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Old Time Country Preacher

Can God Use Sickness/Disease to bring Himself Glory?

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15566 **11/30/15 12:01 pm**

Many would say, NO! Sickness/Disease is of the devil. But what about Joseph's encouraging admonition to his brothers? They were in fear Joseph would retaliate with vengeance. Joseph said, "You meant it for evil, BUT GOD meant it for good."

Two cases in point (among scores I have experienced during my years in ministry):

1. One of my parishioners a few years ago developed cancer, from which he eventually died. This guys was always in church, but never manifested many signs of a close spiritual walk with the Lord. I was visiting with him only a month before he passed. His words? "I've never felt closer to God than I feel right now." Could God have used the sickness/disease to draw this guy's heart closer to himself?

2. Just last week I went to the hospital to visit a man I've pastored for several years, who has developed a disease that could easily take his life. I've never even once seen him show any sign of worship, connection with God, etc. A good man, but not a spiritual man. As I prayed for him in the hospital, he wept profusely, something I have never seen him do. His entire demeanor was different. His focus was on God.

Can God Use Sickness/Disease to bring Himself Glory? To point men/women to Himself? To draw a person's heart away from the temporal and point it to the eternal?

Absolutely! This is the sovereignty of God. A person can go to heaven with 10,000 medical conditions. But a person can't go to heaven lost!!!!!!!!!

Aaron Scott

OTCP...that's not the question

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6032 **11/30/15 12:37 pm**

God can indeed use virtually any event to "work all things for our good."

The point is that God while God may have used this man's sickness to bring about change, that was not God's will. God would have obviously preferred the man to have lived for him without cancer having to be involved.

Consider that a person who dies lost may still be able to inspire people to turn their lives around. So while that person was lost--which God is not willing that any should be--God still might have used it to bring about good of some other sort.

"Before I was afflicted, I went astray," the Bible says.

So, yes, these things happen. But your unspoken point, based on how much you rail against WOF, is that God WANTS people to be sick so that He can get glory, etc.

I say that while that may happen, it was NOT because God wants it. God would have wanted something else, something better.

brotherjames

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **11/30/15 1:12 pm**

Joseph wasn't SICK!

Eddie Robbins

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16509 **11/30/15 1:13 pm**

Is Mark 11:24 a guarantee?

brotherjames

Here is a partial part of the Official Position Paper from the AG

brotherjames · Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **11/30/15 1:24 pm**

on Divine healing. It deals with some of OTCP's issues. Can you learn something about God's Grace in suffering from sickness? Of course. Is it God's will for you to be SICK? NOOOOOOOOOOOO. If that were the case why do people go to doctors to get well? THey would be interfering with God's will to do so if that were the case. I am sick of this nonsense from you OTCP. You can think what you want but I'm done.

From the AG Position paper on Healing:
"The Bible indicates that until Jesus comes we groan because we have not yet received the full redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23). Only when the dead in Christ rise and we are changed do we receive the new bodies which are like His glorious body (1 Corinthians 15:42-44,,51-54). Even followers of Christ groan and travail in pain like the rest of creation, waiting patiently for the fulfillment of our hope (Romans 8:21-25).
In that the human body is described by Paul as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), we must care for it and avoid that which would abuse it. But, no matter what we do for this body, no matter how many times we are healed, unless the rapture of the Church intervenes we shall die. The promise and reality of divine healing does not rule out suffering for the sake of Christ and that of the gospel. We are expected to be prepared to follow His example (Hebrews 5:8; 1 Peter 2:19,21; 4:12-14,19). Nor are we to look to divine healing as a substitute for obedience to the rules of physical and mental health. Jesus recognized the need of the disciples to get away from the crowds and rest awhile (Mark 6:31). Jethro, Mosesï¿½ father-in-law, advised him to delegate some of his responsibilities so that he could stand the strain of leading Israel (Exodus 18:17,1 Cool

.

Neither is divine healing a means of avoiding the effects of old age. Moses did retain a clear eye and his natural strength until the day of his death (Deuteronomy 34:7), but this privilege was not granted to King David (1 Kings 1:1ï¿½4). The gradual breakdown of old age, pictured so graphically in Ecclesiastes 12:1ï¿½7, is the common experience of believers as well as unbelievers. Healing is still available to the aged, but the part that is
healed usually continues to age like the rest of the body. We do not yet have the redemption of the body. It is possible that the refusal to alter oneï¿½s lifestyle to accord with biblical principles could hinder healing (John 5:14). While the amount of faith is not always, as noted above, determinative, if one does not believe that divine healing can occur, it might not.

We must also be open to God's will and activities, always designed by His love and for our good, understanding that they are beyond our immediate ability to understand. He is, by healing us now and by not healing us, moved by His great compassion, desiring that we be drawn increasingly closer to Him. We recognize that there have been abuses regarding divine healing. Excessive claims and unfounded judgments are offered by some. But we must not let that cause us to retreat from a positive proclamation of the truth of the Scripture. Peter and John were able to say to the lame man who was to be healed, What I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk (Acts 3:6). May we, too, remain committed to the reality of the power of God to effect divine healing.

