Objection: Faith Teaching Negates Compassion on the Sufferer; We're Taught Instead to Blame the Person for Not Having Enough Faith

I would really like for the objector to produce a book by even an obscure faith teacher that says, “If someone is sick, don’t feel bad for him; just tell him that it’s his fault because he doesn’t have enough faith!”  You won’t find that advice in my book, any more than I would advise you to tell a sinner, “You’re at fault for the fact that you’re going to hell because you don’t have enough faith!”  I’ve done a lot of street evangelism with original tracts, and my tracts never told sinners that their problem is that they don’t have enough faith to go to heaven.  I don’t tell sick people that they don’t have enough faith to be healed, either.  Actually, everyone DOES have faith (Romans 12:3); the issue is that some people don’t use it.  In the case of the tracts, I shared the Word about what Jesus did for everyone so that people could believe.  As Paul asked, how can they believe in someone in whom they haven’t heard?  Many people know the name of Jesus more as a cuss word than anything else because they don’t really know what Jesus did for them or even understand their need to be saved from their sins.

Jesus commended people who exercised their faith and were made whole, but He didn’t approach people and say, “You’re sick because you lack faith!”  He didn’t condemn the leper for not exercising faith (although the leper wasn’t initially in faith because he questioned Jesus’ will in the matter).  Instead, He BUILT the leper’s faith by saying “I will.”  The leper then believed Jesus’ words and received healing.  I am interested in building people’s faith, not in tearing people down or belittling them for not exercising faith.  The objection makes an unfair leap of logic that if we believe that any failure is on MAN’s end (which I do believe and teach in this book), that means that we have no compassion on anyone and have just become faith judges.  It is also character defamation against healing evangelists to claim that they “negate” compassion.  Many of us have endured significant personal inconvenience to reach lost and sick people who have no possible way of paying us back.  It is proof of compassion when you extend yourself to reach the sick.  I definitely have compassion for the sick, and that is a large part of why I wrote this book – so that they can learn the truth and be set free from their suffering, whether I ever get any earthly benefit out of it or not.

Jesus was a faith teacher if there ever was one, and He was moved with compassion.  He was notable for not condemning people other than self-righteous religious people.  We are to express His character to the world and be conformed to His image, so that means that we should teach faith and have compassion on people ourselves.

There is a difference between finger-pointing (which the objector is assuming) and laying responsibility for failure to where it belongs – man.  You can teach that compassionately!  There have been times in meetings when I have cried profusely when I sensed the Lord’s compassion for the sick person on whom I was laying hands.  (I find in such cases, and this is just my experience, that the person in question always receives a manifestation of healing.  I’m not going to make a doctrine out of it, but that’s how the Lord uses me at times.)

Another problem with the objector’s logic is that it assumes that lack of faith is the only thing that can hinder healing.  In faith circles, I think lack of ACTION on what someone believes is more the culprit as people can often quote healing verses out of their heads.  In the case of the unbeliever, I would cite lack of KNOWLEDGE as the primary barrier, not lack of faith, which would come along with a better knowledge of the Word.  Hosea said that God’s people perish for lack of KNOWLEDGE, not merely for lack of FAITH (though in that case the ignorance was willful – Hosea 4:6).

You can have knowledge and not exercise faith, but you cannot possibly exercise faith in an area where you possess no knowledge.  By far the biggest hindrance to seeing people healed in the world today is a lack of knowledge on the subject – that it is God’s will to heal ALL and that healing has been provided already and is theirs for the taking.

At times, Jesus did get exasperated with His disciples for not exercising faith as they should have done.  He would make statements such as “Where is your faith?”  However, such statements were to those in His inner circle.  He had higher expectations of them than of the crowds who had not been following Him closely everywhere He went.  He did not just go up to blind people and say, “Where is your faith?  If you’d used it, you wouldn’t still be blind!”

There would be no reason to accuse the masses today of not having enough faith – how can they believe what they’ve never heard?  If someone doesn’t know the truth about divine healing, it doesn’t make him a bad person or a rebel against the Word.  I’ve found that many people will gladly act on the Word if you can show them clearly what the Word actually says on a subject.  My hope is that you will act on the Word yourself when you see what it says.