We've been looking at the kingdom and many other facets of the life of David, and we're up to 1 Kings 1. You can either turn in your bulletin or in your Bibles to that passage. And I'll just point out very quickly that we're going to be having to bounce around as we get to the end of his life. Last week, we looked at 1 Chronicles 22, but if you look at the next verse in 1 Chronicles 23, it indicates that this chapter, 1 Kings 1, occurs between chapters 22 and 23 of 1 Chronicles, okay? So we have to bounce around a little bit to keep in chronological order. But 1 Kings 1, beginning at verse 1. Now King David was old, advanced in years, and they put covers on him, but he could not get warm. Therefore his servants said to him, let a young woman, a virgin, be sought for our Lord the King, and let her stand before the King, and let her care for him, and let her lie in your bosom that our Lord the King may be warm. So they sought for a lovely young woman throughout all the territory of Israel and found Abishag, the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The young woman was very lovely, and she cared for the king and served him, but the king did not know her. Father, we thank you for your word. It is our desire to not only understand it, but properly to apply it. We pray for your blessing as we continue to worship with the thoughts and the meditations of our hearts. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well, that beautiful woman, Abishag, is introduced immediately before the rebellion of Adonijah, and it's grouped this way in part because it's giving us a pointer to the fact that later on, she is going to be a key as to why Adonijah is executed by King Solomon. But he did not just include this paragraph for literary purposes or to weave a tight story together, I believe that this is a very vivid reminder of how culture can blind you to compromise. And I think any one of us can easily be blinded to truths that are in the scripture simply because we've adopted the thinking of the culture of the world that is around us. Now this incident, admittedly, seems so bizarre to us Westerners, we wonder how in the world that David could have even considered this arrangement, let alone have agreed to it. It's just weird, and here he is, a man after God's own heart. So what's going on? That's what we're going to investigate today. And I think to be fair to David, hindsight is a lot better than foresight. And from hindsight, we can clearly see that this is unethical on at least four levels. It's unethical, we saw, for kings to have more than one wife. That's quite clear in Deuteronomy 17. And yet David was culturally blinded to that sin in his life. Secondly, getting married with no intent or at least no ability to consummate the marriage is a form of defrauding. Third, If he hadn't gotten married, as most modern commentators claim, then substitute the sin of having her lie in his bosom to keep him warm as an unmarried woman. I mean, either way, you can't get off the dilemma of unethical issues in this chapter. Either way, it's not good. And then last, using a woman to fulfill David's needs, but closing off all opportunities for her to fulfill her needs, is a problem. Now even if you question one or two of those points, I don't think that there can be any controversy over the fact this was an unethical decision. Almost everyone agrees on that. So why did he do it? I think it's important to understand that David and his advisors couldn't see anything wrong with this. It made perfect sense to them. Many commentators have pointed out that this was standard medical practice in that day and age. And if you're skeptical, you can read some of the ancient The quotes from ancient authors that you'll find in the commentaries, some of them would use a young woman, some of them would use a young boy to warm an elderly person, and some of them even talked about the breath of this person giving vitality to the elderly person, but certainly They believed that the touch of their bodies would rejuvenate an older person. The ancient medical doctor Galen seemed to believe that energy passed from one to the other. One commentator summarized the ancient views in these words. The established belief that the health of the young and healthier person, being as it were, stolen to support that of the more aged and sickly, is well established among the medical faculty, and hence the prescription for the aged king was made in a hygienic point of view. By hygienic, he meant medical. In other words, it would be the same thing as a woman going to a male gynecologist or a male going to a woman doctor or something like that. It wasn't anything other than a medical or, he says, a hygienic point of view for the prolongation of his valuable life and not merely for the comfort to be derived from the natural warmth imparted to his withered frame. So to be clear, this was a medical procedure to rejuvenate the king. Now, of course, we still shake our heads at that. And we think they should have known better. We don't care if it's a medical procedure. They should have known better than to getting a woman to sleep with the king. And I agree. And many commentators agree with that assessment. But it was a culturally acceptable medical practice. Not biblically acceptable. but it was culturally acceptable in the ancient world. Now, we Westerners tend to be repulsed by this, and rightly so, but let me just use an analogy to try to get across the idea of how people can accept something that others are repulsed by. And it's not a perfect analogy, I admit, but I'm just trying to get across the idea of how there can be different emotional reactions to the same exact thing. If one of you were to offer to me and say, you know what, I've got a friend who can sell you some heroin on the black market and we can treat your disease with this heroin, I think many Americans would be very, very opposed to that. They would think that that is terrible. But if a medical doctor offered to give a prescription to treat my disease with a drug that was every bit as addictive as heroin, they would think absolutely nothing about that. So a physician brings respectability to a suggestion. And Josephus points out that these servants were David's personal physicians. So that's kind of the background material to