The Bible contains astonishing medical knowledge, medical knowledge that is thousands of years in advance of its day. How is this possible unless God inspired the writers to record his precise words? When we examine the Bible we find that there are over 213 medical laws that are given to Israel. Out of the 613 laws that the Jews have literally numbered and analyzed found in the five books of the law, 213 or over one-third are medical laws.
Now I want you to compare for just a moment the medical laws found in the Bible with the medical laws or prescriptions found in ancient Egypt. Now Moses who wrote the five books of the law came out of Egypt. We know that he was raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. This man was according to Stephen in his speech given in Jerusalem learned in all the wisdom of the ancient Egyptians. Well about a hundred years ago a professor Ebers found a papyrus that is dated back to 1500 years before Christ. This papyrus actually describes 700 different medical cures of the Egyptians. You would be shocked. They are abysmal. Out of the seven hundred medical cures, 300 prescriptions have as their major ingredient dung, dung from alligators, wastes from humans, dung from flies these were the prescriptions they use to put in their wounds or to put in their drinks. My favorite is probably the prescription for a child who cries too much. You’re to take a certain paste and a few plants and dung from flies off the wall, mix it into a paste and give it to the child. The doctor assures that the child will stop crying. I’m sure because the child died. Furthermore if you have a snakebite you are to take magical water and pour it over a pagan idol and then you’re to take your drink which probably is your last drink on earth because you’re likely going to die. When you examine these particular medical prescriptions that were the learned medical wisdom of the ancient world at the very time Moses lived you find use of waste, human dung, animal dung, the most dangerous germs possible. Why? Because they didn’t even know of germs but that’s not surprising.
Did you know that we didn’t know in Western society that germs existed up until 1890. A hundred years ago scientists discovered germs for the first time. Did you know that 120 years ago a doctor would do an autopsy of a woman and he would then go into the next ward of the hospital and he would deliver a baby without washing his hands and be surprised that 30% of the women who went into hospital to have birth died. They had no knowledge that there were microscopic individual organisms being transferred from dead bodies to live bodies, from sick people to people who now became sick or from human or animal waste, the most dangerous germs possible that were wiping out people. Scientists didn’t know what plague and how plague was being transmitted. People used to sit around as uncle Harry died of plague in your house and everyone would kiss him goodbye and wonder who would be next. No one knew of the laws of quarantine except for this book because in the signature of God I’ve gone through medical statements made in the Bible that are astonishing.
Now the Bible makes a claim and says that in Psalm 139 verse 14: King David says “I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well.” King David was absolutely right. We are wondrously made. The scientists have now discovered in the DNA genetic code that makes up human life or all biological life, if we take the smallest slip of hair or a little slip from your fingernail, the smallest cell contains a complete genetic DNA structure that controls not only the color of your eyes, your hair but your personality and whether or not you like music or you like spinach. All of this coded in something so small you can’t even see it with a microscope. God said we were wonderfully made. He is the great designer. In fact many scientists are rejecting evolution because it is mathematically impossible. It is simply impossible that by chance mutation something as complex as the human eye could possibly have ever been formed. But I want you to look at some amazing things that are found medically in the Bible.
If you’ll go with me to Exodus chapter 15 in verse 26 God says to the Jews as they came out of Egypt where all the Egyptians had these terrible diseases. It says if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God and will do that which is right in his sight and will give ear to His commandments and keep his statutes I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians for I am the Lord that healeth thee. Here in Exodus chapter 15 verse 26 God says I will heal thee and I will put none of these diseases. Now people used to think this was simply a statement that I will give you protection but God gave protection not only spiritually and supernaturally but he gave them protection by giving them medical laws that are thousands of years in advance of its day. Now I told you what the Egyptians knew. Now let me show you what God told Moses. Was just one example. We have some verses here. In the Bible, in the Book of Leviticus for example let’s just start with Numbers chapter 19 and Numbers chapter 19 states in verse 10: he that gathered the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening. He goes on in verse 14 and it says the following: this is the law when a man dies in a tent all that come into the tent and all that is in the tent shall be unclean seven days and every open vessel which hath no covering bound upon it it is unclean and whosoever touches one that is slain with the sword in the open fields or a dead body or the bone of a man or a grave shall be unclean seven days. Now think about this. No one knew humanly that germs existed. Why then does Moses record that when a man dies in a tent, anything that has opened, food vessels, water vessels, if they’re open they’re all contaminated, they’re unclean. Later in another passage in Leviticus says: you must put a covering over the food and water vessels of any tent where someone is sick in that tent. Why? Because germs, microscopic organisms travel through the air and by touch and can contaminate food and water and contaminate other people. But he goes further and he says that whosoever touches one who is slain with the sword in the open fields will, armies always clean up the dead throw them out, grab all the booty, take their clothes, take their swords but God say no you must be very careful because anyone who touches a dead body, anyone who touches a grave or the bone of a man is unclean, unclean for seven days. Why seven days? Because if you don’t get sick and die in the first seven days you are in fact going to be well but if you do get sick and die, better that the people know that and that you’ve not come back in the camp and contaminate them.
