DOES GOD - AT TIMES - CAUSE SICKNESS?

In the last blog a scripture was referenced from Exodus 15:26 (NASB):

If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians;  for I, the LORD, am your healer.

Notice the underlined section!

Earlier in Exodus, when Moses is arguing with God over his call to go back to Egypt, he uses the excuse that he is not a good speaker:  (4:10)  "I am slow of speech and slow of tongue."  God responds:  (4:11)  "Who has made man's mouth?  Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind?  Is it not I, the Lord?"  (NASB)

In John 9, Jesus...

...saw a man blind from birth.  And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?"  Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man had sinned, nor his parents;  but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him...When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam"...So he went away and washed and came back seeing.    (vs.1-2,6-7 - NASB)

God is sovereign!  In one case God causes sickness as a punishment on the Egyptians for their cruelty to God's children.  In other cases, God creates individuals with infirmities for reasons that may never be known to them.  In still other cases, God creates individuals with handicaps so that they can glorify Him either by being healed or by persevering in spite of their limitations! 

God can do what God wants to do.  His ways are higher than our ways! 

As followers of Christ, we need to learn to turn to Him in times of sickness for discernment. 

• Does this sickness have a purpose?
• Could God be pruning or punishing me?
• Does God want to receive glory from the way I handle this sickness?

Or,

• Is this sickness a result of living in a fallen world?
• Is it a result of an accident?  [In Luke 13, Jesus refers to a tower that fell and killed 18 people.  He makes it clear that they died as the result of an accident.]
• Is this a sickness brought on as a result of consequences?  [It's difficult to blame a torn ACL from skiing on God.]
• Is this a sickness caused by Satan?

These issues can only be clarified through discerning prayer.  Most of us rarely make the effort to ask these questions...