Objection: Sometimes God Says, “Yes,” Sometimes He Says, “No,” and Sometimes He Says, “Wait” When You Ask for Healing
This old lie gets passed from generation to generation in Sunday school classes around the world, at least at “word of unbelief” churches. I suppose this is their explanation of why some people’s prayers are not answered. In a way, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe this foolish saying, God will ignore your unbelieving prayer for healing unless He makes an exception for you in His mercy.
You see, faith is God’s condition for receiving healing. James said that if you waver, you must not expect to receive anything (James 1:5-8). If you think that God might say, “Yes,” He might say “No,” and He might say “Wait,” you are by definition wavering. Therefore, you must expect that your prayer will accomplish nothing other than the displacement of some molecules in the air around you.
Jesus never told anyone “No,” and He never told anyone “Wait.” He was the will of God in action. God worked through Him. Therefore, God never said “No” or “Wait.” Since God and Jesus do not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Hebrews 13:8, Hebrews 1:12), they will never tell you either “No” or “Wait” today if you come to them believing.
The root problem with this objection is more subtle. This objection is based on the premise that healing is something that you request from God rather than something that you receive from God. If you believe this objection, you must be asking Him to do it for you and awaiting His response. You have already broken the rule that Jesus established for receiving from God in prayer. He said that you would have whatever you believe you receive when you pray (Mark 11:24). If you make healing a request, you are not believing that you receive anything when you pray. You are forwarding the matter to God for His action. You will be disappointed because you did follow Jesus’ instructions.
Study the cases where Jesus said that people’s faith had made them well. (See According to YOUR FAITH Be It Done unto You!) You will find that these people did not come to Jesus with a “request” as we would think of one. They came with the definite purpose of receiving healing from Him. For example, the woman with the issue of blood did not request anything from Jesus – she simply received from the anointing that was on the Christ (which literally means “anointed,” which is to say “The Anointed One”).
There is a world of difference between God arbitrarily saying “No” and God not answering a prayer that was presented in unbelief. When the disciples failed to cast a demon out of a boy, God was not refusing to deliver the boy. The disciples were simply not in faith. Jesus said that they could not cast it out because of their unbelief, not because God said, “No.” Really, it was not something that they were supposed to ask God about anyway. They were supposed to take the authority that they already had over the demon.
That brings up an interesting point. Jesus talked about speaking to physical objects. You can speak to your sickness by the authority of Jesus Christ and make it leave your body. God could not possibly say “Yes,” “No,” or “Wait” because you are technically not even praying! You are just taking advantage of your covenant rights in Christ.
Why do people believe this Yes/No/Wait nonsense? Perhaps it makes a convenient reason why some people’s prayers are not answered. There are indeed reasons why prayer goes unanswered, but we should consider the biblical reasons why this is so.
Prayer is unanswered when it is prayed in unbelief. The passage in James proves this.
Prayer is unanswered when it is prayed with a wrong motive. James also spoke about people who “ask, and receive not” because they “ask amiss, that they may consume it on [their] lusts” (James 4:2).
Prayer is unanswered when it is not in line with your covenant. God would say “No” to a request to be able to marry your friend’s wife or to keep the tax man from noticing where you cheated on your tax return or to blind the highway troopers so that they don’t notice that you’re whizzing along far in excess of the speed limit.
Prayer is unanswered when you refuse to repent of known sin and your heart condemns you. If your heart condemns you, you do not have confidence before God. (See Healing and Repentance and 1 John 3:21-22.) In that case, the blockage is at your end, not at God’s end. God is not withholding your answer; you are just getting in your own way of receiving it.
Prayer is unanswered when you get into strife with your spouse (1 Peter 3:7) or into many of the other traps cited in the Mistakes to Avoid section of this book.
(For more information on this topic, see Prayers God Won’t Answer.)
However, prayer for healing could NEVER be unanswered for the reason that God chose to say “No” or even “Wait.” There is no precedent for this in Scripture. If God would not definitely heal you, Jesus bore your sicknesses and carried your pains for nothing. Why would Jesus pay the full price for you to be completely healed of all disease and pain, only to have God tell you that you can’t have what Jesus already paid for you to have?
I tell you boldly that if you cling to this Yes/No/Wait junk, you can forget about receiving healing from God. You cannot possibly pray the prayer of faith to a God who arbitrarily refuses to heal some and delays the healing of others for some mysterious reason known only to Himself.
It would be better if only untrained Sunday school teachers made this objection. It is unfortunate that people with seminary degrees and high positions sometimes quote this as gospel, too. (Some liberal seminaries today do more harm than good. Like the Wizard of Oz, they can’t give you a brain, but they can give you a diploma.) Although this Yes/No/Wait cliché is nowhere in the Bible, people hear it from teachers they respect and quote it as if it were part of a fifth gospel or something. I hope that you never parrot this religious tradition of men that has robbed so many people of their healing.