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.

Won't My Parent's Faithfulness Get Me Into Heaven?

Now that I've dealt with the thorny issue of infant baptism, I need to deal with the notion that one's family church registration is a guarantor of citizenship in heaven. Evangelist and author Corrie Tenboom wisely said that God has no grandchildren and here's why he doesn't.

I mentioned in my previous post about what Romans 10:9-10 says regarding how a person is saved. Unlike the notion of salvation through one's parents' church affiliation, God demands that all people obey his son through repenting and making him Lord of their lives.

Peter, speaking to the religious experts of his day, said in Acts 4:12 (KJV), "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Therefore, no amount of piety by one's parents will do.

Neither will the wickedness of any one's parents be charged to their offspring. Look at what it says in Deuteronomy 24:16 (KJV,) "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."

It's abundantly obvious therefore that our supposed righteousness doesn't depend on our family's piety. Neither will we have to pay for the sins of our parents, as some folks believe. Each one of us must face the ultimate judge and give an account for what we've done in our threescore-and-ten existence.

Because one's eternal destination is the most important matter in life, I'm working on a book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? Each one of us must be responsible for where we end up after we die. We can't ride into heaven on the coat tails of our ancestors.