Perhaps and presumptuous teaching of our day is that of confession and creative speech. "What you say is what you get." This principle is at the heart of Hagin's book, "Healing Belongs to Us."
As soon as we read the title we know it is off base for two reasons. First, and most importantly, is the obvious contradiction of scripture. Healing is for today because both physical and spiritual healing are part of the atonement of Christ. This means healing is part of salvation and the scriptures state "salvation belongeth unto the Lord" (Psalm 3:8). Since healing is a offshoot of salvation, and since salvation belongs in its totality to the Lord, the title of Hagin's book is a lie and further robs God of what is and will always belong to Him--HEALING, AT HIS WILL, TIMING AND DISCRETION!
"Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth" (Rom. 9:18). The cornerstone of the universe is that God has free will and can do whatever He wants (Ecc. 8:3). Those who think they have God cornered by some promise of scripture need to remember that just as earthly laws are subject to and can be changed by the authorities who made them, ALL promises, decrees, and anything else God has said or set in motion are still subject to and can be changed by God for He is a law unto Himself.
God is sovereign! This means He is above everything and subject to nothing! He does what He full well wants to do, or not do, when He wants to and to whomsoever He might or might not have mercy on. GOD IS GOD! No one can snap their finger or quote a verse and make God "jump" (Luke 4:9-12). And those who try are guilty of the sin of presumption (Psalm 19:13-14).
Second, the use of the word us in Hagin's title is a typical ploy of Satan to focus attention on ourselves and our desires. While God does want to do many good things to and for us, Satan's trick is to get us to look more at the gift rather than the giver. The devil also wants to get us thinking we deserve God's benevolence so we will become haughty and accusatory of God when we don't get what we think we deserve.
Hagin's book is in truth his cop-out as to why his own "faith ministry" doesn't work too well. The book begins with his trying to answer the question of why more Christians are not healed in HIS services. He blames this on the people he is supposedly ministering to. Healing belongs to THEM, is his assertion, so it is their fault when results are not forth coming.
We have to be careful here, for we can go back to Peter's failure of faith and deduce that the above statement is true. We could say that the ability to walk on the water lay totally within Peter. But that is only half the story and a half truth will lead to a lie. We need to read what happened to Peter after his faith did fail.
When Peter's faith failed because of fear and doubt, he cried out to Jesus, "Lord, save me." And what did Jesus do? Did He yell out, "Just confess that you can walk on water; it's up to you, Rocky--You'll have to sink or swim based on your own faith?" NO. Jesus immediately "stretched forth his hand, and caught him." When Peter's faith failed, Jesus took over, picked him up, and they both walked on the water back to the boat hand in hand! Praise Jesus!
What do the false teachers do when their Satan-inspired doctrine of positive confession and creative speech doesn't work? They blame everything on their followers or congregation. Several years ago I sat in a large full gospel church locally and heard the pastor say that he had never prayed for anyone who had not been healed. He said if they had not been healed it was their fault for not claiming their healing.
As he said these words, my heart sank. An elderly woman was sitting in a wheelchair in front of me at that service and I saw her daughter elbow her and say, "See I told you it was your fault!" I stopped attending that church.
The saddest thing was that what seemed like only a few weeks later, this pastor's own small child developed cancer and died in a few months. He had sown to the wind through the sin of presumption and reaped a whirlwind.
The application of the confession teaching goes like this. People who have disease say, "Oh, I'm healed of my ______. It's gone. The elders prayed for it to be healed last month. What you see are just ‘symptoms.' I'm confessing I'm healed, so I am.' How ridiculous and blind have we become? Our symptoms are the testimony that we are SICK.
Look at it this way. I can just see a leper having Jesus pray for him under today's theology. Jesus prays in tongues, pours oil on the man and pronounces him "healed." But nothing physically happens! The poor leper begins to question the Lord, but Jesus quickly tells him, "You must confess you're healed or Satan will take away your healing. No negative confessions! Go show yourself to the priests and everybody in town as a testimony that God has healed you!" See Matt. 8:4.
The leper (who is obviously still leprous) arrives in pain at the temple saying as positively as possible, "I'm healed! I'm healed, what a testimony to the power of God!" About this time the priests come out and put the leper in a straight jacket and take him off to the funny farm.
This might be funny if it were not for the fact that this type of thing is happening everyday! Well-meaning but deceived Christians, full of grace but also false faith and trust in their own powerless words, are a laughing stock to the world. But what is worse, they are making God's true, total healing power a mockery. Now it is true that some healing does take time, but we are not healed until we are healed! If the false faith healers are so full of faith, let them pray for the symptoms and get them healed, also.
Jesus Himself demonstrated in Mark 8:23-25 that the symptoms and the disease are the same thing. After praying for the man to be healed of his blindness, Jesus asked him if he could see. That man stated that he could not completely see (not a negative confession, just truth). He still had "symptoms" of blindness, he was still partially blind. Jesus didn't tell him, "Well, ignore the symptoms and eventually the devil will let go." Rather, Jesus prayed again because He knew that as long as the man had symptoms he HAD the blindness!
When Jesus saves you from sin, He saves you. He doesn't make believe you are saved. Likewise, when God heals us, He HEALS us and doesn't ask us to make believe we are healed. Talk about the blind leading the blind. These confession teachers heal everyone they pray for (according to their doctrine) because what they call healing involves no healing at all, just make-believe!
A few years ago, a blind young lady we know became very depressed. We found that a local charismatic church she was attending had prayed for her vision and, when she "wasn't healed," told her it was her fault because of her lack of faith and bad confession. The burden for her healing was shifted from the One who wants to bear all our burdens, Jesus, to herself. The church, ironically named "New Joy," had stolen her joy.
Look to Jesus alone for your healing for it is by His stripes we are healed, not anything we have done or said. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us" (Titus 3:5). Healing is part of God's saving grace and salvation, which belongs, in totality, to the Lord. To try to accomplish God's works by confessing them to be so is trying to do God's work for Him by our own power, and that amounts to self-righteousness!
There is a vast difference between our need to have belief (trust) in God's goodness and healing power which is used at His discretion, and saying we can acquire prosperity and healing through our own spiritual knowledge whenever we want it.
"Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins: let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer" (Psalm 19:13-14).
Many preachers are guilty of the sin of presumption today as they proclaim from their pulpits that it is the flock's fault they are not healed if "he" has prayed for them!
Why scores of congregations are allowing these egocentric preachers to put guilt trips on them when it comes to healing is beyond me. In light of James 5:14-16, if anybody is to be at "fault" because they don't have "faith" it is the pastor or "elder" who is doing the praying, not the poor sick person being prayed for! It is the "prayer of faith" that is to bring healing.
The person praying has a vast responsibility. It is true that at times personal sin or God's will may prevent healing, but generally it is the spiritual condition of the elder doing the praying that needs to be examined when healing is not forthcoming. Any preacher who categorically places the blame for lack of healing upon the people in his flock does not have a true shepherd's heart and does not deserve a flock to shepherd!