ACTS 10:38 NKJ
38 "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and
with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were
oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
According to Acts 10:38, those healed by Jesus were oppressed by the devil. It has not changed in our day. Sickness is still oppression by the devil. That means the devil is behind sickness, supporting it and encouraging it -- not God.
The purpose of sickness is not to benefit you in any way, but to steal, kill, and destroy.
Sickness is not the will of God. His Word reveals to us that sickness is an enemy to be resisted.
Just like the children of Israel who had to possess their promised land, we have enemies who would keep us from enjoying God's perfect will, unless we fight them. We must resist what is not from God (Ephesians 4:27, James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:9).
Look how Jesus treated sickness. He healed all who came to Him. Jesus was God's will in action. Never once do we read of Jesus telling anyone to stay sick for any reason.
Sickness is not from God. There is no sickness in Heaven. God is not using sickness to teach you anything. Nor is He using sickness to get your attention. To get your attention God demonstrated His love for you at Calvary. That should be enough to get your attention.
The devil is a liar (John 8:44) and a deceiver (Revelation 20:10). Think about that.
Deception requires getting people to accept a lie as the truth. We know the devil is a liar so we don't expect his followers to speak truth. So the devil can't effectively use a message spread by devil worshipers to deceive most people.
To effectively deceive Christians (the ones who as members of the Body of Christ have authority on earth), the devil has to use people who will be accepted by Christians.
So his ideal messengers of deception would be Christian preachers saying things about God that are not true.
If the devil could get enough preachers to say false things, then nearly everyone could be deceived. Don't think this is impossible or strange. Remember how Peter spoke satan's idea right after speaking God's revelation (Matthew 16:16,17,23).
Preachers (being human like the rest of us) have told us a lot of things that are not true -- things the Bible does not teach. Things like "God sends sickness to teach us something."
Not so! Sickness comes to destroy us, and the devil is behind it!
No matter what preachers may tell you, the Word of God is what we must depend on as the truth. If anyone speaks contrary to the message of the Bible, we should disregard their message, no matter who they are.
When Job was sick and afflicted, it says that God turned his captivity (Job 42:10). It was not God who held Job captive. It was God who set Job free.
Now Jesus has come to set all the captives free!
Most of us know of someone getting sick and then turning to the Lord. There are many such stories, but we should not credit the sickness for them finally making the right decision. They could have turned to the Lord before they got sick. God was not "sending" or "using" the sickness to save them. The sickness came to destroy them, but fortunately they were smart enough to turn to God during their affliction. (Sadly, there are also those who have turned away from God because of affliction.)
The truth is that all sickness is an enemy. We should do everything we can to resist it and not allow it in our midst.
SAY THIS: All sickness is an enemy to be resisted.
This article is from www.adevotion.org which sends out free daily email messages to encourage faith in God.