Look at Leviticus 15 verse 13. In Leviticus 15:13, we just had that up a second ago, we have the verse that tells us a medical law of bathing. If we could just have that back up, it says “and when he that had an issue is cleansed of his issue then he shall number to himself seven days for his cleansing and wash his clothes and bathe his flesh in running water and shall be clean. Now think about this. God says if a man is sick, like a boil and it’s bursting out with infection, he’s unclean for seven days. Why again seven days? Because by the end of seven days you’re either gonna be well or you’re so sick that everyone knows it so if you have something like this it’s a law of quarantine. Did you know that when animals go into Europe into England today they’re quarantined for a period of months. They don’t know whether they’re sick but they want to be sure they know that if in 30 or 60 days the dog hasn’t manifested sickness that he’s okay he’s not going to contaminate the rest of the dogs of England. That law of quarantine is something that no one knew about up until around 1900 except for the Bible. Leviticus 13:46 says all the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled, he is unclean. He shall dwell alone, without the camp shall his habitation be. Did you know that in history, throughout history plagues have wiped out whole cities and counties because people did not quarantine anyone. They simply sat around waiting for luck or the stars or something to cause them to be sick. Yet the Bible said when someone has a plague they are to be taken outside the camp. The Bible went even further. It said that the person, the priest who goes to feed him when he’s quarantine must change his clothes and he must bathe in running water and when he does that then he shall be clean. Now think about it. Running water. Why running water? Because running water carries the germs away. Well that’s exactly what the Bible said. Now the Bible is telling us something that was not known to science because even in 1900 when scientists and doctors would wash they’d wash in a bowl of water which simply transferred the germs from one hand to the other. The Bible said 35 centuries ago, the bottom line: bathe his flesh in running water and he shall be clean.
Did you know that even the sacrifice of the ashes of the red heifer had a medical purpose? The Bible said as we looked at just a little earlier in Numbers 19 that when a man dies that he’s unclean, it goes on and says that he’s to be washed in the water of the ashes of the red heifer. Now the law of the ashes the red heifer was this: they are to take a red heifer, they were to burn it, that burning of the ashes produce lye, then they were to add to it cedar, the cedar would have been something that was an irritant that would have made you rub your hands vigorously, then they were to add scarlet and then hyssop. Now think about it. Hyssop is the world’s best middle-eastern antifungal antibacterial logical agent. What God is telling the Jews to do is when a man is contaminated with deadly germs from a dead body, he is most in danger of not only getting sick but contaminating the camp and so he says he must be washed in the water of purification from the ashes of the red heifer sacrifice. How could these books written thousands of years ago have this up-to-date medical knowledge unless God Almighty told the authors by inspiring them, by breathing into them by God’s Holy Spirit exactly what they were to write.
Did you know that even the law of circumcision is described in the Bible and it’s a medical law. I just saw a debate and a documentary in Canada two nights ago debating medically whether or not circumcision should happen. But God told the Jewish people on the eighth day you shall circumcise your sons. It’s found in Genesis 17 verse 10: this is my covenant which you shall keep and he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you. Well my friends there are two elements in your blood – vitamin K and Prothrombin that allow the clotting of the blood. Both those elements rise to the highest level in a child’s life on the eighth day after they’re born. Now if your blood doesn’t clot you’re not only going to continue bleeding but your body is obviously open to infection at that point of the wound. It’s vital for your survival that your blood clot and that the wound begin healing. Two elements in your blood – Vitamin K and Prothrombin – both of those from day one that you’re born rise on the eighth day to the highest level of your life then drop down thereafter. Did you know that if parents in Chicago today take their child to the hospital and as the baby is born they say to the doctor I want my child circumcised, the male child to be certain, if you’re going to do it on day one and most hospitals only keep a baby at one or two days now, they have to give the baby an extra shot of vitamin K because on day one or two the vitamin K in the body is not high enough. They have to supplement it but if they wait as the Jews insist till day eight they don’t have to supplement because God has supernaturally provided. How could Moses have known to record this that God told Abraham to wait till the eighth day as a sign of the Covenant that God would make with his people?
We need to look at this evidence we find that even Moses makes the statement in Leviticus 11. He said, rather 17 verse 11, he says that the life is in the blood for the life of the flesh is in the blood. Now did you know that we only found out the importance of the blood in the heart about a hundred and thirty years ago? Professor Dr. Harvey in England. Well God says that the purpose of blood is essential, vital to your life. Did you know that we are so wondrously made as the Bible has recorded that God put 75 thousand miles of veins and capillaries and arteries in your life and your seventy-five thousand miles that’s enough to stretch around the world three times. Furthermore you have an organ in your body that is the heart, although it weighs only about a pound it’s the size of a clenched fist, this organ the heart is the strongest organ in your whole body. It’s much much stronger than your leg muscle. It can pump night and day 24 hours a day for 80 years and never stop. This little clenched fist-sized organ the heart is capable of pumping a million and a half gallons of blood through your body every year through 75,000 miles of capillaries and every one of six trillion cells in your body has the blood system deliver the exact nutrient – the minerals zinc chromium all the vitamins that are required. Can you believe this system happened by chance? I don’t have enough faith to believe that. It’s far more logical for me to believe that Almighty God created us as King David said we are wondrously made. Furthermore this Bible tells me that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. When I look at the hundreds of scientific statements found in the Bible, every one of them without exception accurate, I find it very easy to believe that the Bible is true. Did you know that Amos chapter five verse eight actually describes the constellation Pleiades? Now the constellation Pleiades to a naked eye has only six stars but in the Bible in Amos 5:8 it says there are seven stars. A few years back with telescopes they looked at the constellation Pleiades and there are seven stars. Again the Bible’s right. This Bible is the inspired Word of God.