explain why this was a blind spot for both David and David's advisors. And with that background, let's dive into the text. And let's look first of all at the medical conditions that everyone agrees that he had. Verse 1 says, Now King David was old, advanced in years, and they put covers on him, but he could not keep warm. His first medical condition was that he had an aging body, and the phrase old and advanced in years describes the fact that his body was ready to quit. Now David himself was not actually that old. We know that he died at age 70. So he's either in his 69th or his 70th year of his life, but his body was aged, okay? His body was worn out. His second medical condition was that he could not keep warm. And this is frequently the case for elderly people. Most commentators believe that this is just cold from poor circulation, which frequently happens with older people. But there are some commentators point out, especially since he got energized in the last few months and did all kinds of work is really an odd thing. They think, well, maybe this shivering, this cold that he was experiencing was due to sickness, a fever. a diabetic hypoglycemia, a hypothyroidism, side effect of the drugs that the doctors had given to him, or perhaps one of about a dozen other medical conditions. We are not told, and it really doesn't matter. We don't need to know exactly why he was cold. We just need to know that he had another medical condition that the doctors couldn't fix. David was cold. He could not keep warm. The third A medical condition hinted at is impotence. Look at verse 4. The young woman was very lovely and she cared for the king and served him, but the king did not know her. Now the phrase did not know her is a euphemism for the fact that he did not consummate the marriage if indeed he was married. You might think, why would there even be controversy on that? Matthew Poole gives several reasons, I think it's about five reasons, as to why he thinks that David had to have been married. But most modern, even most modern evangelical commentators give several reasons why that absolutely could not be the case. I'm not going to even try to settle that debate for you this morning because that's not the purpose of the sermon. I tend to side with Matthew Poole But I tell you, there are strong arguments on the other side as well. So most commentators agree with the early Jewish historian Josephus that David had the medical condition known as impotence. If he was married, he couldn't consummate the marriage. If he wasn't married, she lay in his bosom without any impact on him, which would be hard to explain apart from a medical condition. Now, whether impotence is reading too much into the passage or not, David clearly had medical issues. We at least know that much, and that will serve as the foundation for our applications this morning. Asking for more and more blankets didn't seem to work in verse 1. He still felt cold. And when you are cold day and night, you are miserable. And when that goes on day after day after day, you begin to get desperate. and you try to find some way to resolve this cold. Josephus says that he called for his personal physicians. He had servants who were the best physicians in the nation. But it is frequently desperation that leads modern Christians to attempt medical answers that are unethical. And the physicians think, hey, solution is obvious. Verse two, therefore, his servant said to him, let a young woman, a virgin be sought for our Lord, the King, and let her stand before the King and let her care for him and let her lie in your bosom that our Lord, the King may be warm. According to commentators, this highlighted the current wisdom of the world of that time, not of the Bible, but of the world. As Galen the Greek physician claimed, doing what Abishag did would transfer some of her youth and vitality to the king and a lot of the old physicians believed married women couldn't do that if they've already had kids, because they didn't have that energy. I mean, it's kind of a superstitious idea, but it seems that it was, even though it was a bad medical idea, this was the standard viewpoint for at least the next 1,500 years, and some commentators said it was a lot longer than that. Second, some commentators believe that there was an interest in getting David sexually stimulated. This, too, was thought to improve the blood and the energies of the body, And so the second part of verse 2 recommends a young woman, a virgin. Verse 3 says, so they sought for a lovely young woman throughout all the territory of Israel. And verse 4 emphasizes how attractive she was. The young woman was very lovely. So it was her attractiveness that got Adonijah into trouble later on. Their advice had the side benefit of providing a nurse. She was not just intended to bring heat to the body, but to serve the king, to care for his every need. But the key component was, let her lie in your bosom that our Lord the King may be warm. If it wasn't for his coldness, Abishag would not have been sought. This was the solution to his shivering. The text gives every indication David went along with the medical advice of his physicians, because if all that he needed was bed care and somebody to cook for him and wash him and things like that, his other wives, his concubines, any number of servants would have been able to do this. There was more intended than simple nursing. And there is no evidence that David questioned their reasoning. By going along with their advice, he's not just getting a nurse. She is there to warm him. She is his medical solution. Okay? And whether you think he is married to her, as I tend to believe, or whether she is not married to him, as modern commentators believe, I think it's still a strange, strange viewpoint that they held to. Not to David. And I just want to show that we are really not so different from David. It's so easy to point the finger at people in hindsight, but we are really not so different from David. For some reason, when experts give medical advice today, they are rarely questioned. But physicians do not stand in the place of God, and I think it's so important that we learn to think critically rather than just blindly accepting the advice that they give before acting on it. Thankfully, most Western allopathic medicine