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Does
God use sickness in the lives of His children to build character? Is this
consistent with the actions of a loving God? Are we sick because we don't
have the faith to be healed? Is God healing people today through the
ministry of faith healers? When sickness or suffering attacks us or
someone close to us, what should we think? What should we do?
Without
question, many people turn away from God because of the problem of pain.
They find it hard to believe that a loving and all-powerful God would
permit good people to suffer the way they do. On the other hand,
thousands have testified that it was during a time of deep sorrow or
intense anguish that they found God more real and precious than ever
before.
As
Christians, we agree that God is loving, wise, and all-powerful. We agree
that this good God gave His moral creatures freedom to choose between
good and evil, and that their wrong choice brought His curse upon the
earth. We also agree that this infinitely wise and good God is working
out a program for our ultimate good and His glory.
Does
God use sickness to make good people better? Is God working obvious
miracles of healing today? We can answer both of these questions with a
solid yes. God does use suffering as a means of our spiritual
advancement. Moreover, He does heal miraculously--but not always. And
when He doesn't, we need not blame ourselves or give in to despair.
God Will Make You Well
If
you are a sick or suffering Christian, you can stand on the certainty
that God will make you well--perhaps on earth, but surely in heaven.
That's His guarantee. As His children, we are destined to receive a new,
glorified body and to live forever in heaven. The apostle Paul drew
tremendous comfort from his expectation of resurrection and eternal
glory. After reaffirming the fact of Christ's resurrection in 1
Corinthians 15, he proceeded to point out that we too will receive
resurrection bodies like the one Christ has (vv.20-58). This truth
sustained him as he suffered in his service for the Lord. In a spirit of
joy and optimism he wrote:
Therefore
we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the
inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but
at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are
temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know
that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building
from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Cor.
4:16-5:1) .
Maybe
you don't react to these words with much enthusiasm. You want healing in
the here and now. Your feelings are not unusual. Suffering is not pleasant.
We instinctively want good health and freedom from pain. We want it now.
But when we let ourselves think this way, we are looking at life from the
vantage point of those who have no real hope of heaven, those who tell us
to grab all the gusto we can because "we only go around once."
That's
wrong! Believers in Christ should live above the merely human level. We
are to face squarely the fact that this life is brief at best and that
things down here are never perfect. We are called on to exercise our
faith and to look beyond the immediate and earthly. We will live forever
in a wonderful new world! When we really grasp this truth, we can share
the victorious attitude expressed by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4. We will
begin to anticipate joyously the unseen and eternal realities of heaven.
Indeed, we will "rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (Rom.
5:2).
God Hurts When You Hurt
If
you are a suffering believer, the second biblical certainty from which
you can draw great strength is the knowledge that God is suffering with
you. He is not the "unmoved Mover" of Greek philosophy. He is
not an unfeeling Being oblivious to the pain of His creatures. Nor is He
a capricious Allah who carries out His will with no feeling for those who
suffer. On the contrary, He is our loving heavenly Father. He hurts when
we hurt. The psalmist declared, "As a father pities his children, so
the LORD pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers
that we are dust" (Ps. 103:13-14).
The
truth that God hurts when we hurt did not find full expression, however,
until it was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. He is Immanuel,
"God with us" (Isa. 7:14). He, the second person of the eternal
Trinity, became a member of our humanity. He suffered everything we can
suffer. He was born in a stable, a member of a poor family. He grew up in
a humble home in a small village. He worked as a laboring man until He
was 30. He didn't have a home during His 3 years of ministry. He was
resented by His half brothers. He was rejected by the Jewish people to
whom He came. He was misunderstood and misrepresented. He was mocked. He
was falsely accused. He was betrayed by a close companion. He was
forsaken by His closest friends. He was scourged. He was forced to carry
a heavy wooden beam on His lacerated back. He was nailed to a cross. And
even as He hung on it, He endured the taunts of mockers.
