A Malignancy Medicine Can’t Heal

Dear Susan,

I want to thank you for raising your son so well. He is a
wonderful husband and a great father. I understand that his decision to leave
the medical profession in order to be a pastor was a disappointment to you. I
can understand why. The medical profession is held in high esteem all over the
world, and the pastor’s income is small compared to a doctor’s.

I thought I could shed some light on his reasons. I made a
similar decision when I was 29 years old. I had a professional education to be
a naval officer, and I practiced it for 6½ years. I had a wife and three
children with a well-paying job.

During those years on active duty, I saw thousands of
immoral, profane officers and men. While on active duty, I was able to help
perhaps 100 of them become moral men. These men were otherwise healthy and
intelligent. But spiritually they were sick with a malignancy that the medical
profession could not cure.

I had been cured of this evil my second year at the U.S.
Naval Academy. I knew intellectually, and spiritually, the solution to their
problems (including marriage).

For the next five years after resigning from the navy, I
travelled to all of the academies—navy, army, air force, coast guard, merchant
marine, plus several other military schools including the Royal Military
College in Canada. Men’s lives were changed everywhere I went. For the next
five years, I spent most of my time at the U.S. Naval Academy. The last forty
years, I have been working at civilian colleges.

The first twenty years of my life, I tried being good.
Compared to others, I succeeded. I did not drink, smoke, use profanity or even
slang, or have sex. The last two years of that twenty was in the Navy. I was
better than most people, knew it, was pleased with it, and took credit for it.
I was not happy, joyful, nor at peace. That story is told in my booklet Saved from Being Good.

If I had had cancer and heard of a simple, free cure for
cancer and took it and was cured, I would want to tell everyone who had cancer
of this simple and free cure.

However, if I thought that I should not force my experience
on anyone else and therefore told no one, it would be immoral of me. I would be
obligated to spread this good news.

I am going to quote some scripture to you, some from Jesus
and some from St. Paul. I am not expecting you to obey these, because no one
can obey them. I want you to know what they are and know that even if you
wanted to you couldn’t obey them.

“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to
those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone
takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who
asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to
others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what
credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do
good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’
do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit
is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full.
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to
get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the
Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just
as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:27-36).

St. Paul wrote, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done,
but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and
renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus
Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become
heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want
you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be
careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent
and profitable for everyone” (Titus 3:5-8).

God is going to judge us by His standard, not by ours. He
does it by an absolute standard, not by a comparative standard. This may not
make sense to you.

I could not live by God’s standard, and your son could not.
So we both called on His grace and mercy.

St. Paul wrote, “You see just at the right time, when we
were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). “But God
demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us” (Romans 5:8). “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was
raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25).

Christ died for the ungodly. He loved and died for
sinners. It is necessary to be ungodly in order to go to heaven. Christ
did not die for good people. Good people do not need forgiveness. St. Paul
wrote, “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). “For all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “The wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”
(Romans 6:23).

No one naturally can live a righteous life.

When your son received Christ, he received a new nature.
When that happened, it was then possible to live a righteous, holy life with a
desire to live it. He married a woman whose life had also been changed when she
received Christ.

You might not understand why they do what they do, but you
must know that they are happy and loving to everyone. They do not do this just
by choice, but because they have the fruit of the Spirit which is described in
Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” These are
gifts from God, not earned or deserved.

I realize you might be upset by this letter. You know that
your son has something in his life that you do not have and did not give to him.
This is something good that came from God.

God loves you because He is love and has love for everyone.

With love,

Jim Wilson