This item was first published in the September 2003 issue of

‘News from the Front’

http://www.takeheed.info/news-from-the-front-september-2003/

From Thursday 29 May until Saturday 31 May 2003, Joyce Meyer

‘ministered’ in The King’s Hall Exhibition and Conference Centre, Belfast. A
note on her web site mentioned ‘Joyce's Product Tables will be open two
hours prior to each meeting. Come early!’ I have drawn attention to this
statement because in this article I want to deal with something that was
included in an advert promoting several of ‘Joyce’s Products’.

In her ‘Life in The Word’ newsletter for April 2003 there was a half-page
advert for a 4-tape series on ‘Healing’ and for a 144-page Mini-book called
‘Be Healed In Jesus’ Name’. In the body text of the advert we read ‘We
have been given assurance in God’s Word that He is the Healer and it is
His will to heal everyone’.

In stating, in relation to God, that ‘it is His will to heal everyone’ Joyce
Meyer is simply following in the footsteps of a long line of others who have
proclaimed the same message on ‘HEALING’.

In his little booklet ‘Is Healing in the Atonement’ David Cloud cites the
following teaching on the subject of ‘Health and Healing’. Mr Cloud wrote -

‘Oral Roberts, one of the pioneers of “faith healing” ministry gave a

classic statement of charismatic doctrine in the September 1976 issue of
Abundant Life magazine –

Some years ago in an edition of the ‘Believers Voice of Victory’ Kenneth

Copeland’s wife Gloria wrote an article entitled ‘You’ll Never Have To
Wonder again’ and in the article she stated -
In another portion of the body text of the advert promoting Joyce Meyer’s
Products [the tapes and mini-book] we read the following ‘There is Power in the
Name of Jesus and You Have the Right to Use It to Be Healed…The
truths in this anointed series and powerful mini-book will help you build
your faith in God’s desire – and power – to heal you!’ These words
advertising Joyce Meyer’s Products seem like an apt commentary on the
teaching and instruction given by Gloria Copeland in her article ‘You’ll Never
Have To Wonder Again’ that I quoted earlier. In a report published back in
1996 by Richard Fisher and Paul Belli of PERSONAL FREEDOM
OUTREACH [A respected USA based Apologetics Ministry] they wrote -

‘Meyer in her new book writes “Words are containers for power” [‘The name,
The Word, The Blood’ page 37] … When it comes to the “Name” of Jesus, Meyer
admits that she used the “name” for many years without “results” [page 47].
This suggests we can learn how to use the “name” to obtain “results”.

What follows is a mixture of truth and error. Some of what she says about
praying in the name of Jesus and about His name being a term for His
authority is proper. At various points she lapses and transfers all the authority
of Jesus directly to the believer. Christians pray in Jesus’ name and have
access to heaven through Jesus but it is not true that we, just by use of that
“name” have “authority over demons, sickness, disease, lack and every
form of misery” [page 70]. It confuses the believer with Jesus and reduces
His name to a magic word…

Meyer’s teaching on Christ’s “blood” and how to “use” it is essentially a

repeat of her teachings on how to “use” Jesus’ “name” along with a repeat
of many of the same doctrinal errors.

Though Meyer says some things that are right about the blood of Christ, she
lapses into a magical use of the word “blood” much like the relic system and
fetish worship of the Middle Ages.
For example, she writes… “We must learn to ‘use’ the blood” [page 109] …
“We laid hands on the check and prayed. I went and got all of our
checkbooks and my pocketbook and Dave [Joyce Meyer’s husband] got his
wallet and we laid hands on them and put the blood on them, asking
God to protect our money, to cause it to multiply and to see to it that
Satan could not steal any of it from us” [page 111] … “If you are sick in
your body, plead the blood over your body. The life is in the blood; it
can drive out the death of sickness” [page 111] …Meyer’s evolving,
changing Word-Faith views are at best aberrant, confusing, misleading and
unscriptural. Magic words, magic names and magic blood should be
deplored and seen for what they are – superstition’.