still has centuries of Christian influence behind it. It's not too New Age. It's not too overwhelmingly unbiblical. I think one of the biggest problems with modern allopathic medicine, traditional medicine, is it is monopolistic. It is statist to the core. But let me give you some examples of allopathic medical advice that has been given by Christian physicians that I believe has ethical problems. And people follow the medical advice just as naively as David did. Believe it or not, there are still Christian medical doctors who are willing to insert IUDs into women, even though, without any exception, IUDs are abortifacient. One Christian doctor told me that It really didn't matter that it cast off a fertilized egg because he said, life does not begin until implantation. And yet the scripture is quite clear, life begins at the moment of conception. And I wondered at the time, how many young couples has this physician been giving advice to that this is the most convenient form of birth control, and without their even realizing it, just because they are trusting the advice of an expert, They have unwittingly been involved in aborting many fertilized eggs. To us, it's obvious compromise, but it is a blind spot for many, many Christians. Let me give you another example, and this one is much more subtle. You might not even catch immediately any major problems with it. Because of the threat of medical malpractice, obstetricians frequently want women to get tests that are not needed. One of our doctors, for example, insisted that Kathy get a CVS, which is an invasive sampling of the placenta tissue. I mean, they take a needle right through your stomach into the placenta And it's not hugely risky. They say about a 1% risk or something like that. But we didn't want to get this test, number one, because we didn't want to spend the money. We had a huge medical deduction. And secondly, because we didn't want to take any risk if there was really no value to this test that we could use. And he said, oh, no, there is value because it shows Down syndrome babies. It shows other conditions. We said, yeah, we realize that. But there's nothing you can do to cure Down syndrome in the womb. And so the only reason you'd be getting this test would be to abort the baby, and we don't believe in abortion. And she's, well, I don't believe in abortion either. But the reason she was insisting everybody had to get this test was because she did not want a malpractice lawsuit to come against her, you know, if she, you know, people have done that. They've sued doctors because If I had known that my baby was Down syndrome, I would have gotten an abortion. So you understand where they're coming from. Well, the doctor didn't believe in abortion, but she was covering her tail from lawsuits and insisted that we sign a waiver if we were not going to get that test. Well, we signed it, but how many young Christian couples, they didn't even know they had an option to sign a waiver because they were not insisting on not getting that test. And so this is much more subtle, but the simple fear of a lawsuit on the part of a doctor can make them do some things that involve you in some marginal ethical issues. And it's important that Christians not feel pressured to do what is not necessary simply because an expert insists that you do it. I'm going to give you one more example. from allopathic medicine, and this one is much more serious. I believe that brain death is not a biblical definition of death, and there are many people who have been declared to be brain dead who have completely come out of it. One friend of mine in Lincoln, and I've told you this story quite a few years ago, but He called me from the emergency room in a hospital in Lincoln, and he said that his cousin had gotten into a car accident, and she had an organ donation card, and she was in the emergency room, had been declared to be brain dead, and they wanted to harvest her organs. And he was the one who had the power of attorney for medical decisions, and so they were really pressuring him to sign this form and to do so quickly. Now, he'd never studied the medical issues, so he didn't have a clue what to do. He called me up, and after asking a few questions, I was absolutely convinced she was not dead, and I gave him the biblical reasons why I believed that she was not dead. Well, the... And it didn't matter to me how many physicians said she was dead. She's not dead if the Bible says she's still alive. But anyway, they got really upset with him. They brought in other medical experts. They said, look, you're not an expert. Your pastor's not an expert. You need to sign this form. He steadfastly refused to do that. And I won't go through the whole tense. And it was a pretty tense saga. to relate, I just want to tell you that almost exactly two weeks after they attempted to harvest her organs, she was up and walking around and perfectly normal. Two weeks later. Now, many Christians would have just trusted the physician and said, hey, if a physician says she's dead, then she's dead, would have signed the waiver and all of her organs would have been harvested from her body. And so, My point is that just as David shouldn't have blindly followed the advice of his physicians, we shouldn't blindly follow the advice of our physicians. That is putting way too much of a burden upon them. No one, pastors included, should be blindly followed. And praise God, none of you just blindly follow me. In fact, you argue with me a lot of times, which is great. You're thinking about the scriptures, right? And you want to see if I really can back them up. But just to be fair, let me tell you that I have seen similar medical compromises with homeopathic medicine, with alternative medicine. For the last three decades or so, Christians have been more and more conned into demonic and Eastern ideas by so-called holistic medical practitioners. And some of this demonic stuff is actually creeping into the allopathic centers. I've seen it here in the hospitals in Omaha. Let me just give you one example of holistic medicine that Christians are raving about. Dr. Brian Berman started the Center for Integrated Medicine and is now part of the Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine and Digestive Center in Maryland. So we're not talking about some