House Church Talk - Health Insurance

[Bruce Woodford]

Janet wrote:
 > I think it's time for this great land of ours to offer
 > national health insurance.  I know it's not perfect,
 > but I think it's the way we need to go.

David wrote:
>I know I might get ragged on for saying this, but it is exactly this
>attitude why I refuse to get health insurance for my family of seven.
>When we begin to look to hospitals and doctors as our source of strength
>and health, something is wrong.  We should be looking to Jesus for
>everything.  Jesus is our Creator.  He made our bodies and he can fix
>them.  I have nothing against a doctor helping the body if he is able,
>but I have a whole lot against those who trust in doctors and hospitals
>as if they are the only source of health for us."

I too have chosen not to have health insurance even though, here in Canada, 
every province has it's own health insurance program made available freely 
to every resident in the province.  I've actually chosen to get out of this 
system twice!

OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) used to be funded by employers. 
Employers paid most and employees paid about 20% through payroll deductions. 
If you worked for an employer who had 15 or more employees, you had to be 
part of the system. During the summer of 1985, while on holidays, I learned 
that OHIP funded all abortions done in Ontario hospitals! The Lord had just 
been impressing Proverbs 1:10-19 on my heart just before I learned these 
facts, so I had no choice! I immediately called my employer and informed him 
that I was resigning and explained that I could not in good conscience have 
another penny contributed in my name to a plan ( a common purse) which 
funded the murder of babies!

I had a wife, 5 children, rent and utilities to pay etc but now I had no job 
and no health insurance! Many of our Christian friends thought I was very 
irresponsible and asked what I intended to do! To be honest, I had no idea! 
We had no savings and now my possibilities for employment had been drasticly 
reduced! But long before,  we had purposed to make our needs known only to 
God.

Well, over the next year, we saw miracle after miracle of the Lord's 
provision. He provided money so I could commence a sharpening business, but 
between that and my wife's babysitting we cleared just $8000 in the next 12 
months!  Not very much for a family of 7!  But that year every one of our 
bills was paid before it was due! We ate better than we had ever eaten 
before! And our kids were healthier than they had ever been in the lives! 
Occasionally we had an "emergency" which required going to the doctor or 
hospital emergency ward for stitches etc, but every single time the Lord had 
provided  ahead of time so we had CASH ON HAND to pay the bills before we 
left the office or hospital!

A few years later, Ontario changed the "health plan" from being funded by 
premiums as an insurance program to be funded by direct taxation. All 
employers were taxed for this purpose and so everyone paid for it through 
increases in the costs of goods and services! All you had to do was apply 
for a provincial "health card" and all your medical expences were looked 
after. Since I thought it was no longer an insurance scheme, but part of the 
taxation system, I felt I could participate without bearing personal 
responsibility for the evil that I knew was being funded by our tax dollars. 
But just in the last few years I've learned that all such government schemes 
are part of our social insurance system (the same as U.S. social security) 
and everyone who claimed such "benefits" also had to have a Social Insurance 
Number (S.I.N.) I had come to realize that participation in the SI system 
meant that one was being surety for the national debt (contrary to clear 
scriptural teaching on "being surety" Prov.6:1-5; 11:15; 17:18; 20:16; 22:26 
and 27:13).  So I have returned and revoked the S.I.N. that had been issued 
to me years before as well as all other government issued I.D. attached to 
benefits connected with it. That included my health card.

I am confident and have proven by experience that my God is able to meet all 
of my needs. If I am sick, he is able to heal, to use that illness for His 
own purposes in my life, and /or provide whatever is necessary in the 
process! Have also learned from scripture and experience that God allows His 
people to choose on whom they will depend when in need. We can choose to 
rely upon Him, or we can choose to rely upon man. But God also allows us to 
receive the consequences that are linked to that choice!  I can think of no 
better illustration of this principle than that given in II Chron.14 to 16 
in the life of King Asa. Read these chapters and see the situations in which 
King Asa found himself. Watch the choices he made, the one(s) on whom he 
chose to rely and the consequences which he received.  The story is summed 
up in II Chron.16:9 with these words:"For the eyes of the Lord run to and 
fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of him 
whose heart is perfect toward Him."

That principle is as true today as it was in Asa's day and God is still 
wanting far more than we imagine to show Himself strong on behalf of those 
whose heart is perfect toward Him!  (A "perfect heart" is NOT a sinless 
heart or "super-spiritual" heart, but rather the heart of one who is 
dependent upon God, loyal to Him and obedient!)

I would encourage anyone whose heart has been challenged to trust God more 
fully in the area of health or any other area of life...to follow the 
counsel of Mary to the servants at the wedding at Cana in John 2:5....it is 
just seven little but very powerful words: "WHATSOEVER HE SAITH UNTO YOU, DO 
IT!"

Your brother in Christ,
Bruce Woodford

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