I’ve heard that tired tale more times than I care to count: Jesus is the kind of shepherd who snaps the legs of a wandering sheep to keep it from straying. Sounds compassionate if you’re into Eastern pagan mysticism, but crack open your Bible and you won’t find it. Not once.

Some folks picture God up there playing cosmic orthopedic surgeon, breaking legs to “teach lessons.” Not in my Bible. The script flips hard: it’s not the Father handing out fractures. It’s Satan slinging sickness like cheap candy on Halloween.

Let me hit you with a straight question. When Paul dealt with the man sleeping with his mother-in-law, who did he hand that guy over to? Paul said he delivered him “to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved” (1 Corinthians 5:5). Paul was letting the guy’s “legs get broken,” so to speak. But who actually did the breaking? Who ministered the sickness? God or Satan? Paul handed him straight to Satan. The devil was the one swinging the wrecking ball. The sickness, on the human level, was Satan’s will—not God’s.

God’s not your sickness Santa Claus. That’s the devil’s gig.

This was an extreme case—an outlier sin among believers. Same with the Corinthians who trashed the Lord’s Supper and dishonored the blood of Jesus. Paul brought discipline, and you could say God worked through Paul, yet even then God wasn’t the one dishing out the sickness. Satan was.

God sovereign? Absolutely. He controls every atom, every thought, every faith, every unbelief, every election and reprobation with the same direct, absolute power a programmer has over his code—only infinitely more. He is the metaphysical author of all things, including sin and evil. But Scripture denies pantheism. On the human, relative level—the level Jesus and the apostles mostly preach from—God doesn’t minister sickness to His own. If you don’t mostly speak on the human level in theology and doctrine, then you stop talking like the Bible.

Jesus never said, “God willed this boy blind.” He said, “Your faith has healed you.” We say the same.

Take Job. No New Covenant, no Abrahamic blessing yet. God sovereignly pointed Satan at Job—essentially baiting the fight. God orchestrated it all. But who actually inflicted the boils, the loss, the destruction? Satan. God didn’t swing the hammer. Satan did. Same with King David’s census. Scripture says both God and Satan “incited” David. Two categories. Metaphysically, God is the only real cause. On the human level, Satan ministered the sin.

Even in Job’s story—where God plays the ultimate Director of “Temptation Island”—Satan’s still the one holding the wrecking ball. Jesus never walks around saying, “Here’s a cold for your sins.” He says, “Your faith got this. Now walk.”

Remember the woman bent over for eighteen years? Jesus didn’t blame the Father. He said it was Satan who bound her. Satan ministered the sickness; God, faithful to Abraham’s promise, ministered the healing. Peter nails it in Acts 10:38: Jesus “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” Satan is the priest of darkness—his ministry is sin and sickness. Jesus is the High Priest of God—His ministry is righteousness, wealth, and healing. If you’re inside the Contract with Jesus, He pours out good things, not evil ones.

“But God sometimes gives sickness!” some bark. True in one narrow sense, but check the category. Who does God personally strike? His enemies. He didn’t send Satan after Egypt’s firstborn—He sent His own angel. Why the switch? Egypt wasn’t a Contract insider. They were outsiders, under condemnation. God wanted to destroy them Himself. Same with the Philistines and their tumors after stealing the Ark. Outsiders. Enemies. God cursed them directly. Their sickness was God’s will.

That’s huge. If you stand up and say, “God gave me this sickness,” you’re identifying yourself as a reprobate Egyptian or a cursed Philistine. You’re claiming to be God’s enemy, under His curse, not His salvation. If God is attacking you with disease, your first concern isn’t healing—it’s escaping hell.

There’s one more category: sickness as the curse of Adam’s Fall or the law of Moses. But Galatians 3 shouts it: Jesus became that curse for us so that, in substitutionary exchange, we receive the blessing of Abraham—miracles and the baptism of the Spirit. We don’t carry curses anymore. We carry blessings. Just like forgiveness, you receive it by faith. Doubt it, and James and Jesus both say don’t expect the exchange.

If you’re on Team Jesus, you’re in the healing line, not the disease queue. Claiming God gave you the flu is like saying you’re still on the naughty list. Spoiler: that’s not the team you signed up for.

As a Contract insider, God doesn’t minister sickness to me. He ministers healing and miracles. Sickness only hits me two ways: Satan’s direct attack or lingering curses I’ve already been redeemed from. I’ve been rescued from both.

This matters. When you see sickness as Satan’s will—not God’s—you’re not only free to fight it, you’re commanded to. Jesus didn’t suggest, “Maybe cast out a demon if you feel like it.” He commanded it. James didn’t whisper, “Resist the devil… if it’s convenient.” He commanded, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Even if the sickness came as discipline, the standing order is still the same: cast it out. Resist. Make Satan run.

You do not have permission to let the enemy bulldoze you. As a soldier in God’s kingdom, you don’t get to sit there while Satan’s kingdom beats you down. You’re commanded to expand God’s kingdom with truth and power. They retreat. We advance. The only way? Faith and power. Take the authority Jesus already gave you. Heal the sick. Cast out demons. Command mountains to move.

In my Systematic Theology 2025, I lay out the full deductive case: God authors all things metaphysically, yet on the relative level we fight like the victors we are. Sickness is Satan’s glory, not God’s. Healing is Jesus slamming His fist into the devil’s smug face—again and again.

So if you’re sick right now, blame the right culprit. Satan’s your unwanted health advisor. As a card-carrying member of the Jesus Club, you’re commanded to kick him to the curb, resist like you’re in a cosmic tug-of-war you were rigged to win, and heal like you’ve got divine health insurance that never lapses.

In this divine comedy, you’re strengthened to be the victor, not the victim. Now go expand the kingdom. The devil’s already lost—make him feel it.