weird, esoteric, nutso center. We're talking Johns Hopkins. This is a very respected institution. This holistic medical center was funded by the National Institutes for Health to the tune of $35 million. And from all reports, it appears to be doing actually some fairly good stuff. So I'm not criticizing everything that they are doing, not at all. Some of the treatments don't seem particularly controversial, but other treatments have major problems. And I'm just going to share information from one of the treatments that they use regularly there, because we have the same treatments being given here in Omaha, and I want you to be aware of it. It's called Reiki Massage, R-E-I-K-I. And I thought I would pick Reiki Massage because in some ways it is similar to the current wisdom of the physicians of David's day, at least those who bought into the world's wisdom instead of Bible's medical practices. It purports to channel energies from a healthy person into the body of a sick person. There's a claim that it works very, very well on many medical conditions that simply cannot be cured with traditional allopathic treatments. And people who are desperate for help, they hear the testimonials, they're impressed, and they try it. And they too have reported healing. What they fail to report is the demonic attachments that they have received along with this Eastern healing. And I want to read to you at length from the official description of this treatment so that you can see I'm not misrepresenting them in any way. This is from the official Reiki massage page and as I read this I want you to listen to the phrases and see if there's any red flags that my reading of this brings into your mind. If you're at all biblically literate I think you will recognize there's problems here. This web page says Reiki massage or Reiki therapy is a healing technique originating in Japan that promotes simultaneous physical and spiritual healing. Reiki healing promotes stress reduction and relaxation and is administered by a Reiki healer. The underlying idea of Reiki healing is that a life force flows through every person and this force can be strengthened, restored, and redirected by a careful use of the Reiki practitioner's hands. origins of Reiki massage. The word Reiki is a combination of two Japanese words, Rei, meaning God's wisdom, and Ki, meaning universal life force energy. Combined, these two words mean spiritually guided universal life force energy. Now I'm just going to stop there for a moment and get your pulse here. Hopefully you're seeing there's some New Age philosophy at least behind the description. It may be okay and somebody snuck in some New Age stuff, but at least you ought to be on guard at this point in reading here. And yet there are many Christians who are so used to seeing New Age descriptions of the things that they're involved in, they don't even think the second thought about it. Your chiropractor may offer Reiki massage. There are a lot of centers in Omaha that do. Now let me keep reading. In Reiki massage, a Reiki practitioner who has been attuned to life force energy by a Reiki master uses spiritual energy to promote equilibrium and heal a person's aura, which is a personal universal force believed to emanate from all people, animals, and objects that is even discernible by people with psychic sensitivity. And they do this through kneading, rubbing, touching, and simply laying on of hands on various body parts and areas to obtain spiritual healing. Although a belief in Reiki energy is thousands of years old, the manipulation of this potent life force energy in a manner which is recognizable today did not involve did not evolve in Japan until the early days of the 20th century. Development of the modern Reiki massage techniques practitioners use today is attributed to Japanese Buddhist Mikau Usui in 1922. Legends say that while Usui was undergoing a traditional 21-day Buddhist training course, he had a spiritual experience that revealed to him the knowledge and spiritual power needed to practice as well as attune others to practice what he called Reiki, which initially entered his body through his crown chakra, a power center in everybody's body located on top of the head. Let me stop there for a moment, because if you do not see problems with this language, I definitely need to talk to you and give you some instruction from the Bible on the issues that are involved here. But here is some spiritual power that has entered his body through his crown chakra, okay? And I can give you esteemed medical institutions around the United States that use this kind of stuff. I'm just wanting you to be aware there's more and more new age even creeping into the mainline institutions. Anyway, going on, the page says, many assumed that this Buddhist training course was meant to be a spiritual purification test that involved fasting, meditating, and praying. During his training, he became instantly attuned to the power of Reiki massage healing. Hmm, just instantly got it. Along with his attunement, he also gained the power to awake the hidden powers latent within others. During his lifetime, he had healed over 2,000 different people through the power of Reiki massage practices. Before Mikao Usui died, he left 16 successors that went about spreading his teaching and the knowledge of Reiki. There are three levels of Reiki mastery. The first level will teach new students the foundations of Reiki, including hand placements and the theories behind them. At the end of this level, the student will be able to heal others and themselves. The second level teaches deeper levels of Reiki healing and also allows the student to heal people from long distance. And you do actually see this where they're not even touching the body. The master level allows the practitioner to attune others latent Reiki healing abilities, how Reiki works. Reiki is believed to work through an extremely specific process and connection between the Reiki practitioner, the universal life force of energy, and the one receiving Reiki treatment. Reiki practitioners are taught to absorb energy from the universe and channel it into their patients to promote healing and well-being. Reiki practitioners also act as channels through which negative energy can be removed from patients' bodies and replaced with positive