Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt (3 page)

3
The
Divine Purpose Doubt

Often doubts that overshadow healing come through beliefs that God has a benevolent purpose for someone being sick. This belief could be expressed in this fashion:

God may have a divine purpose to bless a sick or injured person through their condition. Therefore, it might not be God’s will to heal or it might not be God’s timing to heal until that divine purpose is completed. God’s blessing may be that He will teach a lesson or transform the character of a person through the condition and this cannot be accomplished in any other way.

When these beliefs are examined in light of what the Bible teaches, they are difficult if not impossible to support. Here are some of the problems:

The Old Testament teaches that sickness is a part of the curse of the Law of Moses. The curse was always for the disobedient and wicked. It was never for the righteous. Believers are totally forgiven, completely righteous, and perfectly justified before God through Jesus Christ and His work at
Calvary
. Our feelings may not always assent to these divine facts but they are true nevertheless.

Sickness is not listed among the blessings of God anywhere in Scripture. Convoluted reasoning, justified by experiences of failing to heal or be healed is used to teach that sickness and injuries are blessings.

Christ’s actions, attitudes, teaching and commands to His disciples do not reveal sickness as a blessing. Christ heals all who come to Him without a second’s hesitation, a prayer or any consideration of a possible divine purpose for sickness or injury. This reveals that there is no divine purpose for sickness or injury.

Christ and His disciples in the New Testament treat sickness just like they do demons. They treat sickness and injury as an enemy and never as a friend. They never act as if sickness and injury might have a good or godly purpose.

Instead of God causing sickness or injury, the New Testament reveals that demons are occasionally the real hidden cause. Christ casting out demons produces approximately one-quarter of the healings in His
ministry
^[iii]
. Today, because some believe that there is a divine purpose in sickness and injury they will often misdiagnosis the problem. They will see the work of demons as the work of God.

Scripture does not teach anywhere that God wants to use sickness to transform a person’s character or produce repentance. We acknowledge that God is able to produce good things from the bad things that He did not desire in a person’s life. However, this is a long way from saying that God wanted the person to be ill or injured to help them. God, as any good Father, wants the best for His children even when they are in situations that were not His will for them.

These biblical facts flatly contradict the widely held notion that God is using sickness as a mysterious blessing of some sort. This notion creates a serious doubt that God wishes to heal in particular circumstances. This doubt must be confronted and destroyed.

Dangerous Information.
What we are about to present is dangerous information for those who have been trained to doubt. It is important that believers actually believe in the reality of God’s forgiveness of their sins. If they are weak in this area and have difficulty believing that they stand righteously before God on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ, then they might find the information on the real purpose of sickness condemning. This should not be so. No believer should allow this to happen to him or her. God truly forgives confessed sin on the basis of His Son Jesus’ sacrifice at
Calvary
. The information that follows does not apply to the forgiven. It only applies to unrepentant wicked Israelites who were under the Law of Moses. It does, however, reveal the real purpose for sickness and that is the sole reason that it is presented.

Sickness as Part of the Curse.
It is appropriate for us to look at several passages that reveal that sickness is part of the curse and not a blessing. For instance, in Deuteronomy Chapter 28, Moses reveals a long listing of curses that result from disobeying God. Moses then reveals another list of blessings that result from obeying God. Sickness and disease are only mentioned among curses. Long-life, strength and fruitfulness produced by health are listed as blessings. Here is what Moses says about the real nature of sickness.

The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken
Me
. The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land, where you are entering to possess it. The LORD will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they shall pursue you until you perish. Deuteronomy 28:20-22

Moses reveals a great deal about the true nature of sickness:

The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do…

In the context of this passage, Moses reveals that sickness is among curses, confusion and rebuke. This reveals that sickness is not divine blessing in any form to anyone, the nation of
Israel
or a believer in Christ today.

…until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me.

