Is It Faithlessness to Take Medicines While Believing God for Healing?
1) Direct Answer
No. Taking medicine while believing God is not faithlessness. God is the Healer; medicine is only a help. Keep your faith in God, use what help is available, and give Him the glory.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26). Healing is God’s work.
- Hezekiah: God said, “I will heal thee,” and yet commanded a poultice of figs to be laid on the boil (2 Kings 20:5–7). Promise and means walked together.
- The Good Samaritan poured in oil and wine to treat the wounds (Luke 10:34).
- “Luke, the beloved physician” was honored among the saints (Colossians 4:14).
- Paul counseled, “Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities” (1 Timothy 5:23), showing Scripture recognizes medicinal help without endorsing excess or drunkenness.
- The prayer of faith shall save the sick (James 5:14–15). The oil is a sign; God does the healing.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- You see, a doctor can set a bone, but only God knits it. Medicine can fight infection, but only God gives life and restoration. So using medicine doesn’t replace faith; trusting medicine instead of God does.
- If it were unbelief to use means, why did God direct a poultice after promising healing to Hezekiah? The issue is not the fig; it’s the God who heals.
- Keep your confession: after prayer, hold to God’s promise regardless of symptoms or prescriptions. Don’t throw away needed aids to “prove” faith unless the Lord has clearly delivered you. Faith is obedience to God’s Word, not presumption.
- Walk clean and sober. Scripture condemns bondage and excess. Be led by the Spirit, not ruled by any substance.
4) Reinforcing Statement
Now notice, God heals; means are servants. Keep your eyes on Christ, use what helps are at hand with a clear conscience, and testify that the Lord is your Healer.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever
58-0207 §5
And now, we are here to try to put in our little ministry with your ministry together to bring glory to God. The Lord has called me years ago to pray for His sick children. And that I reverently try to do. And I do not claim to be a healer now. If anyone can hear that, I'm not a healer. I don't claim to heal people. I, frankly, I don't believe there's anyone can heal people, because that's God's job, and He's already did that, see. By His stripes we were healed when His Son, at Calvary, was wounded for our transgre...
Perseverant
62-0729 §35
Now, somebody comes along, and said, "Glory to God. Feel this. Hallelujah! I got it in my hands." Now, I wouldn't be very perseverant about that, see, because there's no one can heal you. No medicine, no doctor, no nothing ever did heal anybody but God. I want you to show me the doctor that claims that he's a healer. I want you to prescribe for me a medicine that will do anything towards healing. Mayo's is the best we got. I've been interviewed there twice. They said, "We do not claim to be healers, Mr. Branham. We...
Hear ye Him
57-0105 §23
So, God's Word never fails. There's not one flaw with it. God heals all our diseases. Now that don't mean that we don't need hospitals, and we don't... Oh yes, we do. Absolutely. I'm for them and pray for them, and for the research of science to find something to help us. Every little aid they can give is wonderful. But it don't heal. God does the healing. That's right. And when they give you, like penicillin and things for a bad cold, what does it do? It doesn't heal. It's just like rat poison, putting out; it poi...
A Greater than Solomon is here
62-0725 §26
The doctor can set an arm where it's broke, but he can't heal it. The doctor can pull out a tooth, but he can't heal where it come out of. He can cut out an appendix, but who's going to heal? See, there's no medicine that will build cells. Cells is growth, see, and nothing can heal that. No one can. And to have growth is a multiplication of cells, which is creation. And there's one creator: that's God. And He has to knit that place together, put that bone together. The doctor can set it but, you see, it takes calci...
The Queen of Sheba
60-0110 §61
What if I was cranking my car or doing something, I broke my arm and run in to the doctor and said, "Doctor, heal it. You are a healer." He'd say, "Brother Branham, you need healing in your head!" And that's right. Now, he can set it, but God has to heal it. He can take a tooth out, but God has to heal where the tooth came out. He can extract appendicitis, but God has to heal. Someone said, "What about penicillin for a bad cold?" Well, penicillin is like... You got a house full of rats and they're eating holes in t...