parameter of mind altering or hallucinogenic drugs. It’s with the legal drugs that many Christians fail to see a dangerous and sinister spiritual connection.
In fact: If Christians were as much concerned about taking prescription drugs as they are about their children getting involved with illegal drugs, there would be far fewer deaths. That’s because deaths from adverse prescription drug reactions are many times greater then deaths caused by illegal drugs.
As a matter of fact, deaths caused by illegal drugs did not muster up the numbers even to make the top ten killers list from USA Today. Yet many Christians fret over the latter (as though they are a scourge, and they are), while overlooking the physical and spiritual danger of the former. Many Christians think legal drugs are different because they are part of our medical system. Simply said, they trust anyone wearing white robs to prescribe and dispense drugs. They do so without understanding that everything about the pharmaceutical industry violates the spiritual foundational truth and teaching of God.
There are many reasons why God condemns pharmakeia. Perhaps the primary reason is that God calls Himself Jehovah-rapha, God our Healer (Exodus 15:26). He wants us to look to Him for healing (to make us whole), because only He and what He has provided to us for healing can heal. King David acknowledged this foundational truth when he wrote:
Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits– who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion (Psalm 103:2-4)
When Christians place dependency on drugs, they unknowingly deny God the glory and the ability to heal them. I know this is a hard word of knowledge for many to accept, because many Christians depend on drugs. But they do so only because they do not see God in their heart and mind as their Healer. They think the age of divine healing is over, so their faith for healing is now bound to a lie (a work of the flesh) called pharmakeia. God is a jealous God. So when we place our dependency in anything other than in God, we are in effect, turning our backs to Him. We are saying, “God is not sufficient for me. He cannot or will not heal me.”
That’s not to say we shouldn’t seek medical help from a physician. The problem, however, is most physicians are secular and know only pharmakeia, surgery and radiation. They do not know Yehovah-rapha or the healing provision He placed in the plant kingdom for our health and well-being. But in most cases it’s not the physician’s fault. Physicians only know to treat patients according to the modality they were taught.
God’s Word tells us, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits” (I John 4:1). And again, “Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil” (I Thessalonians 5:21-22).
If drugs actually worked and healed people, without killing or hospitalizing many of those who take them, you wouldn’t be reading this article. But drugs do not heal. They at best only suppress symptoms. At their worst they hospitalize over two million people and kill hundreds of thousands more every year.3 Does this sound like a good spirit (good medicine) to you?
We all should understand there is both good and bad medicine. The difference between the two is that good medicine only heals and never harms. Bad medicine never heals and kills. Drugs that kill in the name of healing are not from God. They belong to Satan.
God cannot embrace any medicine that kills or maims in the name of healing. Such a modality stands opposed to everything God stands for. God receives no glory in death. God receives glory in healing the sick! The pharmaceutical industry has no interest in healing the sick. Its only interest is in selling more drugs, and getting as many people as it can started on drugs and keeping them there for the rest of their lives.4
That last sentence, “keeping them there for the rest of their lives,” plays a big role over what God is concerned with. When you read Galatians 5:21, you will see the following text: “Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” The word “live” refers to everyday use, to be dependent upon, to make routine. In other words: To live by.
This brings us to the role drugs play in hospital emergency rooms and ICU’s. Drugs used here are used primarily on a temporary basis to stabilize patients for medical procedures and control of pain. Without question, when used in this manner, drugs have saved many lives. This is good! People whose lives are saved in this manner do not normally stay on those drugs that saved them. It’s the people who “live” and stay on drugs to “manage” their lives that creates the spiritual dynamic opposed to God.
Today one can be prescribed drugs for almost any physical, lifestyle or emotional complaint: Male impotency, baldness, lack of sleep, arthritis, depression, pre and post menopause, acid reflux, anxiety, osteoporosis, acne, A.D.D., constipation and diabetes to name a few.
Drugs for these and many others of life’s complaints confuse us by counterfeiting the will of God in our lives. By creating alternative realities, the spirit behind these drugs can move us away from God’s will into an illusion, a false reality of truth. God’s Word lists pharmakeia as a work of the flesh, because those who turn to drugs (and those who encourage their use) place dependency on a false reality (an illusion) instead of in God our Healer. It is an insidious scheme, one that has kept millions from knowing the power of healing afforded to them by God.
Healing of disease is one of God’s blessings to mankind. He never intended one should have to spend half their income on a man-made drug to live. He never intended that medicine should come at the price of “acceptable risk.” That’s why God created provisions for our well-being and placed those provisions in the plant kingdom for the generations of mankind to come (Genesis 1:29).
It is only the greed in man that creates a man-made substitute from those provisions and then foists them on an ignorant people as the latest miracle drug. The truth is all man-made drugs are far inferior to the real thing. They are but one reason why God calls us to be sober and avoid attacks from Satan (I Peter 5:8).
But God didn’t place every provision for healing in the plant kingdom. For He knew there would also be illnesses and disease visited on man through man’s sins of the heart. These sins include fear, worry, jealously, hatred, guilt and the like. The spiritual root cause causing these certain diseases require a cleansing of the heart only God can reach for healing to become reality.
As long as mankind looks to itself for answers to life’s problems, there will always be confusion, human suffering and unnecessary deaths. God alone holds the answer to life’s issues, including the well being of our bodies and heart. He is our creator. He knows you and I as individuals like no one else can. He is our all in all, Our God, Our Savior, Our Provider, Our Healer. He alone is Yehovah-rapha.
References:
- A nationwide U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) report of water samples tested in 30 states for 95 different prescription and OTC drugs found two or more drugs in 75% of the water tested. 54% of the samples had 5 or more drugs. 34% of samples had 10 or more drugs. The survey found painkillers, tranquilizers antidepressants, antibiotics, birth control pills and chemotherapy agents to name a few in our drinking water.
- Top Ten Killers In The USA; USA Today, April 24, 1998
- Journal of American Medicine, April 1998
- “The pharmaceutical industry offers “health” to millions of patients – but does not deliver the goods. Instead it delivers products that merely alleviate symptoms while promoting the underlying disease as a precondition for its future business. To cover the fraud, this industry spends twice the amount of money in covering it up than it spends on research on future therapies.” Dr. Rath Lays Charge of Genocide on Pharmavia ICC at The Hague