Objection: Any Other Objection Not Specifically Covered in This Book
No book can anticipate every healing objection that might make the rounds in Christian circles in the future. However, the general principles below will help you formulate refutations for new arguments that might come up without the need to revise this book every time someone comes up with a “new” argument – which is usually just a new spin on one of the same old arguments.
If someone thinks that God or Jesus would talk or act in a certain way when it comes to healing, consider that God does not change (Malachi 3:6) and Jesus does not change (Hebrews 13:8). Therefore, anything that they SUPPOSEDLY say today MUST be found in Scripture – or else we have to throw it out. So if someone has a “revelation” that Jesus told him something about healing, we would want to see that “revelation” somewhere in the four gospels. For example, someone who has a demonized daughter asks the Lord, “Why her, Lord?” and He supposedly says, “Why NOT her? I give special children to special parents.” So we would look at the story of the Syrophoenician woman and see whether Jesus refused to help her and whether He just asked the woman, “Why SHOULDN’T your daughter be vexed by a devil? You must be a special parent to have such a special child.” If He didn’t say it then, He will NOT say it now. See The SAME Test for many more examples.
Does the argument make sense if you apply it to the new birth? For example, “God does not heal ALL at healing services, so it is not His will to heal all.” We would then reword this argument to show its folly: “God does not save ALL at evangelistic services, so it is not His will to save all.” See The SAVED Test for many more examples.
The PAST Angle
Most people think of healing as something that God needs to decide to do in real time as opposed to something that He already paid for and offers everyone today. Many objections immediately fall by the wayside once you realize this. Healing is just as much “paid for” – in the PAST – as the new birth, and now it is just a question of receiving what God already offers. The #1 mistake that Christians make when praying for their own healing or other people’s healings is ASKING GOD TO HEAL! God puts the provision for our healing in the past tense when He says that by Jesus’ stripes you WERE healed (1 Peter 2:24).
So the worn-out gripe, “If God wants everyone healed, why doesn’t He heal them?” falls apart because the answer is that He’s ALREADY done something about healing everyone and now it is up to us to receive that healing from Him. Of course, that argument flunks The SAVED Test as well, as any denominational person should see the folly in the question, “If God wants everyone saved, why doesn’t He save them?”
The truth is that healing has already been provided. So asking God to provide what He already provided is unbelief taking sides against His Word.
“I asked God to heal me and He didn’t” is a very common objection, but I hope that you can see how the PAST angle points to the problem with that statement. The person asked God to do something that He already did, and that’s why the prayer went unanswered.
The “Man Runs the Earth” Truth
Most Christians do not know the truth contained in Psalm 115:16. MAN is in control of the earth, not God. (A whole objection reply deals with this at some length.) “If God wants everyone well, why does He allow sickness?” is answered with “It’s not that God allows it – it’s now completely illegal now that Christ has redeemed mankind. It’s what WE allow, and heaven will allow what WE allow on the earth.” God does not force anything on anyone.
The “No Favorites” Truth
“God healed So-and-So but He didn’t heal So-and-So” makes it sound like God decided in His sovereignty to play favorites. But we know that He doesn’t (Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11, Ephesians 6:9, Colossians 3:25, 1 Peter 1:17). Any claim that God did something for someone that He didn’t do for someone else who met the same conditions MUST be false, or else the Bible is false! The smart money is on the Bible being true and the objection being false.
The “Sickness Is Evil” Truth
When you see what God says about sickness, it ruins any objection that assumes that sickness is some kind of “blessing in disguise” that God uses for His glory or for your perfection. God calls sickness evil (Deuteronomy 7:15), a curse (Deuteronomy 28:15-68), captivity (Job 42:10), being bound by Satan (Luke 13:16) and oppression by the devil (Acts 10:38). God has nothing good to say about sickness, and neither should we!
The Overgeneralization Trap
Some objectors point to the objectionable behavior of a single faith and healing minister and then try to imply that ALL faith and healing ministers must be like that. That is unfair, as there is no shortage of anti-healing teachers who have done horrible things. The Bible talks about FALSE apostles, FALSE prophets and FALSE teachers, while making clear that these are legitimate ministry offices that many honorable people stand in.
The “No Doctrine from Experience” Truth
We only get our doctrine from Scriptures that teach doctrine. We don’t even get our doctrine from Scriptures that relate history but don’t contain doctrinal statements. For example, it is not God’s will for us to steal from offerings and betray Jesus just because Judas did it. It is not God’s will for us to deny Christ even though Peter did it three times. It is not God’s will for us to commit adultery just because David did it. You NEVER determine God’s will from someone’s experience. Not even the experience of Trophimus whom Paul left at Miletum sick!
I don’t care if someone writes a book in which he claims to have seen Jesus in person along with 100 angels and that Jesus told that author something that disagrees with the Bible – I’m still not buying it! A certain deceiver started a worldwide cult based on an ALLEGED encounter with Jesus where supposedly Jesus said that He couldn’t finish the work that God gave Him to do on the earth because people killed Him, so now this deceiver had to take on the role of the Last Adam and finish what He failed to finish. Apparently, the Scripture “It is finished” (John 19:30) didn’t stand out in enough people’s minds, because this man had quite a following.
A more recent deceiver got a worldwide following of over 10 times the number of people who live in the county where I live – claiming that he WAS Jesus Christ! Apparently, a lot of people had never read the warning from the REAL Jesus that in the last days, MANY deceivers would come claiming to be Him (Matthew 24:24)!
So I don’t care what “the Lord” told someone if Scripture won’t back it. There are way too many books out there with alleged revelations from the Lord concerning sickness that couldn’t possibly have come from the same Lord who wrote the Bible and told us that we WERE healed (1 Peter 2:24).