Why
did He do all this? Couldn't He have paid the price for our sins without
going through all of this humiliation and abuse? As far as we know, the
answer is yes. His death on the cross, not his pre-Calvary suffering,
atoned for our sin. It seems that He underwent all this added pain and
humiliation for two reasons: to reveal God's heart (2 Cor. 4:6), and to
become our sympathetic high priest (Heb. 4:15-16). God had always hurt
when His people hurt. But He did so in a real, tangible manner through
the incarnation--through the event that began in Bethlehem.
Are you suffering? Are you
grieving? Are you disappointed because you are going to die before you
can realize your plans and hopes? Be assured that God cares. He hurts
with you. He doesn't like what you are enduring any more than you do. He
could intervene and heal you instantly. But if He were to do this for you
and every other person who is suffering, no one would have a need for the
kind of faith that builds Christian character. Therefore, He allows you
to suffer. But all the while He, like you, is looking forward to the time
when all human pain will be over.
Just
as a good husband suffers when he sees his wife in pain, and loving
parents feel the distress of their children, so also the Lord hurts when
you hurt. And He won't be completely happy until you hurt no more.
God Knows Why You Are
Suffering
This
is the third comforting certainty. We want answers when we hurt, so we
cry out, "Why?" God's special servants may even do this when
grief or pain comes their way.
Sometimes
we can answer the question why. It is always good to search our hearts to
see if we bear some blame for our pain. We may be sick because we have
not obeyed common-sense rules of health. Maybe the accident that hurt us
is the result of our carelessness. It is also possible that our illness
is the result of God's chastening because of sin in our lives (1 Cor.
11:29-30; Heb. 12:6). The Bible teaches us that some Christians die an
untimely death (humanly speaking) because of sin (Acts 5:1-11; 1 Cor.
11:30). If we know we have been living disobediently, we must repent. God
may give us healing when we do. And when we see the death of a believing
loved one who has fallen into sinful ways, we can take comfort in the
assurance that God sometimes takes one of His children home rather than
see him continue on his destructive course.
However,
we often can't find specific answers to our why questions. We can't
always expect to know the reason why we are suffering. But even then, God
does not leave us completely in the dark. In addition to assuring us that
He knows why, He has shown us that even unexplained suffering has a
valuable purpose.
In
John 9, Jesus used an encounter with a blind man to teach His disciples
this lesson. They asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind?" (v.2). They obviously saw this
affliction as punishment for somebody's sin-- either that of his parents
or himself while he was still in the womb. Jesus answered them,
"Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God
should be revealed in him" (v.3). This man's affliction was not
punishment for any special sin. But it had value. It was designed to make
him the vehicle through which God's power could be put on display. After
He had made this point, Jesus said, "I must work the works of Him
who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can
work" (v.4). Then He gave the man his sight.
The
application to us is obvious. Instead of wasting our energy in useless
speculation about the why question, let's view suffering--our own or that
which we encounter in others--as an opportunity to demonstrate God's
power and bring glory to Him. Maybe He will answer our prayers by healing
us. Perhaps He will use the suffering of someone we love to make us more
compassionate, more kind, more helpful. Or He may let us suffer, but give
us such supernatural grace that we will be a vibrant testimony to His
glory. Actually, God has many good reasons for letting us suffer:
Suffering
silences Satan (Job 1-2).
Suffering
gives God an opportunity to be glorified (Jn. 11:4).
Suffering
makes us more like Christ (Heb. 2:10; Phil. 3:10).
Suffering
makes us appreciative (Rom. 8:28).
Suffering
teaches us to depend on God (Ex. 14:13-14; Isa. 40:28-31).
Suffering
enables us to exercise our faith (Job 23:10; Rom. 8:24-25).
Suffering
teaches us patience (Rom. 5:3; Jas. 1:2-4).
Suffering
makes us sympathetic (2 Cor. 1:3-6).
Suffering
makes and keeps us humble (2 Cor. 12:7-10).
Suffering
brings rewards (2 Tim. 2:12; 1 Pet. 4:12-13).
Many
other reasons for suffering could be given. We may not know which one
fits our situation, but God does. That's comforting.
