The spiritual nature of pharmaceutical drugs
“Just say no to drugs. “How many times have people heard this advice, but still don’t think about going to the local pharmacy to pick up their prescriptions?
Drugs have become so common; 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 is perhaps most astonishing is the number of people who die each year from adverse reactions to prescription drugs. The bill is so high USA Today listed adverse drug reactions as 4th leading cause of death on their list of Top Ten Killers in America 2
With such a track record, the pharmaceutical industry (and the medical profession that prescribes drugs) would be considered criminal by any other civilized standard. However, not only are prescription drugs legal, they are encouraged by both modern medicine and the Christian Church in the U.S. That’s interesting because the Bible, the standard by which Christians live their lives, condemns the daily use of any kind of drugs, potions or spells, as well as poisoning or witchcraft. It is called pharmakeia in the original text and can be found in Galatians 5: 19-21.
When faced with the teaching that God condemns pharmakeia, most Christians believe that the Apostle Paul had to be referring to illegal drugs (such as marijuana and heroin), when he wrote his letter to the Church in Galatia, surely not to prescription drugs. At least they are right about the first part.
Narcotics and hallucinogenic drugs were not uncommon in the 1st century AD. For example, the Delphic Oracles apparently used Datura, a species of Jimson plant that contained powerful alkaloids, during their vision quests. So Christians have no problem defining pharmakeia within the parameter of hallucinogenic or mind-altering drugs. It is with legal drugs that many Christians do not see a dangerous and sinister spiritual connection.
In fact: if Christians were as concerned about taking prescription drugs as they were about their children engaging in illegal drugs, there would be far fewer deaths. That is because Deaths from adverse reactions to prescription drugs are many times greater than deaths from illegal drugs..
In fact, deaths caused by illegal drugs did not put the numbers together even to make the list of the top ten killers of the United States. USA Today. Yet many Christians worry about the latter (as if they were a scourge, and they are), while overlooking the physical and spiritual danger of the former. Many Christians think that legal drugs are different because they are part of our medical system. Simply put, they trust anyone who wears white coats to prescribe and dispense medication. They do so without understanding that everything related to the pharmaceutical industry violates fundamental spiritual truth and God’s teaching.
There are many reasons why God condemns pharmakeia. Perhaps the main reason is that God calls himself Jehovah-rapha, God our Healer (Exodus 15:26). He wants us to look to Him to heal us (to heal us), because only He and what He has provided us to heal can heal. King David recognized this fundamental truth when he wrote:
Praise the Lord, my soul, and Do not forget all its 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 dependence on drugs, they unknowingly deny God the glory and ability to heal them. I know this is a difficult word of knowledge for many to accept, because many Christians are dependent on drugs. But they do it only because they don’t see God in their heart and mind as their Healer. They believe that the era of divine healing is over, so their faith in healing is now tied to a lie (a work of the flesh) called pharmakeia. God is a jealous God. So when we place our dependence on anything other than God, we are actually turning our back on it. We are saying, “God is not enough for me. He cannot or does not want to heal me.”
That does not mean that we should not seek medical help from a doctor. The problem, however, is that most doctors are secular and only know about pharmacy, surgery, and radiation. They do not know Yehovah-rapha or the provision of healing that He placed in the plant kingdom for our health and well-being. But in most cases it is not the fault of the doctor. Doctors only know how 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, “Prove everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid all kinds of evil” (I Thessalonians 5: 21-22).
If drugs really worked and cured people, without killing or hospitalizing many of those who take them, you would not be reading this article. But drugs don’t cure. At best, they only suppress symptoms. At worst, they hospitalize more than two million people and kill hundreds of thousands more each year.
We must all understand that there is good and bad medicine. The difference between the two is that good medicine only heals and never hurts. Bad medicine never cures or 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 is opposed to everything that God represents. God does not receive glory in death. God receives glory by healing the sick! The pharmaceutical industry has no interest in curing the sick. Their only interest is to sell more drugs, to get as many people as possible to start using them, and to keep them there for the rest of their lives.
That last phrase, “keep them there for the rest of their lives,” plays a big role in what God cares about. 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 daily use, depending on it, doing a routine. In other words: To live.
This brings us to the role that medications play in hospital emergency rooms and ICUs. The drugs used here are mainly used on a temporary basis to stabilize patients for medical procedures and pain control. Without a doubt, when used in this way, drugs have saved many lives. This is good! People whose lives are saved in this way usually do not stay on the drugs that saved them. It is the people who “live” and continue to use drugs to “manage” their lives that create the opposite spiritual dynamic from God.
Today medications can be prescribed for almost any physical, lifestyle or emotional problem: male impotence, baldness, lack of sleep, arthritis, depression, pre- and post-menopause, acid reflux, anxiety, osteoporosis, acne, ADD, constipation and diabetes, to name. a few.
The drugs for these and many other of life’s confusing ones complain to us by falsifying the will of God in our lives. By creating alternate realities, the spirit behind these drugs can lead 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 their dependence on a false reality (an illusion) rather than on God our Healer. It is an insidious plan, one that has prevented millions of people from knowing the healing power that God gives them.
Healing diseases is one of God’s blessings for mankind. It was never intended that one would have to spend half of their income on a man-made drug to live. He never intended the medicine to come at the price of “acceptable risk.” That is why God created provisions for our well-being and placed those provisions in the plant kingdom for future generations of mankind (Genesis 1:29).
It is only the greed in man that creates a man-made substitute out of those provisions and then imposes them on an ignorant people as the ultimate miracle drug. The truth is that all artificial drugs are far inferior to the real ones. They are just one of the reasons God calls us to be sober and avoid Satan’s attacks (I Peter 5: 8).
But God did not place all the provisions for healing in the vegetable kingdom. Because he knew that there would also be sickness and disease upon man through the sins of the heart of man. These sins include fear, worry, jealousy, hatred, guilt, and the like. The spiritual root cause that causes these certain diseases requires a cleansing of the heart that only God can achieve for healing to become a reality.
As humanity looks to itself for answers to life’s problems, there will always be confusion, human suffering, and needless deaths. Only God has the answer to life’s problems, including the well-being of our body and heart. He is our creator. He knows you and me as individuals like no one else. He is our all in all, Our God, Our Savior, Our Provider, Our Healer. He is only Yehovah-rapha.
References:
- A nationwide United States Geological Survey (USGS) report of water samples tested in 30 states for 95 different prescription and over-the-counter drugs found two or more drugs in 75% of the water tested. 54% of the samples had 5 or more drugs. 34% of the samples had 10 or more drugs. The survey found pain relievers, tranquilizers, antidepressants, antibiotics, birth control pills, and chemotherapy agents, to name a few, in our drinking water.
- Top Ten Killers in America; USA Today, April 24, 1998
- Journal of American Medicine, April 1998
- “The pharmaceutical industry offers ‘health’ to millions of patients, but it does not deliver the products. Instead, it delivers products that simply alleviate symptoms while promoting the underlying disease as a precondition for its future business. It spends on research on future therapies.” . Dr Rath accuses Pharmavia ICC of genocide in The Hague