In the quotes from Joyce Meyer’s advert and the two other quotes on ‘Health
and Healing’ by Oral Roberts and Gloria Copeland reference is made in all
cases to ‘God’s will’. A careful study of the Bible will reveal two ‘dimensions’
to ‘God’s will’. One ‘dimension’ I would title ‘His preceptive will’ and the
other ‘dimension’ I would title ‘His permissive will’.
When I use the expression ‘His preceptive will’ I am thinking of God’s ideal
standards of behaviour for His created humanity in an ‘ideal world’. In an
‘ideal world’ no human being would ever murder, steal, commit adultery etc.
They would be living and abiding by God’s ‘precepts’ [rules of conduct] and so
would always be living in the ‘will of God’. However, the reality is that
humanity does not live in an ‘ideal world’ - rather we live in a ‘fallen’ world
where human beings constantly ignore and act contrary to God’s ‘precepts’
[rules of conduct] and so the consequences of such rebellion are everywhere to
be seen.
These consequences, God not only knows all about in advance because of
His omniscience, but He sovereignly allows to happen under what I have
termed as ‘His permissive will’. Perhaps the most compelling illustration of
God’s ‘permissive will’ sovereignly allowing something to happen, that goes
totally against His revealed ‘preceptive will’, is the crucifixion of His own dear
Son. In his sermon on the Day of Pentecost, Peter told his listeners
concerning Christ, “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, [in accordance with the sovereign ‘permissive will’ of God] ye
have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain’ [contrary to the
‘preceptive will’ of God].

To state as Joyce Meyer, Oral Roberts and Gloria Copeland do, that ‘it is
His will to heal everyone’… ‘Sickness is not part of God’s plan and not
devised by God’s will’… ‘Sickness and disease are not the will of God’ is
to fail to understand completely what the Bible reveals and teaches about
God’s ‘preceptive will’ and God’s ‘permissive will’. Such erroneous
teaching can be emotionally destructive to those who have false hopes of
guaranteed ‘healing’ given assuredly to them by the likes of Joyce Meyer,
Oral Roberts, Gloria Copeland and a host of others who have embraced this
aberrant teaching on ‘healing’.
It can also damage the cause of the true Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, not
only in the eyes of those who come expecting to be healed, but also in the
eyes of an onlooking, unbelieving and increasingly sceptical world.

The Biblical ‘foundation’ cited by these false teachers in relation to ‘healing’

invariably comes down to their understanding of several passages of scripture
– in particular Isaiah 55:3. Gloria Copeland in her article already referred to
quotes it in full “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him;
and with his stripes we are healed” and later in the article she comments
‘The Bible says “By his stripes you were healed”. Your healing has been
bought and paid for by Jesus Christ. It belongs to you’.

The reality is that Isaiah 53:5 is speaking of ‘healing’ for the consequences
of “our transgressions” and “our iniquities’ and in 1 Peter 2:24 when
Peter likewise speaks of “by whose [Christ’s] stripes ye were healed” it is
framed in the context of “our sins”. These verses are speaking of healing
from “the wages of sin” - namely God’s condemnation upon unredeemed
sinners of a lost eternity in hell.

The true understanding of what Isaiah prophetically looked forward to and of

what Peter gratefully reflected back upon is well captured in this quote from
an excellent little book by Dr Charles W Mayes called ‘A Look at the
Modern Healing Movement’. On page 23, under the heading ‘DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN SIN and SICKNESS’ Dr Mayes wrote –

‘Dr Alva J McClain had this to say: “Sickness is not sin; it is the result of sin. We
punish men for sinning, but not for getting sick. A man may become diseased by
breaking the law; he is punished for breaking the law, but sent to hospital for the
disease. Christ died for our sins, not for our diseases. He was made sin for us; He was
not made disease for us. Christ did not forgive disease. He forgave sin and healed
disease. Death is the divine penalty for sin, not for disease. Therefore, the death of
Christ as our Substitute was penal, not pathological. Christ died in our stead; He did
not [I say it reverently] have smallpox in our stead”.

