You don't have to understand why to get the gain. You may not understand why a TV works, but you can watch Monday night football. You may not understand how a smallpox vaccination works, but will still be protected. You may not understand why God gave certain laws, but you can still gain the blessings if you keep them. You need to teach your children this concept and the following story would be great truth to share. In Exodus 15:26 God tells His people, "If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer." One of those statutes is found in Numbers 19:11, "The one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days." The paragraph continues through v. 22 with specific instructions for washing, etc. after coming in contact with a body, whether the death was natural or not. Moses did not know germ theory, but he believed God. When the children of Israel followed those laws, they were following good, sound, medical practice today called "quarantine." The Jewish people left behind the majority of infectious diseases when they left Egypt. They knew the law, they followed the law, they enjoyed freedom from disease, but they did not know the scientific reason why! Iganz Philipp Semmelweis (1818-65) was a doctor of obstetrics (he delivered babies) in Budapest and Vienna. He was the first to recognize that doctors were examining corpses then examining patients without washing their hands. Their maternity patients were dying at a far greater rate than maternity patients who were tended by midwives. One day a colleague, Dr. Jakob Kolletschka, nicked his finger while examining a corpse. That nick became infected and the doctor died of puerperal fever (the same disease that was killing his patients. Though Dr. Semmelweis knew nothing of germ theory, he correctly reasoned that some poison or something, from the corpses were being transferred to patients by maternity doctors. who refused to wash their hands between the morgue and the hospital. He instituted a practice in his hospital that demanded strict observance. The doctors in his hospital had to wash their hands in a strong solution of chlorinated lime before every delivery. IMMEDIATELY, the maternity patients in his hospital showed an incredible percentage of healthy mothers after delivery. Semmelweis was elated. He didn't know why, but he know it worked. He began to share his discovery with other obstetricians but they rejected his ideas because they did not know why! Semmelweis was branded a lunatic by those who refused to believe his theory. He became deeply depressed and returned to his home town in Hungary where he died, a broken man, in an insane asylum. It would be eighteen years before Louis Pasteur (think pasteurization) and Joseph Lister (for whom Listerine antiseptic was named) would convince the world that sterilization would save lives. When Lister began using boiling water and carbolic acid to sterilize surgical instruments and surfaces between surgeries, the post surgical death rate in England dropped from 50% to 15%! Today a statue of the good doctor stands at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary named in honor to this brave pioneer who spoke truth, even when he did not know the reasons behind it. If the doctors had had a working knowledge of the Old Testament, perhaps, just perhaps, many lives would have been saved as they recognized the wisdom of the "washing laws" therein. Your challenge as a parent is to share and show God's truth to your children in such a way as to help them accept it as they see the historical unfolding of the discovery of the reasons why. Your challenge as a parent must be to accept God's truth when we can prove why and to accept by faith God's truths that science has not yet confirmed. God's truth is truth, whether or not science has learned why! Ray Wallace E-mail: For further study: Numbers 19:11-22 Book: None of These Diseases - by McMillen & Stern http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi622.htm http://www.bridgeporthospital.org/health/healthywise/022003_infectioncontrol.cfm
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