Objection: Since God Allows Persecution, Which Can CAUSE Sickness, He Allows Sickness
From a “stating the obvious” perspective, God DOES allow sickness. He also ALLOWS school shootings, transgender women’s sports record-breakers, abortions and other murders, cults, reckless federal spending and even people going to hell. The fact that God allows something does mean that He endorses it. He even “allowed” a teacher at a well-known seminary to write this objection!
God allows the devil to operate in the earth because Adam gave him the right to be here. Persecution is a work of the devil. If you doubt that, consider this:
Revelation 2:10:
Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
Paul referred to “a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him” when describing his thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. Satan wanted Paul to be beaten and persecuted.
It wasn’t God beating up Paul or throwing Christians into jail. It wasn’t His will. (See the Paul’s Thorn objection if you think God was doing it to Paul to keep him humble.) Satan will be punished forever because everything he does is AGAINST God’s will. Otherwise, God would have to reward him someday and say, “Well done, thou good and faithful tormenter” instead of throwing him into the lake of fire to be justly tormented forever. If imprisoning and torturing Christians were the perfect will of God, there would be prisons and torture centers waiting for us in heaven where only God’s will is done.
God does allow the devil to persecute Christians as well as spread sickness, gossip and other unpleasant things. But He takes no joy in what Satan does. He is against everything Satan is for, and Satan is against everything God is for.
Now to get down to brass tacks with the rest of this objection, the Bible makes it clear that God’s will is not for a persecuted person to stay sick because of persecution, but to be healed. Paul himself suffered persecution at Lystra that left him physically troubled when he went on to Galatia and even told the Galatians that he preached to them through infirmity of the flesh at the first (Galatians 4:13). This phrase “at the first” indicates that Paul was healed of those infirmities. God “allowed” those infirmities only in the sense that He allowed the physical persecution (being stoned and left for dead) that caused them. But God didn’t continue to “allow” Paul’s infirmities – quite the opposite. God healed Paul so that he could continue his ministry. It is equally God’s will to heal anyone else who is sick (or injured) due to persecution. Notice that Paul didn’t say anywhere else that he had preached through infirmity of the flesh after that.
Consider the incident at Lystra on its own:
Acts 14:19-20:
And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.
Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.
Here is someone who was so bad off physically he was presumed dead, and he might really have been dead as far as we know. You can say that God allowed it, but I can say that God healed Paul of the persecution-caused physical trouble enough so that he could immediately rise up and walk into the city after being left for dead!
Paul went through some awful physical torture for the gospel’s sake on many occasions. Yet he was able to keep going and fulfill his ministry. Obviously, the Lord kept healing him.
God doesn’t play favorites, so if it was His will to heal Paul’s persecution-caused ailments, it is equally His will to heal other people’s persecution-caused ailments.
I’m sure someone reading this will want to shout at me, “But some people like Stephen DIED from their wounds and stayed dead! Antipas was God’s faithful martyr in Pergamos! God didn’t heal THEM!”
God does call some people to literally give their lives for the sake of the gospel. He didn’t heal them because it was His will for them to give their lives. (The answer to the objection about martyrs goes into more detail about this issue.) But as long as you’re in your body, God has provided healing for you through Jesus Christ.
So this just doesn’t work as an objection to healing; in fact, it serves to point out God’s will to heal even when someone has been physically abused by those who hate Jesus.