God Is In Control
God
has everything under His control. He may allow the devil to test you by
making you sick. He may permit you to suffer great pain through an
accident caused by carelessness or through a vicious attack by an evil
person. These unpleasant events try us and may even tempt us to sin, but
we can rest in the following assurance:
No
temptation [test] has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but
God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are
able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you
may be able to bear it (1 Cor. 10:13).
No
matter what your trial, no matter how great your pain or grief, remember
that it passed the permissive will of your heavenly Father before it
reached you. He loves you. He may heal you miraculously. If not, He will
be with you in all your pain and someday take you to heaven. No matter
what He does, He has your ultimate welfare in view. The perfectly wise
and good God you serve has everything under control.
What About Healing
Ministries?
Our authority to heal
Matthew
writes "As you go,
preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick,
cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have
received, freely give." (Matthew 10:7-8). We have to consider who
this passage was written to. Yes, the Lord gave His disciples authority
to heal, perhaps even to raise the dead (although these words are not
found in some of the early manuscript copies). But we err if we make
these words our marching orders or view them as giving us authority to
heal the sick and raise the dead. They were addressed to a small group of
men who at that time, on the other side of Calvary, were preaching the
"gospel of the kingdom" to Jews only.
What about healing in the
atonement?
Let's
look at Matthew 8:16-17 to see exactly what it says about the
relationships between the atonement and healing. We read:
When
evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And
He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:
"He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."
The
closing words are an accurate quotation from the Hebrew text of Isaiah
53:4. Jesus "took" our sicknesses by sympathetically and
compassionately entering into the pains and sorrows of mankind. His
miracles of healing were signs. They showed His compassion for us and
pointed forward to His death by which He would pay the price for sin so
that ultimately all suffering can end. His miracles of healing were signs
of the complete healing that will be enjoyed ultimately by all who place
their trust in Him.
D.
A. Carson wrote, "The cross is the basis for all the benefits which
accrue to believers; but this does not mean that all such benefits can be
secured at the present time on demand, any more than we have the right
and power to demand our resurrection bodies" (The Expositor's Bible
Commentary, Vol. 8, Zondervan, p.267).
What about anointing
services?
In
some church services, sick and suffering people are invited to come
forward to be anointed with oil and prayed for. This practice is based on
James 5:13-16. But the sick person in James calls for the elders to come
to him. Perhaps he is too ill to go to them. The combination of the Greek
word asthenia (sick) in verse 14 and kamno (sick) in verse 15 is seen by
some Bible students as portraying someone who is flat in bed, probably
hopelessly ill. This anointing does not occur in a public service or on
invitation from the platform.
The
elders are to pray for the sick person and anoint him with oil. This
anointing with oil was ceremonial, not medicinal. Oil had no healing
value for a person with a severe, life-threatening illness. Besides,
James said that it is the "prayer of faith," not the oil, that
saves the sick from physical death.
What
is this prayer of faith? It certainly isn't a state of mind a person
acquires through a lot of agonized crying or shouting! That goes against
what Jesus said about praying (Mt. 6:7-15). The "prayer of
faith" is Spirit-led praying that is sensitive to God's will and
submissive to it.
With
all of this said, believers need to remember that nothing is beyond God's
power. But we also need to remember that God works through His people and
that it is not the people that possess the power. It is God manifesting His power
through people. All glory is God's!
Sickness, Healing, and You
The
young seldom have personal contact with pain and sorrow. Grandparents are
still alive for some. And even when they see these grandparents get sick
or die, they can reason that it will be a long time before this happens
to anybody in their immediate family. But sooner or later, everybody
comes into close contact with pain, sickness, sorrow, and death.
Therefore we should ask ourselves, "How will I cope when a doctor
says, 'I'm sorry, we did all we could,' or 'I hope you are prepared for
bad news. I must tell you that you have cancer, and that we can't do much
for you.' "
The
answer is that if you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ, you can
face such news calmly and hopefully. If you are not living obediently,
you can turn away from your sin and back to God. You can ask the Lord for
healing. You can pray with the absolute assurance that God will heal you,
if doing so will bring glory to Himself and further your eternal welfare.
And if He doesn't make you well, He will give you His wonderful grace and
use the affliction for good.
Curtis
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