Moses reveals the only divine purpose for the curse of sickness. Sickness was meant to end the life of a wicked Israelite quickly so that they would have no more opportunity for wickedness. Sickness was not meant for discipline. Discipline always has the purpose of transformation. God was not trying to transform wicked Israelites into righteous ones using sickness. He was simply ending their earthly existence. Likewise, there is no purpose for the operation of this curse in the life of a believer. In fact, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law and all the curses in the Law of Moses including sickness.

The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land, where you are entering to possess it.

Again, the intent of the curse of sickness was to end the life of a wicked Israelite. It was to prevent them from possessing the land that God had promised to His obedient servants.

The LORD will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew…

Notably Moses says that God will smite them, not bless them, with three kinds of sickness: Consumption, fever, and inflammation. The context adds fiery heat (drought conditions), sword (war) and blight and mildew (difficulties with crops and food). None of these things are any kind of a blessing.

…and they shall pursue you until you perish…

Again, all these things are not intended to bless the Israelites in some backhanded way. Sickness was not meant to transform the wicked Israelites into godly persons. Sickness was meant to destroy the wicked ones among them. Likewise, sickness today is not meant to transform believers into the image of Christ. Sickness remains part of the curse and still destroys people’s lives. Let us not be doubtful and double-minded on this matter. Let us move beyond a shadow of a doubt in this matter. Sickness and injury are never blessings despite what the grace of God might accomplish during them.

This passage continues a few verses later with the same sort of information.

The LORD will smite you with the boils of
Egypt
and with tumors and with the scab and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. The LORD will smite you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart; and you shall grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you. Deuteronomy 28:27-29

There are some interesting points to discover in this passage.

The LORD will smite you with the boils of
Egypt
and with tumors and with the scab and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed.

Moses reveals that boils are not the plan of God for blessing His Israelite people. They are the boils of
Egypt
. Boils belong to
Egypt
not
Israel
. If
Israel
was experiencing the boils of
Egypt
, it was because they are sinning and wicked like
Egypt
. Moses lists four conditions: Boils, tumors (which would include cancerous tumors), scab, and the itch. Consistent with the previous verses, God does not intend to heal these conditions in the wicked. These conditions are not meant to transform or bless. They were meant to rebuke and destroy wicked Israelites. On the other hand, Christian believers are redeemed from the curse of the Law and the will of God for them in Christ is repentance, forgiveness, and blessing in the form of healing of sickness and disease. Sickness is not for the forgiven ever.

The LORD will smite you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart…

Again, these three conditions listed in this verse are not a blessing but a smiting. These symptoms of the curse are madness (insanity), blindness and bewilderment of heart. These are not meant to transform the life of wicked Israelites. They were meant to end their lives more quickly.

…and you shall grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness…

This describes complete confusion and disorientation. This cannot be a hidden blessing to be so lost.

…and you shall not prosper in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you.

Finally, the context reveals that the curse would affect them financially. They will not prosper but be robbed and oppressed continually. Most people who are seriously ill are not prospering either. They are often unproductive and often destitute because of the cost of treatment.

The end of this passage sums up the purpose of the curse of sickness in Israelites’ lives.

So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. And they shall become a sign and a wonder on you and your descendants forever. Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD shall send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. Deuteronomy 28:45-48

There are some similar points as before in this passage worth considering again. The divine purpose of the curse of sickness was limited to the disobedient and wicked Israelites.

So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.

The purpose of the curse of sickness was to destroy those Israelites who would not obey God’s commandments and statutes contained in the Law of Moses. Transformation of character using sickness was not part of God’s plan for
Israel
nor is it part of God’s plan now. There was no blessing in sickness then and there is no blessing now. There are blessings of healing and health for those who have been redeemed by faith in Christ’s sacrifice at the cross.

And they shall become a sign and a wonder on you and your descendants forever.

An additional purpose of the curse of sickness in the life of wicked Israelites was to be a warning to all the Israelites not to disobey God. It remains a warning to us as well who have repented and turned to Christ. However, we understand that the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient for forgiveness of sins and healing of sickness. Sickness in the life of a Christian believer is not God at work.