Objection: Before We Pray for a Healing in Faith, We Must Pray to See If It Is God’s Will in This Case
The core of this argument is usually based on 1 John 5:14-15. The “logic” is that we should pray to find out if healing is His will in this particular case, so that if it is, we can pray in faith, knowing that we will have what we ask.
The problem is that this assumes that there is no other way to know the will of God for healing other than looking for a direct personal revelation from the Holy Spirit. This would mean that it would be impossible to get faith from the Word of God to be healed, because if that were possible, you would not need to pray about God’s will in the matter.
Would you pray about God’s will about someone getting saved? Would you refuse to pray a prayer of salvation with someone until you got a direct revelation from the Holy Spirit that he wants to save that particular person? Of course not. You know God’s will in the matter, so you would not hesitate to pray with the person. You would be certain that if the person has met God’s conditions of believing that God raised Jesus from the dead and confessing Jesus as Lord, he will be saved.
Likewise, you should study God’s Word until you know God’s will in the matter of healing. Once you know that healing is His will, you can use 1 John 5:14-15 properly and know that you have the petition that you desired of Him.
It is impossible to pray in faith unless you know Scriptures that say that you can have what you’re praying for. Otherwise, your faith would have no basis, and you would be praying based on your feelings, not your faith.
However, James 5:15 clearly states that elders of the Church are to pray “the prayer of faith” that will raise up a sick person. Nowhere does it say that the elders should pray for a personal inner witness as to the will of God in the matter. “Any sick” who call for the elders are to be prayed over in faith. If there were a need to seek a personal revelation on the matter, James would have said so. If there were any exceptions, James would have mentioned that also.
The very fact that it is possible to pray “the prayer of faith” for the sick is proof in and of itself that healing can be obtained through faith in the Word of God.
This argument is also ruined by the fact that there is not one New Testament case out of all the crowds of people who were healed where the preacher stopped and prayed to ascertain the will of God for a particular individual. You cannot find anything like the following:
4 John 2:5-9:
And multitudes came to Jesus, and sought to touch Him. And as each one came, Jesus prayed for five minutes to get a direct inner witness of whether or not God wanted to heal each individual. This is why there were so many hungry people to feed, for verily, the healing lines took many days to finish.
Then He sent out His disciples, giving them power over all diseases and all demons. However, he saith unto them, “This power will only work after you pray to see if God wants to heal the particular person. It may not be God’s will to heal some even though the power is there to heal all of them of all their diseases.”
But Paul went to an island, and healed all the sick people on it. And the Lord appeared to him in a vision and rebuked him, saying, “Hey, Paul, you didn’t check with Me first before you healed those people. Don’t you know that you’re supposed to pray to determine the will of God for each individual?”
If this seems hokey, it is no hokier than the objection being raised. Were this objection true, we would surely see many real Scripture passages similar to the fake one above.
The only reason why people raise this objection is that they have not taken the time to study the Word on healing. If they had done so, they would have known that God is able and willing to heal anyone who comes to Him in faith to receive healing.
See also: