Saw this heretical trash today. (See picture below. )

First. In my experience those who rebuke diseases are asking to be healed, which is the same thing to rebuke it. Also, Peter says that Jesus healing multitudes of people was Jesus helping those oppressed by Satan. Acts 10:38, (NLT) “Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.” Peter says it, as if most the healings Jesus did (which was so much its hard to put a number on it) was in response to the Devil causing the sickness, cancer, skin deformities, blindness, flow of blood, backs bent over and (etc.). If casting out Satan in order to be healed is not “rebuking our disease,” then I do not know what is.

Second. Because a sickness or a deformity in your health is attributed by scripture as mostly oppression from Satan, then to be healed of this physical “problem” is to “cast” it out, so to speak. Thus, there is nothing in wrong saying it this way.

Third and Forth. James says if you face a trial of lacking wisdom we are to ask in faith, and you will absolutely receive wisdom from the Father.  Remember when Joshua told the sun to stop, this was in essence a “word of faith.” Jesus did this and others in scripture did this as well, even Gentile women in the Old Testament. And so, a word of faith is essentially just a short hand way of praying when one has faith. Such words of faith would be at the same time “speaking into one’s trial.” Nothing wrong with this. The issue is if you have faith for it, or do you say it just as a pragmatic program or wishful hope.

This is the same for claiming success, such as the success promised in Psalm one. If one is doing what Psalm one says, it is perfectly fine to believe and speak the promise over oneself. The issue is again, faith. I believed and so I have spoken. If your faith is weak, it is fine to say such things to practice saying the right thing rather than speaking in unbelief: “this is too hard, we can’t take the Promise Land, they are giants and we are small, there is no way Yahweh, the Lord of Lords, has the power to use us to take the land.” And you know what, God made their “Word of unfaith,” a reality for them. They were to small, and the people were too strong for them.

Six. Yes, of course you can force God to do your will. Now, I would not personally say it this way, either in teaching or in my own prayers; however, there is nothing wrong with this, if understood in relative causality.[1]

God was sovereign when He made the promises. He is still sovereign. God’s sovereignty is absolute and direct, so that He is even the author of sin and evil. God controls all things. God knows all things, because He has predestined everything.  The objector in Romans 9 to Paul was about this arbitrariness of God’s choices to love one but hate the other, among other things. From the same neutral lump, God chooses to make some evil and some good. There is no law for God to follow; there is no authority over Him. There is no one to give Him advice. All created things get their value, or valueless state by God’s own definition of it. This is the God of the Bible. He creates all things and He defines His own creation as He so wishes. He also absolutely and directly controls all things He creates, and thus He controls ‘x’ and ‘y’. Therefore, God controls all thoughts, so that God is the metaphysical author of all evil and sin.[2] All Christian epistemology is God’s revelation. All Christian metaphysics and ontology is God’s direct and absolute sovereignty.

Why is it a correct definition that all people born after Adam were born created with a sinful nature and death, when they did not do the sin themselves? Because God thinks so. Why is it a correct definition that sinful people are credited with Christ’s righteousness, healings, Spirit and blessings, when they did not do it themselves? Because God thinks it so, and defines it so.

Thus, when God sovereignly makes a promise and binds Himself to it, it means He freely wanted to. The Bible says God cannot lie, (Hebrews 6:18). When God sovereignly promised to forgive sin if one believes in His son, then God cannot, not do it. Thus, we can force God to do it, because He promised to do it. We are speaking on the relative level, not ultimate. In ultimate causality, God both gives the promise, and then He causes a person to have faith to believe this promise. However, Jesus Christ when speaking on the relative level (and Jesus was the most God centered man who ever spoke) said, “your faith saved you.”

1 john 1:9 says, “ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” For God to honor both His word to His Son Jesus Christ, and honor His promise to us, He must forgive our sins if we ask in faith for it. This is in essence, forcing God to do what “you” want; that is, “relative” to what “you” want. Now, since God ultimately gives the faith, it is what He wants; however, we are speaking relative to man; the way Jesus often does.

Seven. God is not a genie, because a genie only gives 3 wishes. How small and pathetic! God gives us our daily bread every day. If seek Him first, God will clothe us better than King Solomon and give us the things the “pagans seek after.” If you ask for an enlarged tent and territory in faith, you get it. Genies are too small to compare to God’s power to give good gifts, over and over and forever. God gives us new mercies every morning and evening. Time would fail me to mention all the natural and spiritual wishes God gives us so freely. This person’s critique backfires, and it exposes him as theologically damaged. His god is not the God of the Bible.

Eight. Jesus says if you have faith you can say to this mountain to cast itself into the sea, and if you “OBEY YOU.” Notice this is just faith, not the “gifts of the Spirit.” Also, Jesus was the most God centered man who ever live. But He says statements like the natural world “obeying you.” This is said in relative level ontology, and so it is fine to say it that way. In ultimate level ontology it is God who uses His power to perform the action, or as the Scripture says, “not by power, but by my Spirit (Zechariah 4:6).” And so, when one speaks faith and something happens like a healing, or a demon cast out, or mountain thrown, it is the Spirit who performs this work. Jesus also says, if you ask for anything in His name, in faith, that He will do it, no exception. Jesus, like a broken record says this many times in John 14-16. Thus, if I were to be technical or nitpick over this, the Holy Spirit is “just” ( or faithful, (you could say puppet if meant in this sense) to perform every word spoken in faith, similar in that God is not merely “merciful,” but “just” to forgive us based on His sovereign promise, to do so for Christ’s sake.

Notes—————-

[1] Ultimate level. God caused Oshea to believe and confess Jesus Christ. (Oshea moves white pawn to H3 to take black knight.)

Relative Level. Oshea confessed and made Jesus Lord of his life. (White pawn takes black knight).

Just because the announcer at the Chess tournament says, “white pawn takes black knight,” then should I rebuke the announcer and tell him he should know better because the pawn did not move itself?

The Big idea is that ultimate level causality is God moving everything directly. However, the Bible often speaks of relative level causality, “Oshea buys some gum at the store from Johnny.”

– I got this initial idea of a chess game from Vincent Cheung. See, “There is No Real Synergism.”

[2] I got this phrase “metaphysical author of evil,” from Vincent Cheung.