Objection: God Is in Control
This is a favorite catch-phrase in Christian circles that is often used to offer false comfort to the afflicted. It applies in certain GENERAL areas like the ultimate fate of the earth, the devil, saints and sinners. However, it is NOT true of specifics in our lives, much as we wish that it were or how much we tell each other or sing to each other that it is.
God CAN be in control in your life, but only if you willingly yield to His control and believe and speak His Word. He will never force His control on anyone, even believers. His will is always good, but He does not force anyone to walk in His good will. God is in control of your life to the extent that you allow Him to be.
If GOD were really in control, there would be no wars, no abortions, no racism, no false religions, no divorces, no cross-dressing, no false apostles, in fact, no sin at all for that matter, to say nothing of no sickness and no bookstores full of anti-healing books. These things on the earth are all proof that God is NOT in control of this planet! If you look at heaven where He is in exclusive control, there is nothing on the above list. So God is NOT in control here.
Well, if He isn’t, who is? The devil is called the “god of this world” but that really only refers to his worldly system of doing things. If Satan were literally in control of the earth, there would be no prayer meetings, churches, salvations or any other righteous activity!
This leaves the one possibility that is explicitly stated in Scripture.
Psalm 115:16:
The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.
MANKIND is in charge of the earth! God gave MAN dominion over everything on the earth. He has never rescinded that dominion, even after MAN willingly disobeyed God and allowed the devil to have access to the earth.
I realize that you might not have a Top 40 Christian hit on your hands if you put out a new song, “MAN Is in Control,” but you’d at least be right while you were unpopular!
So it is just plain foolish to assert that God is in control. He isn’t!
Death and life are in the power of your tongue (Proverbs 18:21). In fact, whether you go to heaven or hell is not up to what God says – it’s up to what YOU say (or don’t say)! Do you confess the risen Jesus as Lord or don’t you? God doesn’t control your choice in that matter – you do. God will honor your choice, not control it. If you don’t want Jesus, you get eternity without Jesus. If you want Jesus, you get eternity with Jesus. Everyone gets what he chooses, not what GOD chooses for him. The same is true in others areas of life.
You are more in control than you realize with the words of your mouth. You can set the course of nature on fire in your life (James 3:6), or you can bring health and healing to your life. God has given you the free will to speak as YOU wish, but you will bear the consequences of your words. Your words can bring healing or sickness your way.
Unfortunately, most Christians are taught that God is in control, and the inevitable follow-up to this is that if a Christian is sick, he supposedly should just realize that God is in control of his health and everything else. Whatever will be, will be, as that ignorant and unbiblical old song says.
When Jesus had His way, the multitudes were healed. You don’t EVEN ONCE see Jesus saying to anyone, “Now remember, God is in control. Accept whatever happens as His perfect will” and then walking away leaving the person sick. When God has His way, the sick are healed, but He needs man’s cooperation because this is man’s planet. Likewise, when God has His way, sinners are saved, but He needs man’s cooperation. He always leaves salvation up to the individual’s free will. (I heard one evangelist claim that he can MAKE people get saved, but he was wrong, even though he was involved in some wonderful signs and wonders. Signs and wonders don’t prove right doctrine! Fortunately, he’s improved his theology since then.)
MAN is in control of whether or not He receives the healing that Jesus has already provided. God does not control that. If He did, He would be a favorites-player, a “respecter of persons.” We all know that some people receive healing and some don’t, just as some people receive the new birth and some don’t. If that were all up to God, God would be horribly unfair to allow one person’s body under His control to be healed and another person’s body under His control to stay sick.
“Yes,” someone might object, “but we can’t control our bodies!” Paul didn’t think that; he said that he kept his body under subjection (control) just as all of us should (1 Corinthians 9:27). Our bodies are unspiritual, not born again, so we must keep them from just acting on natural information, which is all our bodies know how to do. And James told us that if we can control our tongues, we CAN control our entire bodies (James 3:2). So don’t lie and say that we can’t.
So the next time you hear someone say, “Well, I guess you have to remember that God is in control” as if God were in control of your healing, the first thing you should think to yourself is, “No, that’s wrong. MAN is in control because God put man in control of the earth. The earth He has given to the children of men. God is no more in control of my healing than He was in control over when I got saved.”
The only time that God will be “in control” of your healing is when you speak in agreement with His Word and believe that you receive your healing when you pray, or use one of the many other means that He has provided in Scripture to be healed.
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