energy. And I'll skip over some. They go on to talk about all of the diseases that can be healed, postponement of the aging process, spiritual healing growth, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it says, what does a Reiki massage feel like? During Reiki therapy, sensations can be both physical as well as spiritual. A Reiki massage treatment can be effective yet involve very little actual touching between the Reiki practitioner and the patient. However, specific physical sensations may be experienced by the patient during a Reiki treatment. For example, when sites of severe and or long-standing energy blockages are cleared by a skilled Reiki practitioner, the patient may feel a slight but discernible and distinct twinge specific to that area followed by a more generalized feeling of relaxation. Some patients may actually doze off during a Reiki treatment as the feeling of relaxation increases. Often a patient's breathing slows. I'll just stop there. And you might be tempted to think, hey, these are just quacks who are involved in fake healing. And there is a lot of quackery that goes on in alternative medicine movement. But in this case, healing actually does seem to occur. And there's some rather remarkable healings that have occurred. I'll read you an example later. And the discerning Christian will immediately be able to recognize all kinds of demonic elements to this description. The problem is, many Christians undergo Reiki therapy without ever having read up on it at all. They trust their therapist. So, when a Reiki massage advocate, could be a chiropractor, could be a medical doctor, could be any number of people, say, you know, none of the treatments that we've been trying on you have worked. Why don't we try Reiki massage? Guy says, sure, it doesn't hurt. Oh, yes it does. But anyway, they try it. And they think, well, our friends have tried it. It seems to have worked for them. And what I want to point out is that, yes, I do think that these types of things do work. Even demons can do miracles, and if you don't believe that I can give you all kinds of scriptures that talk about the demonic being able to do miracles. And of course there's the placebo effect too, isn't there? Which can be naturally explained. But I think there's a lot more than the placebo effect here. I believe that there are demonic spiritual powers at work. So that's just one of many alternative medicine treatments that this Johns Hopkins Integrative Medical Center uses. They also use acupuncture, hypnosis, Ayurveda. There's a lot of other therapies we're just not going to get into. But let me address this issue that it works, because I hear this all the time. Somehow people think if it works, it's okay. And that is absolutely not true. And by the way, you can prove just about anything with testimonials. And I can show you how you can prove just about anything with testimonials. That a therapy does or does not work is a very difficult issue. to evaluate. As I mentioned, the placebo effect itself is so strong in some individuals that placebo pills, placebo shots, will cure people. You're thinking, they just injected water into that person, why is he cured? But there is a powerful placebo effect that's involved there. Acupuncture and other alternative medicine treatments have been subjected to numerous scientific studies and there are mixed results that have come out of that. I'm not quite sure what to think of acupuncture. I tried acupuncture a number of years ago because I had spent tens of thousands of dollars on my lower back pain, just could not get any relief. The chiropractor said, well, why don't we try this? Why don't we try that? And like an idiot, I said, okay, why don't we? The acupuncturist that was at that center was actually shocked, was surprised, because they worked with me over and over with acupuncture, and it had zero effect. Now, it may be because I was a little bit suspicious, and so I went into that thing all the way through, praying against the demonic. Lord, if there's anything demonic about this, I pray that you would bind their powers. Or it may have been just some other reason. I don't know. But I do know this. There is enough occult background to some of the alternative therapies that I was utterly foolish to even go into the offices there. I'm opening myself up to danger. Why? Because when a place like that and some of these chiropractic offices are swarming with demons, when a place like that is already dedicated to the occult and you go in, you can have demonic attachments. It is something that we simply cannot ignore. Now let me give you a humorous example of how things can work. Out in Ethiopia, they have a treatment. They had all kinds of barbaric treatments, but one of the treatments that they had for pain was to get a red hot poker and burn you. And you say, well, what's the theory behind that? Well, they thought pain is caused by demons, and if we burn that place, it will scare the demons. It will drive the demons out. So my friends had burn marks all over their body, especially on their foreheads, you know, from headaches. And I asked one of them, does that really work? And he said, oh yeah, this works great. And I asked my other friend, who is a little bit more influenced by Western ideas, he said, yeah, it works. After you've been burnt by the hot poker, it hurts so bad, you never complain about your pain again. And so, yeah, statistically, if you were to evaluate how many people have to get retreated, Not very many. And so statistically it's worked, but it is a tough question to say it works. To me that's meaningless. It works is meaningless. And I think our text here illustrates why we should be cautious about the claims that a treatment works if it is ethically suspicious. David's treatment may have been thought to have worked because we know from the subsequent chapters that David regained enormous energies during the months after this chapter. Okay? Turn with me to 1 Chronicles chapter 23. I want you to notice in the first verse that This takes place at the end of 1 Kings 1 and at the beginning of 1 Kings 2. So 1 Chronicles 23 verse 1, so when David was old and full of days, he made his son Solomon king over Israel. Now he is cold, he is in bed when he makes Solomon king. So what happens after he makes Solomon