Objection: Sometimes God Wants You to Witness to Someone in the Hospital

Yes, sometimes He does.  After all, God favors visiting the sick (Matthew 25:36) and He even says that you do so unto Jesus when you do it.  So go witness to someone in the hospital.  He does not want you to do so as a patient, however.  God wants His Church to have patience, not patients, and practicing “hospitality” has nothing to do with going to the hospital.

Yeah, but doesn’t God sometimes “let you” get sick so that you can reach a certain person in the hospital?  No.  You are a better witness healed than you are sick.  You have a better chance of having someone else let you lay hands on him if you are not sick yourself!  It is never the will of God for you to get sick so that you can witness to someone.  That stupid lie is simply a tool of Satan to convince you that you should put up with his attempts to steal, kill and destroy your body rather than resisting sickness as you should.

Now God can and does use sick Christians to win other people to the Lord in the hospital.  That’s good, but that isn’t God’s best.  Think of what a better witness it is to get healed by the power of God and get out of the hospital!  That will bring more glory to God than telling people that you are suffering from a sickness that God gave you so that you would meet someone who needed Jesus at the hospital.

Don’t get under condemnation if you DO go to the hospital.  It does not mean that you are “anti-faith.”  It may be the smartest thing you ever did.  But please, do not embarrass the Body of Christ with some religious fabrication that God racked you with pain, made you unable to provide for your family’s needs, and made you a burden to others because He wanted you to “witness” to your hospital roommate.  If you think that God is like that, you need to get better acquainted with Him through His Word.  You are not in a good position to help fulfill the Great Commission when you yourself are out of commission.  What unbeliever will want Jesus if you say that God made you sick to witness to him?  If I were the unbeliever, I would stay as far away from Jesus as possible so that God would not make me sick to witness to someone else in the future.

If you did win your hospital roommate to Christ, that’s a good testimony in and of itself.  But please don’t put out one of those birdcage-liner-quality testimony books claiming that GOD wanted you to get really sick so that you’d go to that hospital and stay in that room.

I pastored for Maine for over a decade and a half and I made MANY trips to the local hospital.  But never once was I a patient in that hospital!  It is far better to share God’s Word with others in the hospital when you can just walk out when you’re done!