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Sickness Is of the Devil
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Or, “This thing on your life—is it bad or good?” Do you say, “I don’t know. God is so high
above us and beyond us, we just can’t understand His ways, and I know it feels bad, and I don’t
like it, but it could be good.”
Then you are hopelessly confused as to whether you’re in the will of God or out of the will of
God, or whether you should receive something or resist it.
People say, “I feel confused, but that’s just the way it is.”
No, that is
not
the way it is. Ephesians tells us not to be foolish or unwise, but to understand what
the will of the Lord is. (5:17) That’s why He gave us the Bible. That’s why He gave us the Holy
Spirit. He’s not trying to hide things from us. He wants us to know plainly and clearly. If it’s
good, receive it. If it’s evil, resist it. If it’s good, do it. If it’s evil, stay away from it. He wants us
to be crystal clear on what’s good and what’s evil.
Well, what do you need to convince you that sickness is bad? We have two witnesses already.
What’s a witness in Job? The devil did it. Who made Job sick? The devil did it, as plain as you
can read it.
The psalm says that disease is a thing of the devil, and it’s evil.
There are some more witnesses in the New Testament. In Luke 13, a woman was bent over for
18 years and couldn’t straighten herself up. Jesus spoke to her that she was loosed. He laid His
hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and glorified God. Nothing is said about her
glorifying God those 18 years that she was stooped over. But as soon as she was loosed and
straightened up, it says that she glorified God.
In verse 14, it says, “And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that
Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men
ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day.” Hypocrite!
They never had a healing day. They never had a day when they were going to lay hands on her
and get her straight. They had 18 years with her, and nothing happened. Verse 15 says, “The
Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite…” “You hypocrites.” When Jesus calls you a
hypocrite, you’re a hypocrite. “Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his
ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a
daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this
bond on the sabbath day?”
What was wrong with her? She was physically bent over. You’ve seen folks like that, who
couldn’t straighten up. She was bent over. People might have called it “curvature of the spine,”
or just arthritis. It was some kind of disease that had her bent over, and what did Jesus say it
was? That it was His Father teaching her something? No. Where did this come from then? Who
did that to this woman?
Some might say, “Well, now, it said in that specific instance that the devil did it. But, sometimes
it’s the Lord working out...” “Sometimes it’s the devil, and sometimes it’s the Lord, and you just