Humble Doctors

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Humble Doctors

• Learn Humility and Live in it!

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The Wisdom of the World

• Tonight we have come to commission you to go into
  the world a be a Christian healer
• You have acquired a mass of knowledge that will
  in time be increased and tempered by experience
  to become this worlds wisdom. Do not let this
  achievement give rise to pride
• Remember that there is a major problem with part
  of the knowledge you have accumulatedPaul the
  apostle called the problem foolishness

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The Worlds Wisdom

• Much of our knowledge, though, is not
  foolishness, for it is knowledge that God has
  revealed to us
• He intended for us to use it for the benefit of
  mankind
• So he commissioned and empowered us to proclaim
  the Gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons and
  raise the dead

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Heal the Sick

• You are better prepared to heal the sick than was
  my generation
• When I graduated from medical school there were
  only three antibiotics, no medications for mental
  disease, no steroids, no antihypertensives, no
  clinical cardiac catheterization procedures, only
  four or five anesthetic agents, a few sedatives,
  and only one antiepileptic drug

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Heal the Sick

• Healing for the most part was in the hands of the
  surgeons, so in their pride it was no wonder that
  many of them developed a god complex
• Some of them looked with disdain on we non-
  surgical colleagues
• They called us psychiatrists spooks, and sent
  patients to the internists for them to
  philosophize over.

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Heal the Sick

• They said of the dermatologists that they would
  treat their patients with the red paint, and if
  that did not work they would use the green paint,
  and on to the yellow, purple, etc
• All of this was a reminder that we did not have
  much to offer patients except comfort
• Sadly we did not know how to do that

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Heal the Sick

• When I began my medical career as a practitioner
  I realized medicines inadequacy. I watched
  patients die of many diseases and could do
  nothing to heal them
• When I went to work in the Dorothea Dix State
  Hospital we had 3500 patients for whom we could
  do little. We were essentially warehousing them
• My compassion for these unfortunates motivated me
  to choose a career in psychiatry and research

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Heal the Sick

• During my training I was blessed to have a
  several mentors
• The first one recruited me into psychiatry. He
  loved me and cared for me as a son, and guided
  and directed my training so I could accomplish
  what God had planned for me
• At the same time my father was praying for me
  everyday

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Heal the Sick

• My career took off and I was able to achieve more
  than most other psychiatrists
• I got the worlds recognition
• But God had planned that for me because I needed
  academic tenure, so I could not be fired when I
  became a Christian
• Then in the fullness of time God reached down and
  claimed me for his own

10
Heal the Sick

• This experience changed my worldview. Something I
  had not been taught about in medical school
• I now had a new view of the universe, and the
  world
• I knew that there was a God and he loved me
• He had created it all

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Heal the Sick

• I also acquired a new value system that was other
  directed
• I also had a futurology
• The most amazing change was that I could love in
  a new dimension. I could love my wife, my
  children, my patients, my colleagues and God a
  hundred times more!

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Heal the Sick

• He installed the Holy Spirit in my mind and
  changed my entire focus on medicine
• Instead of being preoccupied with things of the
  world I was now preoccupied with things of the
  Kingdom
• I had a passion to know Him more, and greater
  compassion for the lost, and traumatized people
  of the world

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Heal the Sick

• I also had a desire to know more about how my
  faith changed the way I thought and behaved
• My research that concentrated before on clinical
  and experimental neurophysiology now focused on
  the changes that take place when a person is
  regenerated (saved)

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Heal the Sick

• When other people found out I was a Christian
  they came to me for help, and as I treated them I
  realized that my patients had spiritual diseases
  that needed treatment
• God also showed me that he provided interventions
  that I could use to bring about healing of their
  spiritual diseases
• I also realized that my training had given me the
  understanding that made it possible to use these
  interventions

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Heal the Sick

• This meant that I had to learn about Gods
  medical practice including psychiatry
• During the ensuing years he helped me to develop
  a classification of spiritual disease and how to
  heal it
• He had given me power to heal when he initially
  touched me, and amplified it when he filled me
  with the Holy Spirit
• Now I could proclaim the gospel, heal the sick,
  cast out demons and raise the dead.