In humility we confess that we do not understand all that pertains to divine healing. We do not understand fully why some are healed and others are not, any more than we understand why God permitted James to be martyred and Peter delivered (Acts 12:1-19). Scripture makes it clear, however, that our part is to preach the Word, expecting signs, including divine healing, to follow. Finally, at the Lord's return, ï¿½when the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality (1 Corinthians 15:54), the full realization of divine healing will have come."

Aaron Scott

brotherjames...

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6032 **11/30/15 1:24 pm**

I think the point would still stand. God surely isn't any more willing for us to be in pain and sorrow than He is for us to be sick.

Da Sheik

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1860 **11/30/15 1:27 pm**

Absolutely ! Almost the entirety of I Peter (from which we often quote regarding the stripes of Jesus!) is devoted to suffering for the glory of God. WOF teaching robs people of the redemptive power of suffering. Look at the life of Joni Eareckson Tada just for starters. Look at how God has used her mightily throughout the years !

People lament the lack of healings compared to the days of Jesus and the Apostles. We look for an excuse and so the easy way is to take the reductionist view that says the early church "had more faith ". I believe God certainly does still heal today but I don't think that miracles of healing are as imperative to the growth of the Church as in the early days of the Gospel.

Additionally , I see the advances in modern medicine as evidence of God's gracious intervention into our world today. We don't put our "trust" in physicians but can there be any doubt that God has gifted these individuals for the betterment of mankind ?

brotherjames

I agree AAron

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **11/30/15 1:28 pm**

Quiet Wyatt

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12792 **11/30/15 1:47 pm**

I could be overlooking something, and I don't mean to speak for him, but I don't see anything in the AG position paper to which OTCP would likely object, nor anything that affirms the WoF doctrine.

Mark Ledbetter

I won't raise the issue of

Golf Cart Mafia Associate Posts: 2109 **11/30/15 2:36 pm**

Lazarus again.

Nor will I mention the man born blind.

Just wanted all to know I'll not respond.
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Aaron Scott

Here's the deal...

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6032 **11/30/15 2:48 pm**

Surely, surely, surely, of all the multitudes that Jesus healed, there was someone God would have WANTED to be sick...and yet Jesus healed them.

Further, I imagine that virtually every spiritual condition was represented in those multitudes. There were no doubt devout folks...and rascals. Jesus healed them all.

If there was a verse that told us "Results will vary," that would be one thing. But I believe the expectation seemed to be that we would do the same (Jesus even implied as much with "greater works than these shall ye do"). Further, the apostles sure seemed to live up to such expectations.

I KNOW we don't see such results. I get that. It's clear as a bell.

The question is whether we should EXPECT such results...whether we should SEEK such results...whether we should TRY TO ATTAIN such results....

You get the idea.

Or do we simply assume that that is not going to happen and just accept it?

I don't want to hold the wrong position. But so far as I can tell, we should EXPECT such incredible results in Jesus' church. No, we don't see that...yet. But I think we should be preaching it, believing for it, etc.

WOF may take that too far, but the point seems to be that they at least believe we SHOULD be seeing such things in the church.

The question for OTCP is this: SHOULD we expect to experience the healings that Jesus and the apostles experiences? If so, then we should be much less upset with WOFfers. If not, then explain why and how we came to the conclusion that we should NOT expect to experience such things?

Nature Boy Florida

Re: Here's the deal...

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16619 **11/30/15 3:00 pm**

Eddie Robbins

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16509 **11/30/15 3:04 pm**

I wonder what Evangelist David Ring would say about this question?

brotherjames

Aaron

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **11/30/15 3:05 pm**

just quit it. I know it bugs you as much as me but we are casting pearls before swine (euphemism). And I never did get Mark's point - Lazarus was healed but he died eventually just like we all do (re read the AG post I made) and last I saw the blind man was healed.

I quit. Let it die along with Actscelerate.

Old Time Country Preacher

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15566 **11/30/15 4:11 pm**

Some a you pro-woffie boys amaze me. When ya run outta ammo, ya go ad hominem on OTCP an others.

Mark Ledbetter

brojames...

Golf Cart Mafia Associate Posts: 2109 **11/30/15 5:19 pm**

JLarry

God can use anythig or anybody

Acts Mod Posts: 3346 **11/30/15 5:22 pm**

He used a donkey to talk to a man.

Hey, He has even used me a few times.
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No one who died without Christ is happy about their decision.

Eddie Robbins

Re: God can use anythig or anybody

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16509 **11/30/15 5:34 pm**

Nature Boy Florida

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16619 **11/30/15 7:06 pm**

Looks like brotherjames lost it.

You ask for him or Aaron to show us anyone that had the same everytime healing power that Jesus did - and he goes off the deep end.

I just don't think that Jesus planned for us to walk around in guilt all the time because we didn't acquire this everytime healing power.

Or even worse - heaping guilt on others as Stephen Conn's post showed us.

Really - Jesus came so we could load guilt on everyone who had a loved one die after being prayed for? That is who Jesus is?
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Aaron Scott

NBF...consider

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6032 **11/30/15 7:27 pm**

If we are told we will do greater works than these...what in the world could that mean other than we SHOULD see those results and more (perhaps)?

As for Peter and Paul's success statistics, let's assume they didn't get 100%. We'll even if they got 50%, that is is WORLDS away from what we see. Something is different! I don't know just what it is, but something surely isn't the same.