Big Healing Book - God Uses Sickness to Draw Us Closer to Himself

Objection: God Uses Sickness to Draw Us Closer to Himself

There is not one single place in the Bible where God ever used sickness to draw someone who was walking in the light closer to Himself. If you believe this objection, look in the Bible for proof of it. You won’t find it. God uses sickness for chastisement and judgment in some extreme cases, as pointed out in some of the discussions in this book. He does not use it on His obedient children. He cannot possibly use sickness to draw you closer to Himself, as I will prove below in all kinds of different ways. This religious-sounding junk about God using sickness is just another dead tradition of men that robs people of their enjoyment of their rightful inheritance in Christ. It sounds reasonable only until you find out what the Bible really says.

How You Draw Near to God

“Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.” – James 4:8

“For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did, by the which we draw nigh unto God.” – Hebrews 7:19.

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” – Hebrews 4:16.

“For through him we both [Jews and Gentiles] have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” – Ephesians 2:18.

“In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.” – Ephesians 3:12.

It is up to you to seek God. It is up to you to draw near to God. God does not do anything to force you to draw near to Him. He didn’t force you to do it when you were unsaved, and He won’t do so now. God did not put the sickness on you to draw you near. He has provided the means for you to draw near and He leaves it up to you to do it. Jesus has already provided the way for you to go to God’s throne. He doesn’t need to make a new way through sickness.

This should be clear from the verses above. James did not say, “Let God draw you nigh to Himself.” The author of Hebrews did not say, “Let God draw you boldly to His throne of grace.” YOU choose to draw near to God or you choose not to. Heaven’s door is always open to you whether you feel like it is or not. We walk by faith, not by feelings. Even if you feel like God took off on you, the truth is that He never fails you nor forsakes you. He certainly doesn’t panic and run away because you sin. If you’re struggling with sin, you need to run TO God, not AWAY FROM God! He doesn’t give you the “silent treatment” to punish sins that He already punished when Jesus took them onto Himself.

How God Draws People

The goodness of God leads men to repentance (Romans 2:4). God does not use calamity to draw men to himself; He uses good things. Think of all the people in Acts who were brought to Jesus by seeing the goodness of God through healing. It was not God making people sick that drew the masses! They were drawn when God healed people!

Jesus, the Healer, is drawing men to Himself today. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die.” – John 12:32-33. We use this passage to describe men being drawn to Jesus if we “lift Him up” and “exalt” Him in praise and worship, but that isn’t what He said! He spoke of His coming death and exaltation to the right hand of God. Therefore, Jesus does not just draw men to Himself if we praise and worship Him. He was lifted up from the earth on the cross, so now He is in the continuous process of drawing all men unto Himself, worship or no worship! (There is a principle that God inhabits the praises of His people and will move in an atmosphere of corporate worship, but John 12:32 is not the verse to use to prove it.) So Jesus, not sickness, draws men to God today.

Think how ridiculous it would be that God would heal a sinner to draw the sinner to Himself, but after the sinner became a saint, God would turn around and use sickness as the method for drawing the saint unto Himself. Is God more gracious to His own children than to those who hate Him and disobey Him? No!

Sickness Is an Ineffective Method of Drawing People to God

Consider Revelation 9:20 and Revelation 16:10-11, where God sends sickness and pain and the people DO NOT repent. Then consider that whole cities turned to the Lord when they saw His goodness through a miracle (Acts 9:32-35, Acts 9:36-42). Obviously, a miracle would get more people to turn to the Lord than a catastrophe.

God Is the Healer, Not the Sickener

Another problem with this objection is that it assumes that God is putting sickness on people. But if you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father (John 14:9). Jesus went around healing those who were oppressed of the devil (Acts 10:38). God is our Physician (Exodus 15:25-26), not our Sickener. You know God’s will in the matter from these and other verses. If Jesus never put sickness on people to draw them closer to God, God will never do it either. Jesus never changes (Hebrews 13:8), so He won’t do it today either. Have you ever been to an earthly physician who deliberately made you sick? How much less will the Great Physician do that to you! If God sometimes healed you and sometimes made you sick, He would at best be the Not-So-Great Physician.

When You’ve Already Been Drawn

One of the amazing things about this objection is that is used by people who experienced a physical calamity and then turned to God – but they still have their physical problem! How ridiculous is that? If the sole purpose of that physical catastrophe was to draw the person to God, and now that person has already been drawn to God, why should that condition linger in their bodies? What purpose does it serve NOW? You would have to ask the objector that question, because I can’t make any sense of it. Can you?