The Rejection of Medicine Error

Along with a lot of spiritual error, charismatic preachers and cults teach physically harmful doctrines. One of the worst in this class is the rejection of medicine. Believers are taught to build up their faith so that God will be obliged to heal them.

One badly-abused scripture is Matthew 8:16 (KJV) which reads, "When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:"

What many charismatic teachers do is conflate this with believers today. If somebody suffering from a demon or illness has enough faith, ministers standing in Christ's stead can heal or deliver that victim. What those preachers forget, or choose to ignore, is that God is sovereign.

As I wrote earlier about John 9:2, the man born blind wasn't being punished for his sins. How could he do anything worthy of blindness in any case.

And how could his parents be to blame? The Pharisees and Christ's disciples should have remembered Deuteronomy 24:16 (KJV) which plainly says, "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin."

But there was one man who was put to death for the sins of whoever would follow him. Thanks to Jesus' work on the cross, we are freed from the judgement of God on all sinful humanity.

I'll be writing more about this in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? The most important decision we can ever make is to believe in Christ. But some folks think they're good enough without "religion" and will be horrified on Judgement Day when they're sentenced to eternal torment in hell.

Switching gears, my next post will be about a style of music which captivated my young heart back in 1967. It still thrills me today.