Does God Cause All Sickness?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.500 | Heather, a podcast listener, writes in to ask this.
00:00:07.500 | "Pastor John, I know there have been episodes about God ordaining evil."
00:00:11.500 | Yes, episodes 104 and 204.
00:00:13.500 | "And also one about whether God heals all of our diseases."
00:00:17.500 | Episode 254.
00:00:19.500 | "But what I would like to know is this.
00:00:21.500 | Does God ordain all sickness, as in, does God cause all sicknesses to happen?"
00:00:28.500 | Before I give a yes or a no, I need to make something clear that may not be clear in Heather's mind.
00:00:36.500 | I don't know, maybe it is.
00:00:38.500 | But it's hugely important, and so I need to say it before I give the answer.
00:00:44.500 | In any answer, yes or no, we need to take into account that God's causing, God's causation, is not simple.
00:00:56.500 | That is, it happens with multiple levels of secondary causes in between him or his direct causing and the effect.
00:01:08.500 | I'll give four examples.
00:01:10.500 | I think I can think of four.
00:01:12.500 | One, he can cause directly with virtually no intervening causes.
00:01:19.500 | And the clearest example of that, of course, would be creation.
00:01:22.500 | He's created out of nothing.
00:01:24.500 | He didn't use anything to create.
00:01:26.500 | Nothing came between his word and the thing that came into being.
00:01:31.500 | Number two, he can use physical means where the direct intervention is further back in the chain.
00:01:39.500 | For example, Acts 12, 23, "Since Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down,
00:01:52.500 | and he was eaten by worms and died."
00:01:57.500 | So you've got between God and Herod, and this is clearly a punishment from God for not giving God glory.
00:02:04.500 | But you've got two agents, angels and worms.
00:02:09.500 | And so who caused the death?
00:02:11.500 | Answer, worms.
00:02:13.500 | Who caused the death?
00:02:15.500 | Answer, an angel.
00:02:17.500 | Who caused the death?
00:02:18.500 | Answer, God.
00:02:20.500 | So there's an intervening of angelic or spiritual or physical secondary causes.
00:02:27.500 | Here's a third example.
00:02:29.500 | God never lets Satan out of his control and often uses him to accomplish his purposes.
00:02:39.500 | This was true for Job, where Satan had to get permission to go hammer Job.
00:02:45.500 | And then Job said it was the Lord that took away.
00:02:48.500 | And the writer says he didn't sin with his lips, even though Satan was more immediately involved in the wind that blew down the house that killed the kids.
00:02:58.500 | And in 2 Corinthians 12, 7, it says, "To keep me," this is Paul, "to keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations,
00:03:09.500 | there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me."
00:03:18.500 | But what was the purpose of the thorn?
00:03:24.500 | "To keep me from becoming too conceited."
00:03:28.500 | Really? Satan wants you not to be conceited?
00:03:31.500 | No, no, no, no.
00:03:33.500 | God wants him not to be conceited.
00:03:35.500 | And Satan happens to be the instrument that God is using in this thorn to keep Paul from sinning.
00:03:44.500 | I'm sure Satan did not appreciate that use because that's exactly the opposite of what Satan designs in the thorn.
00:03:52.500 | If you get a thorn, Satan is designing your sin, God is designing your sanctification.
00:03:58.500 | So Satan is one of God's instruments in causality.
00:04:03.500 | And the last one, number four, God can control sinful people so that they are the immediate cause of whatever.
00:04:15.500 | This was the case with the crucifixion of Jesus.
00:04:18.500 | Herod Pontius Pilate says, Acts 4, 27, "They were all gathered together to do what your power and will had decided to take place."
00:04:30.500 | So all of these secondary causes are significant.
00:04:35.500 | The fact that God is the ultimate or the decisive cause does not make them, these secondary causes, insignificant.
00:04:47.500 | For example, the fact that nicotine causes lung cancer means we can fight cancer by not smoking.
00:04:58.500 | Or take the human instrument.
00:05:00.500 | Some dad may set a terrible example for his kid in smoking.
00:05:04.500 | Or some friend has a terrible influence on you and mocks you because you're not smoking.
00:05:11.500 | And so because of his influence you smoke.
00:05:13.500 | So now you've got nicotine and you've got a dad or you've got an influential friend.
00:05:19.500 | And you can fight cancer by not smoking the nicotine and not hanging out with that friend.
00:05:30.500 | And if you do those two things, you're not fighting God.
00:05:34.500 | Even though God is the one who will finally control whether you get cancer or not.
00:05:39.500 | So to say that there are secondary causes is very significant because we can fight those causes.
00:05:46.500 | I think it's totally right for millions of dollars to be invested in looking for a cure for HIV/AIDS or cancer or malaria or polio or leukemia or anything like that
00:06:05.500 | because those are immediate, there are immediate physical causes probably behind each of those.
00:06:12.500 | And to fight those secondary causes does not mean we're fighting God.
00:06:17.500 | God can override or submit to that and he would not be jeopardized in his sovereignty at all.
00:06:24.500 | So my answer to Heather's question is yes.
00:06:27.500 | Ultimately God does, to use her words, cause all sickness to happen.
00:06:34.500 | But it might be a very distant cause or it might be a more immediate cause.
00:06:40.500 | And those intervening causes are all relevant.
00:06:45.500 | Yes, thank you Pastor John and thank you for listening to this podcast and thank you for the very good question Heather.
00:06:50.500 | If you have a question for Pastor John, please email it to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:06:55.500 | Before you ask your question, scan through the other 280+ episodes in the Ask Pastor John archive to see if your question has already been answered.
00:07:03.500 | Those episodes are most easily found in the free Ask Pastor John apps for the iPhone and the Android.
00:07:09.500 | Be sure to update your app to get all the new features that make it really easy to search and browse all those episodes.
00:07:14.500 | I'm your host Tony Ranke. We'll be back tomorrow.
00:07:16.500 | (end)
00:07:18.500 | (end)
00:07:20.500 | (end)
00:07:22.500 | [BLANK_AUDIO]