king? It's an enormous amount of stuff that happens. It's almost like David has become the Energizer Buddy. In verse 2, he gathers all Israel together. He numbers the Levites, and by inspiration, he assigns them the duties that they're going to have in Solomon's new temple. In chapter 24, he writes down detailed divisions of the priests and the Levites. Chapter 25 deals with the musicians and the enormous number of instruments that David invented and that he actually crafted. In fact, you look at that chapter, it wears you out thinking of all of the work that David was involved in there. He has enormous energy. Then you get to... By the way, that was all done by divine inspiration. This was not a humanistic innovation. It was divine inspiration. But chapter 26 deals with the divisions of the gatekeepers. Chapter 27 deals with military divisions. In the second half of that chapter, other officers. And in chapters 28 through 29, David gives temple plans in great detail. And here's the point. Commentators are puzzled how a man who was unable to even maintain body heat in bed can suddenly do so many things. Some might attribute it to the Reiki therapy that this young woman has done, you know, with her energies going into his body and look, it works. Others might attribute it to the fact that maybe he was sick, had a fever, he got over it and he's out of bed. Others say, hey, this happens all the time with the elderly. You can go for a long period of weakness and all of a sudden you come out of it and you're strong, you're able to do a lot of things. And there's all kinds of different explanations. But if you were to judge a therapy by whether it worked or not, you could very legitimately say, Abishag's unethical physical therapy worked, okay? That's not a sufficient justification to adopt anything. We are biblicists, not pragmatists. And I found it interesting that when David Friedman did a piece of investigative journalism on the Johns Hopkins Integrative Medical Center and the alternative medicine at Mayo Clinic, He talked with a traditional doctor who shredded the place as being completely unscientific, but that traditional doctor, Dr. Steven Salzberg, showed his own inconsistent pragmatism that was utterly unscientific. So let me just read you the end of Friedman's article. Before leaving the Mayo Clinic, I stopped in to watch a small mountain of muscle named Ryan Berry receive massage therapy. That's the Reiki therapy we've been talking about. through the integrative medicine program to address the discomfort he was experiencing two days after extensive thoracic surgery. When I came in, Ryan, who was 34, was stiff with pain and seemed sewn to the chair in which he had been propped up. He clutched the arms of the chair, grimacing with each shallow breath. Over soothing music, the therapist spent several minutes talking with Ryan, getting him to discuss through clenched teeth the details of his pain. When she finally started the treatment, she seemed to barely brush her hands against the top of his back. But within a minute, his hands started to release their death grip. His teeth unclenched, and he was slumping a bit. Within three minutes, he was breathing deeply and slowly. His hands were open and limp. He was sunk down in the chair, and his grimace had been replaced with a hint of a smile. Personally, I doubt it mattered much where exactly the therapist placed her hands and how she moved them. which means a randomized trial would have found the treatment to be no better than sham massage. but it was as compelling a picture of suffering relieved as I have ever seen. Scenes like that one, witnessed by more and more doctors in clinical settings, make it obvious why the front lines of medicine are pushing toward a less rigid stance on alternative medicine, if slowly and in pockets. Open-mindedness can strike in even the most unexpected places. Steven Salzberg happened to mention to me in passing that he didn't consider hypnosis to be an alternative practice. I asked him why he left that off his long list of shams and frauds, and he seemed surprised as if he had never considered the possibility that it might not be a legitimate therapy. I don't know, he said. I guess it's because my father was an academic clinical psychologist, and he used it in his work. Had he looked at studies on the effectiveness of hypnosis? Not very closely, he said, but I believe it works. You know, it's so easy for any of us to avoid critical thinking and to do something simply because it works or because respected practitioners do it. And I'm not even a deal this morning with the hocus-pocus you find in psychology. That's another whole thing. Actually, Robert Fugate has written a fabulous book on that. What's it called? Psychoheresy? Okay. Back to 1 Kings 1. and verses three through four. David's physicians wrapped their suggestion in reasonable sounding language and found an attractive looking girl. Now, if they had come to David and If they had found an ugly hag from a Philistine city who had VD and tuberculosis and said, hey, this hag here is quite willing to warm your body because she's not afraid of catching your diseases, he would have just dismissed it out of hand. But because this therapy that seemed like it would work was wrapped in such a beautiful package, looked beautiful, he received it. And in the same way, the medical compromises that Christians make are not obviously repulsive or demonic. If the Christians could see the ugly demons behind the therapies, they would be repulsed. But weird ideas are wrapped up in beautiful packages that actually seem to work. At least you can get testimonials that they work, right? When chiropractors use crystal therapy in the West, they leave out the Eastern origins, they leave out the New Age weirdness, and they try to explain the healing in scientific terms, but it is still hocus-pocus. Now, I have to pick on aromatherapy, and I want to clarify that I use essential oils, so I'm not against aromatherapy, okay? But I just want you to be aware that there is New Age stuff that has crept into this whole thing, and we need to be on guard. Just don't swallow the bad along with the good. Here is a book called The Essential Oils Desk Reference Guide. And it's a book that actually mixes some great scientific evidence that I found