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Healing the Sick

• I soon also had a reputation as a Christian
  professor so a medical student came to me and
  asked me to teach him how to integrate his faith
  into his practice
• The Holy Spirit took over and we learned together
• Other students came so I then submitted a course
  to the curriculum committee entitled
  Christianity, Medicine and Psychiatry
• Amazingly it was approved

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Teaching Integration

• During the next years I had 108 medical students,
  over 50 residents, plus many other physicians
  including missionaries who took the course
• I later taught it in 31 countries overseas
• And I am still teaching seminarians how to use
  their faith to heal psychospiritual problems today

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Practicing Christian Medicine

• What do I teach?
• The first thing is that we have to change our
  worldview. There is a supernatural dimension to
  existence
• It is inhabited by supernatural beings
• We have a supernatural dimension to our being.
  Our mind is supernatural
• This means that supernatural beings can
  communicate with us in our mind

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Practicing Christian Medicine

• They can come and be installed in our mind or
  influence our thoughts
• They can only do so with our permission
• Having a supernatural mind we also can have
  spiritual disease. There are four or these
• To be unregenerateIt is congenital
• To be in sinIt is infectious
• To be possessedIt is being infected and
  controlled by the supernatural
• To be fanaticalIt is to overemphasize beliefs

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Practicing Christian Medicine

• God has, however, given us spiritual
  interventions to heal spiritual diseases. They
  are
• Evangelism
• Discipleship
• Prayer for healing
• Exhortation
• Confession, repentance, and forgiveness
• Inner healing
• Bibliotherapy
• Deliverance

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Practicing Christian Medicine

• To apply these we need to know which ones are
  indicated so we take a spiritual history along
  with our medical history
• We then plot a strategy in which we will use
  these interventions
• Our strategy will begin by first loving the
  patient. Having Gods love we will have
  compassion and the patient will know we care

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Practicing Christian Medicine

• Next we will attend to their medical problems
• And when we get to know the patient and have
  established a relationship, we will attend to
  their spiritual problems
• If they are unregenerate we will evangelize them
• If they are in sin, (which they will all be)
  having confessed we can use repentance and
  forgiveness
• If they have unresolved grief we are to resolve
  it

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Practicing Christian Medicine

• If they are saved and they need discipleship we
  disciple them
• If they are discouraged we use exhortation
• We will always pray for and with our patients
• If they have a load of memories from a traumatic
  childhood we will use inner healing
• If they are demonized we are to deliver them
• We will always encourage them to read the Bible
  and books that are written to bring about healing

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Obstacles to the Practice of Christian Medicine

• Available time
• Fear of rejection and criticism
• Preoccupation with income
• Lack of powerThe Holy Spirit is quenched or
  grieved in your life
• A belief that all you are called to do is heal
  their medical problems. Wrong! Christians are
  called to be holistic healers!!!

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Obstacles to the Practice of Christian Medicine

• The belief that you do not have a call to do more
  than the secular world prescribes
• Persecution
• Believing Satans lies
• Spiritual and intellectual sloth
• Lack of humility

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Overcoming Obstacles

• 1. Maintain your relationship with God
• A. Pray unceasingly
• Be in the word. Read three chapters of the Bible
  each day and meditate on what you read
• Worship God with praise and thanksgiving
• 2. Absolutely surrender and do whatever he tells
  you to do
• 3. Never forget that you are a priest of the most
  high God
• 4. Be humble and enjoy serving the Lord.

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For Further Reading

• William P. Wilson MD
• Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry
• DUMC
• Distinguished professor of Counseling
• Carolina Evangelical Divinity School
• www.InstChristiangrowth.org
• Go to Essays, and click on Basics for Christian
  Psychotherapy, and Clinical Christian
  Psychotherapy