Free Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt by Roger Sapp

His disciples treated sickness as an enemy and not as a blessing. Matilda attributed the sickness to God when the Scripture frequently attributes sickness to the devil. Indeed, about one-fourth of Christ’s healings were actually Him casting out a demon causing the condition. While Matilda was a wonderful Christian, she did not truly understand what was happening to her. She had a false foundation of unscriptural but popular ideas about God, the nature of sickness and the availability of healing. These ideas created serious doubt. That doubt overshadowed her faith in Christ as Healer and prohibited her from being healed. Thankfully, our fictional Aunt Matilda, if she were a real person, would await us in Heaven. She would know now that Christ would have healed her if she had not had misconceptions of God’s will, purpose and timing, and had not misinterpreted her experience.
     
    Sometimes when someone like Matilda dies from sickness, those who loved her will want to defend her faith. People like Matilda should never be attacked or defended. These kinds of discussions are very counterproductive for the Kingdom of God . We can honestly say that sick Christians and those around them often do all that they know to do. They are sincere and there should be no condemnation. Beyond this, everyone should humbly and reasonably admit that there are some things that we do not fully understand about healing and if we knew those things, we might have had a much more glorious outcome with people like fictional Aunt Matilda.

    A Prophecy that Promised Pain. In an actual situation a few years ago, we encountered a excellent Christian leader who was in serious pain for several years. He had been to the doctor for his pain and nothing seemed to help. At times, he was in so much pain that he was unable to perform his ministry and it sometimes negatively impacted his relationship with his family. When we encountered him, he desperately wanted to be helped but had a serious doubt that was difficult for him to remove. A few months before his pain came, he was in a meeting where a well-respected man of God gave him a prophecy that he was soon to be in serious pain. According to the prophecy, God was going to do a special work in him as a result of this pain. A few weeks later, the pain came and because of what appeared to be a fulfillment of this prophecy, he did not resist in any way. Days, weeks and months went by as he suffered along until he could bear it no longer and asked for help from us. The first thing that I said to him was that I didn’t believe that this particular prophecy was from God. (I do believe in the spiritual gift of prophecy and I do respect the minister that spoke this prophecy but not this prophecy.) This respected minister spoke something in the prophecy that was not revealed in the ministry of Christ. In fact, what he said was exactly opposite of the ministry of Christ. Christ never gave people pain. Christ delivered people who came to Him from pain. However, the minister in pain could not initially accept that this prophecy was false. It took six weeks of meetings with him and confrontation with what Christ revealed of the Father’s will for him to come to the conclusion that his pain was not sent from God. On that particular day, we were able to get him delivered and healed. Up to that point, there was little capacity to help him because he doubted that God wanted him to be pain-free. Because he had some doubting doctrines as a foundation, this prophecy, although false, fit with what He believed about God using pain and therefore he accepted the pain. What we believe really happened to him is that the devil had an open door to afflict him as long as he believed it was God. A false prophecy built upon a false doctrinal foundation allowed the devil to bring debilitating pain to him and this minister did not resist it.
     
    A Revelation that Postponed Healing. In another situation a few years ago, my wife and I were