Once again, really. Nothing matters to God? Everyone gets healed regardless of their salvation, or sin? They just have to believe. Except the things of God are foolishness to those who are perishing, no? Why would anyone outside of God's grace believe with faith that a God they do not believe in can heal them? Notice the conflating of salvation and healing? This is where his theology goes off the tracks. Just because God demands faith in the work of Christ to save their soul that does not mean it also applies to healing in their physical body. Yet perhaps the most absurd claim made, and there were a lot in this sermon, is that if you just take his teaching to heart then it will be impossible for us to stay sick. Impossible! Ask Bill Johnson if it was impossible for his wife and if he is honest, he will have to admit no. Imagine the damage this can cause, especially to very sick people who are young in the Lord. He actually compares the state of living in adultery to the state of being sick and declares God would no more want you in adultery that in sickness. Wow. He has essentially decided that people who are sick are equivalent to people who choose to commit the sin of adultery in the eyes of God.
"If you hear somebody praying and they say, Lord if it be Your will heal me, that is a bunch of religious gas. That is a wasted breath prayer." - Jim Baker
This sermon just gets worse and worse. This comment completely undermines the sovereignty of God. He misuses 1John 5:14-15 that says if we pray according to His will, we know that we know we have what we ask. The problem of course is Jim Baker has pre-decided what that will is. For every human being on the planet. This is the Lucifer sin on steroids. Beloved, we all know faithful Christians who have gone home to be with the Lord. This obsession with this life, which is but a glimmer, is nothing short of idolization. Even the very scripture he cites we must ASK. Why bother since you think you already know the answer? Essentially Jim Baker is teaching his folks to petulantly approach the creator of the universe and demand that He heal them because he thinks He is required to all the time. Praying for His will is not "religious gas", and it is beyond insulting to say so. Praying for God's will is never wasted breath. Even his constant comparing to salvation misses the point. Sure, we know that God saves on all that call on Him in faith but isn't that still asking? Do we demand salvation from God? This is very bad teaching.
"By your stripes you were healed, it is already a done deal. Mark 11:24, the verse that Kenneth Hagin wrote. You have to believe and then you will be healed. Jesus is perfect theology - I got that statement from Bill Johnson He healed every person that came to Him, without exception, and every person the Father led Him to." - Jim Baker
The problem with using Mark 11:24 is again a matter of knowing the will of God. This verse about casting mountains into the sea is reliant upon our prayers aligning with God's will. Now, Baker has solved this because he has figured out what God's will is for healing every single person on earth. Note however he refers in praise to the likes of Kenneth Hagin and Bill Johnson. This provides us with an insight into why his teaching is so bad as Hagin and Bill Johnson are two of the biggest heretics in the past 50 years. Now let's deal with this poor teaching that says Jesus healed everyone as it is another core staple teaching of this false doctrine. It is also dead wrong. First of all, the gospel accounts were written by the followers of Jesus who were telling a story of His ministry and mighty works. To think they would retell every waking moment of His ministry is absurd. Jim Baker has no idea that all were healed and let's look at one story that does appear in the scriptures:
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids"blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me." Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. - John 5: 2-9 (ESV)
Now, what can we learn from the text? There was not one man there that needed healing. There were multitudes! Invalids, blind, lame and paralyzed! This is where they went every day to try and get healed! Now Baker gets cute here and says that Jesus healed everyone that came to Him or He was "led to by the Father." This is the clever way Baker tries to insulate his teaching from this story. The problems are many. First, the text does not say that Jesus was led to this one man by the Father. More importantly, if it is ALWAYS the will of God to heal EVERYBODY, no matter how good, bad or ugly as Baker says, why did Jesus not heal the multitudes? What God does Baker portray that would lead Jesus to heal only one out of a multitude of people so clearly in need of healing? Baker might counter that the mandate for healing was a work of the cross, but he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth then. You cannot claim that Jesus healed everyone because all of that occurred prior to the cross as well. This statement about Jesus healing everyone is simply wrong and not supported by scripture. God chose this one man, in this one story and countless other scenarios of one or limited numbers to be healed because this was the plan. It is what led to the Pharisees wanting to kill Him. It led to the cross and our salvation.
Before moving on, the even larger problem here is the constant Christian confusion regarding the prophecies of the Messiah contained in Isaiah 53. This error is made not only by the NAR, false teachers and believers of divine healing but of many well intended churches as well. Isaiah 53, the key verses for today, portends of the coming Messiah with breathtaking accuracy that could only come from God. Is this about physical healing in our bodies? Absolutely not. This is describing the sin-sick condition of our eternal souls. That is the sickness He bore. Our transgressions were why He was pierced. Our iniquities were laid upon Him. By those stripes that He bore, we are spiritually healed. We are saved. This is the plan of salvation, not a secret code that means we all receive physical healing on this side of heaven. Can God heal? Absolutely and the bible says to go to the elders in the church to receive the prayer of faith if we are sick. Not to approach Jesus like it is a foregone conclusion. Why compel us to even go to the elders if this false theology was accurate? Either way, it is time to stop turning the prophecies of Christ's coming to heal our sin condition, with this blanket immunity from sickness that so many are falsely teaching today. God is sovereign, which Baker will now mock as well.
