Signs of the Times

with contributions from D. S. Page, J. Harry Wood

The Reverend D. S. Page, Minister Burgess Hill Baptist Church in the Mid-Sussex Times Hay wards Heath, Sussex, England

To answer the question "Why are we ill?" I first ask "What is illness?" It is simply the state of not being healthy, or not being whole, for health and wholeness are words of a common origin. Lack of wholeness in the individual and between individuals leads to dis-ease, and disharmony.... We are ill simply because something in life is not functioning as it should be....

Christians believe that it is not God's purpose that there should be illness—pain, tears and suffering have no place in His Kingdom —and that much illness could be lessened or removed if man were to live his life in a right relationship with God....

Jesus Christ spent as much of his time healing the sick as he did preaching and teaching men concerning God. Indeed, he claimed that his ability to heal sickness was an indication that the Kingdom of God had come upon men. But he also linked health in its widest sense of "being made whole" (which is the meaning of the Bible word "salvation") with repentance and faith on man's part.... He did not see man as made up of three different parts—body, soul and spirit. Rather he saw him as a person who needed to be made whole, because his life was broken: for some the cause of this brokenness was self and sin; for some it was what we would call illness; for others it was that their relationship with other people was at fault. For all, the cure lay in coming to him in a sense of trust and faith, and in a willingness to be made whole.

Why are we ill? Simply because our life, and the lives of those around us, and indeed the life of the whole world in which we live, is out of touch with God.... Truly we need to be made whole again.

J. Harry Wood, President Home Life Insurance Company in an address given in New York

Our youthful rebellionists seem to be saying that ... we believe:

It is not inevitable that man make war on man!

It is not inevitable that hate and discrimination prevail!

It is not inevitable that half the world suffer starvation!

It is not inevitable that we fear our fellow man!...

May they not yet incubate this germ of an idea, this concept, this dream, so that some day it will germinate into a true spiritual explosion that will make of us the true instrumentality of God's will?

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit