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Sickness
Satan’s Ways to Bring Sickness
I believe that Satan works in three major ways to bring sickness and suffering on people:
1. Satan causes sickness directly. An obvious tactic is demonization. For example, approximately 25 percent of Jesus’ healings as recorded in the Gospel of Mark involve demons. The direct influence of the devil is explicitly demonstrated when Jesus healed a crippled woman and was scolded by a synagogue leader for doing it on the Sabbath. Jesus said, “Ought not this woman being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” (Luke 13:16). Satan’s direct role is also explicit in the case of Job. What percentage of sickness is directly caused by Satan we do not know, but unquestionably much is.
2. Satan indirectly uses the natural results of the Fall to cause sickness and suffering. He uses bacteria, viruses, malnutrition, accidents, fights, poison, old age, rapists, murderers and on and on. In all probability most sickness falls into this category.
3. Satan tempts people to fall into sin, and God at times uses sickness to punish them for it. There are many examples in the Old Testament of plagues, which God sent on His own people to punish them for sin. When some Israelites rebelled against Moses and Aaron, God sent a plague and killed 14,700 (see Num. 16:45-50). Then God killed another 50,070 Israelites at Beth Shemesh when they disobeyed him by looking into the ark of the Lord (see 1 Sam. 6:19), just to cite two examples. In the New Testament, God made Elymas the sorcerer blind as part of a power encounter (see Acts 13:6-12). In Corinth some believers were sick and some had died as a result of abusing the Lord’s supper (see ! Cor. 11:30).
No matter what the immediate cause, the usual outcomes of sickness are pain, suffering and death, all the works of Satan.
C. Peter Wagner, How to Have a Healing Ministry Without Making Your Church Sick!, (Regal Books, Ventura, CA; 1988), pp. 109-110
What They Say and What They Mean
- What they say: “It could be one of several things.”
What they mean: “I haven’t the foggiest idea what’s wrong with you.”
- What they say: “Are you sure you haven’t had this before?”
What they mean: “Because you’ve got it again.”
- What they say: “I’d like to run that test again.”
What they mean: “The lab lost your blood sample.”
- What they say: “Insurance should cover most of this.”
What they mean: “You’ll have to sell your house to cover the rest.”
- What they say: “These pills have very few side effects.”
What they mean: “You may experience sudden hair growth on your palms.”
- What they say: “Why don’t you go over your symptoms with me one more time.”
What they mean: “I don’t remember who you are.”
- What they say: “There’s a lot of this going around.”
What they mean: “And we’ll give it a name as soon as we figure out what it is.”
David Grimes in Sarasota Herald-Tribune, quoted in Reader’s Digest, May, 1994, p. 112
Prayer
Lord, whose spirit is so good and so gentle in all things, and who art so compassionate that not only all prosperity but even all afflictions that come to Thine elect are the results of Thy compassion: grant me grace that I may not do as the pagans do in the condition to which thy justice has reduced me; grant that as a true Christian I may recognize Thee as my father and as my God, in whatever estate I find myself, since the change in my condition brings no change in Thy own. For Thou are the same, though I be subject to change, and Thou art God no less when Thou dost afflict and when Thou dost punish, than when Thou dost console and when Thou dost manifest indulgence. Thou hadst given me health that I might serve Thee, and I have profaned it; now Thou dost send me illness to correct my ways: do not permit me to use it to anger Thee by my impatience. I have misused my health, and Thou hast justly punished me for it; do not suffer me to misuse thy punishment.
B. Pascal
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