I was in a church service recently and the person at the pulpit relayed a “prophesy” he had heard. There was a local boy who had gone into anaphylactic shock after eating chicken nuggets the day before. The manufacturer had since recalled the nugget because it contained gluten, which this child was allergic to. The boy had oxygen deprivation for a while and had some brain damage. A minister went to visit the boy and opened his bible and landed on a healing verse int he psalms. He felt this was a sign and declared boldly that God would raise the boy. Praise God.
The prophesy was declared from the pulpit the next morning by another minister. God was credited as having said that the boy would live and that it would be a testimony. By the end of that service the boy was dead.
Dan Edean recently wrote a post in his blog (the name of which I cannot spell) about bad christian advise. In talking to my wife about it, we found a common theme. The majority of bad counsel we have received was less bad advise and more correctly presumptuous expectations.
Let me explain.
When I got married we immediately had kids. Our finances were not in order, I had a pretty bad job and my wife made more than me. Our brand of church pretty much required that the wife stay home and take care of the kids. We were told not to worry because God would double my income in response to our faith. I am still waiting for that to happen seven years later.
I was strongly advised to get the first job could after graduation college and that God would raise me up. So, with my military experience, IT background, corporate communications degree under my belt and past leadership roles listed on my resume, I got my first post-college job washing cars. For disclosure sake, I did move up to a sales manager role in that company but quit because the job was awful and compromising.
Could God have doubled my income? Of course! Could he have raised me up to lead that company and turn its ethics around? Of course! But He never told me He would do that. I presumed He would on the advise of others. That is not faith.
The valuable thing that I learned through lots of bad advise is this, faith is not the absence of logic. It is, perhaps, the presence of an assurance in the face of logic. Aside from that assurance you only have presumption. And presumption don’t pay the bills!
Hebrews 11:1 (Listen)11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
That evidence is what was once called assurance and it is missing in too much of what the church is doing today.
Surely that minister at the side of that child’s bed wanted to believe that God would raise that boy. But guess what, God never said He would. If He did, then the boy would not have been buried yesterday.
We do the church harm when we cannot discern faith from presumption. This is the reason many mock the pentecostal movement. Real faith is sometimes saying, “I don’t know.”
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Interesting post. I feel terrible for the family of that boy. I’ve been posting on the same subject myself, and am in the midst of posting another article in the series. If you have the time in the next few days, I would love to have you take a look and let me know what you think.
As far as what you said here, it sounds like you’ve been exposed to what is all too common in charismatic/pentecostal circles– folk wanting so much to experience signs and wonders that they take it upon themselves to manufacture them. They make up words of knowledge, cast out pretend demons (i.e. the spirit of jealousy) and see anything as a healing (”bless God, I rebuked that cold three days ago and now I feel great!”). Jesus said he did what God showed him do and said what God said to him. He didn’t feel the need to make something happen, and wasn’t undone if nothing happened(like in Nazareth). True faith, IMHO, will wait on God without worry, or the nervous apprehension that causes a person to jump the gun and take things upon his or herself, like Abraham and Sarah (it produced Ishmael) or like what you witnessed with that poor little boy. God doesn’t need us to apologize for him, defend him, nor to bail him out of circumstances where he doesn’t appear to have been up to the challenge. Would that we could all just let God be God! Enough with platitudes and “miracles” made of fog!
I will add your feed to my reader and will surely check in in the next couple days.
I have seen all kinds of nonsense “In the Name.” Like they say, experience is wisdom gained right AFTER you needed it. Today I am able to teach on the gifts from a perspective most don’t teach it from.
“True faith, IMHO, will wait on God without worry, or the nervous apprehension that causes a person to jump the gun and take things upon his or herself”
I think many people who operate in gifts today have barely more faith than fear and as soon as something does not work they drum up works to mask it. I am going to add something to my original post that highlights this.
I have blogged before about that uncomfortable moment after you prayed for someone to be healed and they are not. The flesh wants to blame the person. When in reality they just didn’t get healed.
The real victims of this tragedy are the people who were sceptical of the prophetic and heard this false prophesy.
I decided to add this example here:
One of the young men in my small group was out evangelizing and came across a man in a wheelchair. He boldly declared that God would raise him up.
He prayed in tongues and declared all kinds of things and then the guy could not walk. Rinse, repeat.
The guy still could not walk. At this point there was a crowd. My young friend then declared that when the crippled man really wanted to walk he would be healed. To which the guy shouted, “I DO want to walk!”
I applaud his effort if not his methods.