very, very helpful. But it also has sections that make conjectural leaps from that scientific evidence that may or may not be true. And then it also has some sections that are absolutely goofball, hocus pocus. And the hocus pocus especially comes out in the oil blends section of the book. I'm going to go from the best to the worst. So initially you might say, what's wrong with that? First oil blend is abundance and under that description it says, this blend was created to enhance the frequency of the energy field that surrounds us through electrical stimulation of the somatides. Somatides transmit the frequency from the cells to the outside of the body when they are stimulated through fragrance and the thought process. This frequency called the electrical field or aura creates what is called the law of attraction, or that which we attract to ourselves. This might bring about an abundance of health, both physical and emotional. Now, you might just chalk it up that I'm too rationalistic, but that just seems like mumbo-jumbo to me. The next blend is acceptance, and its description says, this blend stimulates the mind, compelling it to open and accept new things in life allowing one to reach a higher potential. It also helps to overcome procrastination and denial. Now, if that makes sense to you, I would really, really, really like you to explain why it makes sense to you, okay? The next blend is Dreamcatcher. And if you buy or sell Dreamcatcher, I really want you to explain what this means. Now, it doesn't mean that the oils in Dreamcatcher aren't good. They might be good for other things, okay? But I just want you to explain what this means from this book. This exotic formula may help open the mind and enhance dreams and visualization, promoting greater potential for realizing your dreams and staying on your path. It also protects you from negative dreams that might cloud your vision. Forgive me if I'm skeptical, but in all my research, I have seen zero, zero scientific evidence for a blend that gives dreams and helps you to achieve your dreams. Now, we're still in the moderately okay realm, okay? It gets worse, believe me. The blend called forgiveness drives me absolutely crazy. It says, the electrical frequencies of the oils in this blend may help release negative memories. They may have powerful effects in helping people move past emotional barriers, enabling them to achieve higher awareness and compelling them to forgive and let go. Now, it's really too bad that the Scripture didn't know about this because they could have just compelled everybody to forgive by distributing essential oils, right? And it really bothers me. I find it offensive that essential oil advocates will make claims for oils that only God's grace can achieve, okay? There are other blemishes that promise even greater things. than compelling to forgive. Gathering, quote, gathers spiritual thoughts. Really, gathers spiritual thoughts and may help bring people together on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. So do you have spiritual division in the church? Here's an essential oil that you could use. Under the oil blend called humility, they say, Humility is an integral ingredient in obtaining forgiveness and a closer relationship with God. Through the frequency and fragrance of this blend, you may find that special place where your own healing may begin. You can see why I'm starting to get a little bit offended when oils are promising to do what only grace can do. And I'm not quoting this stuff to be disrespectful. I use essential oils. It's not like I'm writing them off. I just say, you need to understand that some of these books are coming at the subject from a new age perspective. And we've got to be very much on guard. Some have been irresponsible enough to claim that their oils actually heal Ebola. Now, if you run across anybody that's been healed by essential oils on the disease of Ebola, I really, really want to talk to that person. This is going to be phenomenal. They claim that it heals AIDS. Now, maybe it does, but I really would like to see the background and the studies that have been done on some of these claims. Recently, you know that the FDA has shut down some of the blogs of some of these essential oil companies, and I do not blame. I don't think the FDA has any business doing that. They're involved in way too much. But in one sense, I don't blame them for doing that. Some of the claims are absolutely outrageous and I think are irresponsible and have led people to throw off good medical treatment that they should have given in the hopes that these oils will help them. Just read what they talk about detoxifying your body. You know, people break out in rashes and they say, oh, don't worry. You can't be having allergic reaction to these oils. Your body is just detoxing. And six weeks later, the woman says, I still got hives all over my skin. When do I stop using this? When does my body stop detoxing? Just persevere. You must have a lot of toxins in your body. That is so irresponsible, so irresponsible. Let me give you some other claims. The Inner Child blend claims that this blend has the potential of curing or at least helping multiple personality disorder. And I'm thinking, really, people actually believe that? Under inspiration, it says, this blend combines oils traditionally used by the Native Americans to increase spirituality, enhancing prayer and inner awareness. Well, I don't want the spirituality of American Indians. It is demonic. And how in the world an oil can help your prayer life just baffles me. The Bible says nothing about that. Inspiration brings us closer to our spiritual connection, it says. So hopefully you're getting the point. There is a New Age philosophy behind the descriptions of these oils, and even the places that use scientific language often fail to reference any scientific studies. I would think there'd be a footnote on some of these claims that shows the double-blind studies that have been done on some of their extreme claims. You don't find that under the oil blend. Now, there is scientific, and then there is the conjectural leaps, and then there's the hocus-pocus. Under the blend, oil blend sacred mountain, it says, this is a blend of oils extracted from the conifer trees representing the sacred feeling of the