Shame on you for being sick!
A very good friend of ours is sick. Very, very sick…
An acquaintance of his tried to cheer him up (?), or perhaps encourage him (?), by saying that it is **NEVER** God’s will for one of His children to **EVER** be sick, and says that if he would only admit that his cancer is not God’s will for him and would claim His healing, it would disappear immediately!
He sends him such things all the time (while my friend has cancer)…..
And that then creates a reaction from my friend… who is an elder in a church…. roughly like this:
“Why didn’t I think of that before! So shame on me for getting sick in the first place! I’m apparently outside of God’s will, so i just have to confess, repent, and I’ll be healed? Yeah…that sounds great. Thanks for the encouragement. Nope.”
Wow! Do you see what’s going wrong? And not just a little wrong, but fundamentally wrong? It’s not helpful for my friend, who reacts quite strongly to it (I understand that if you’ve got cancer….) and something is also theologically incorrect. Let me try to explain it this way:
The Apostles who personally walked beside Jesus—Peter, Andrew, James (the son of Zebedee), Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, James (the son of Alphaeus), Simon the Zealot, and Matthias—all died a terrible death (according to tradition).
Only John died a natural death, even though they had tried to boil him in oil, and Paul had a splinter in the flesh, Luke was a physician (why would we need doctors if we cannot get sick?), Timothy was sick and was not healed by Paul, and so on…
So it is not biblically correct to say that if they would only have admitted that they were sick, thrown to the lions, used as garden torches, or crucified, they would simply claim His healing or deliverance, and then it would disappear immediately.
And if we think we know better (or can do better) than Peter, Andrew, James (the son of Zebedee), Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, James (the son of Alphaeus), Simon the Zealot, and Matthias… wow…
I absolutely do not see myself as better than them! On the contrary. They literally saw Christ, truly heard Him speak, saw His miracles, firsthand! Would I then know/do better than them? No, right?
And in due time, that kind of “faith” also goes terribly wrong, and we see that almost daily in our practice. Because in due time everyone gets sick, everyone ends up on their deathbed, and then what? Then ENORMOUS problems arise with God, Faith, Trust, and so on… and many of them lose their faith, and the question is… what kind of faith did they actually have in the first place?
Oops… that is a difficult question that I would prefer not to answer and will not answer…
The intention of such “encouragements” towards my brother may be well-meant, but it’s as if they feel it is their life’s purpose to convince him that God must miraculously heal him, or else he is worshipping the wrong God, doing it wrong, or if they cannot convert him, it will somehow reflect badly on them?
Something is going wrong there.
The Bible verses they share to “prove” their point ignore the opposing ones, or simple logic (because everyone dies, right?), or are taken out of context or applied to physical healing instead of spiritual healing, or all at once. What spirit are they listening to that tells them these things, and why does this become so central to their faith? I get scared by that, and as I said, we see the victims of that kind of “faith” almost every day…
Where does it come from? I have a theory about that… pay attention, let’s look at Genesis 3, at a promise from God Himself:
“To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth; In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.” Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Until you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:16-19)
Actually, there is nothing new under the sun… It appears that some people would rather not acknowledge the consequences of their sins. Let’s blame Eve, the devil, the serpent, or even God, instead of honestly looking at ourselves and accepting the consequences of our sins. If we do not acknowledge that we are guilty, and rightly punished for it… and we want to circumvent this promise in Genesis 3:16-19… Oops!
The strange thing is, if you ask them: what does that verse you just mentioned mean, in the context in which it was written…? Then they often have no idea what “context” actually means. They heard it from “pastor” x, and adopt it unquestionably… And that gives me the creeps….. 🙁
2 Timothy 4:3-4: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their desires, and will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4 NASB)
In the past, I sometimes got angry when I heard that kind of talk… and I still do occasionally. Because this kind of talk does not cause great damage to my friend (in this case), but it does make him sad… And for many other people, this kind of talk carries an enormously high risk of eternal damage… and they are being talked into a false faith with eternal consequences… That sometimes makes me angry. Not standard human anger (as in throwing chairs), but we must fight for the integrity of the gospel and for the well-being of believers. The gospel is being violated, God is being violated, people are being violated for eternity… That must do something to you as a Christian; if it doesn’t move you… something is wrong.
On the other hand, this also makes me scared and sad for the people who do believe this kind of talk. Because in due time they will also get sick… and they too will be on their deathbed… and then what? What will remain of their “faith” then, and what kind of “faith” are we even talking about? A faith that leads to eternity, or….
There is still much to do and much to pray to God:
“…to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.” (Acts 26:18)