mountains. They bring about a feeling of protection, strength, grounding, empowerment, and security. Now, I'll be the first to admit that there is a lot of good that is in this book. But it is important to understand the New Age presuppositions that drive the research and that drive the interpretation of the research. And too many Christians take this book and other books like it as gospel truth. Some other books on essential oils speak of a consciousness and innate intelligence that is present in these oils that enables the oils to heal you and enables you to tap into the universal consciousness and they claim that any given oil will work differently with different people because it's intelligent enough to be able to adapt to the new needs of this person's body. One motivational speaker at a Young Living National Conference called essential oils, quote, little bottles of God. Another seller tried to Christianize the New Age stuff by calling the innate intelligence in the oils a Christ consciousness. That's even worse, if anything, because now you're getting into syncretism. One seller of oils stated on their website, these oils work on all levels, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, making them ideal. We have found that many of the ailments and dysfunctions showing up in our children today are rooted in the spiritual realm. There are no other products, implying than the ones I sell, there are no other products I have found that truly treat the whole person. These oils work in total alignment with the body's own divine intelligence and innate self-healing wisdom. Now I'm going to trust your judgment enough to not have to point out the obvious, but these are heretical statements, and yet I have talked to Christian salespeople from different oil companies, including Young Living, salespeople who have justified them. Ignore them if you want. Better yet, disagree with them, but do not justify them. Okay? You can no more justify these statements than David's compromised medical treatment could be justified. And over and over again, it's testimonials that are the authority. Well, from everything that the commentators say about David's regained health during the next few months, I'm sure that David could have given the testimonial. It works. It's fabulous. I am so energized, never felt so good in my life. I'm sure he could have given that testimonial. And I've harped on that point enough, so I'll skip that. But let's go to the unintended consequences. Commentators point out three unintended consequences to what David did here. The first is that children imitate our independent thinking to some degree. And David's children would imitate his polygamy, okay? But they would also go beyond David in going to the world for wisdom. The second unintended consequence is that Abishag would tie up David's attention while Joab and Adonijah would engage in a coup. In fact, there's some commentators say, oh, the whole reason they came up with this thing was so that he would be preoccupied with Abishag and that they would be able to take over the government for Adonijah. As Edersheim explains, for this purpose, Abishag, a fair maiden from Shunem, had been brought into the king's harem. In David's utter physical prostration, Adonijah might reckon on being able to carry on his scheme without interference from the king. Indeed, unless David had been specially informed, tidings of the attempt would not have even reached his sick chamber till it was too late. The third unintended consequence, or at least the complication, is that chapter 2 shows how Abishag led to Adonijah's death. And the unintended consequences of failing to understand how the Bible applies to our own medical issues can be just as far-reaching. If you have an organ donation card in your wallet and you show up in a hospital unconscious, brain dead by their definition. Just unconscious doesn't make you brain dead. It has to be the whole, even the brain stem, no activity. Although I know many hospitals that cheat on that. It doesn't always meet the legal definition. But you could be giving permission to doctors to harvest all of your organs while you're in a temporary coma. There's a group of medical doctors that have been working for decades to try to overturn this faulty brain death criteria. When you go to a chiropractor who practices New Age spiritual practices, you may unwittingly be opening yourselves up to demonic attachments. Now, I'm not against chiropractors. In fact, the Dijkstra has recommended a fabulous chiropractor that I really, really like. We've used him over time. But the point is, there are a lot of chiropractors that are New Age. And it is possible, very possible, when you go in there on a regular basis, the demons will see this as a legal ground for attaching themselves and bringing oppression into your life, depression, anxieties, insecurity, hopelessness, temptation, anger, false prophecy, and other demonic manifestations. Same is true of yoga classes. If you have followed a doctor's advice in getting an IUD, you could unwittingly be aborting pregnancies without realizing it. So the bottom line is that our chief authority must be the Bible. And the more we familiarize ourselves with medical ethics, the less easily we will be taken in. Now, since every one of you is likely going to be going to some medical practitioner in the next decade, whether homeopathic or allopathic, it would be wise for you to read up a little bit on medical ethics. And there's some good books out there. There's some books written by Dr. Franklin Paine. There's a great book by John Frayne. There is a website called Watchman Fellowship that exposes some of the problems in modern medicine. But let's commit ourselves to no compromise in medical ethics. Amen. Father, we thank You for Your Word and how it warns us for our good. And I pray that we would hear the warnings of Your Word, even though there is so little in this passage. May we roam the rest of the Scripture in understanding medical ethics, understanding how they apply in every area of life. And may this, Your people, be the stronger for it. And even those of us who use some of the alternative medicines that are out there, may we be wise and discerning as to what to accept and what to reject. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.