God’s word reveals that sickness, contrary to the teaching of individuals like
Joyce Meyer, Oral Roberts and Gloria Copeland, does serve a sovereign
purpose under God’s ‘permissive will’. On page 27 of his book ‘A Look at
the Modern Healing Movement’ Dr Mayes himself wrote the following under
the heading ‘DOES SICKNESS HAVE A PURPOSE?’

‘One of the purposes which God has in the sickness of His saints is revealed in
Hebrews 12:5-11. Now if healing were in the atonement on the same basis as the
forgiveness of sins, our healing would be a finished work of Christ on the cross.
Perpetual healing could be appropriated and thus we would prohibit God from
chastening His people with sickness, *which he apparently does at times. He
chastened Paul with a bodily ailment and it is unlikely that modern believers will
always escape. The scriptural teaching on the subject of chastening and a healing
which is a finished work in the atonement, would certainly bring confusion to the plan
of God in dealing with individuals’.
*Paul, when confronting the Corinthians about their slack and sinful approach
to observing the Lord ‘s Supper, told them in 1 Corinthians 11:30 “For this
cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep” - Paul was
telling them how God’s chastening hand had been and was upon them.

The teaching of guaranteed ‘healing’ as proposed by Joyce Meyer, Oral

Roberts and Gloria Copeland is couched in ‘feigned [imaginative] words’ – an
expression used by Peter in his warning against “false teachers” [2 Peter 2:1-
3]. The reality is that our bodies are day and daily ‘perishing’ and ‘wearing out’.

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:16 “but though our outward man perish” –
Paul was here acknowledging that our physical bodies are subject to all the
debilitating ravages of physical life here on earth. Paul then went on to say
that, in contrast to what was happening to us physically, spiritually we were
undergoing a different process entirely. Unlike our “outward man”, our
physical body, which is perishing, our “inward man is renewed day by day”.

Paul certainly did look forward to the time when all believers would have
perfect bodies [“incorruptible” and “immortal,” – see I Corinthians 15:53] but he
knew that would not happen until eternity would be ushered in by the return of
the Lord for he wrote in Philippians 3:20-21 “For our conversation
[‘citizenship’] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the
Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be
fashioned like unto his glorious body’.

It is right that Christians should pray for healing for their friends and for
themselves. Paul instructs believers in Philippians 4:6 “Be careful for
nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God”. There is no
matter or concern that is too small or too trivial for a believer not to bring it to
God in prayer. Paul continues in verse 7 “And the peace of God which
passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus”. This guaranteed “peace”, in the case of a praying, sick
believer, comes from knowing that he has laid the matter that concerns him
before the “throne of grace” [Hebrews 4:16] and not from ‘banking’ on some
guaranteed ‘healing’ promised to him in a tape-series or mini-book.

The ‘products’ offered by these experts on ‘healing’ come at a price – in

Joyce Meyer’s case the 4-tape series costs $22.00 [about £14.00] and the mini-
book costs $9.00 [about £6.00]. Earlier I referred to Peter’s warning about
“false teachers” who would use “feigned [imaginative] words” [2 Peter 2:3] and
Peter explains in this same verse the purpose for which they put forward such
false teachings – “through covetousness shall they with feigned words
make merchandise of you”. The fact that in Belfast [and I’m sure at other
conferences] ‘Joyce's Product Tables will be open two hours prior to each
meeting. Come early!’ certainly has a ring of ‘making merchandise’ to my
ears. In an email that I received from a fellow-believer, he passed on this
comment concerning a ‘babe-in-Christ’ who attended these meetings – ‘She
went to see her but didn’t like the money raising side of it’.
‘Healing’ in this life is not guaranteed to God’s saints, but God’s grace to
cope with each and every situation of life is assuredly promised. To Paul, who
wanted the removal of his “thorn in the flesh”, but didn’t receive it, God said,
“My grace is sufficient for thee” [2 Corinthians 12:7-8].

And as regards the “throne of grace” referred to above, the full verse reads
“Let us therefore [in the light of having a great High Priest in heaven, Christ’ who is
touched with the feelings of our infirmities] come boldly unto the throne of grace,
that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need”
[Hebrews 4:15-16]. God’s “throne of grace” is the location that I would direct
people to and certainly not to the Kings Hall Exhibition and Conference
Centre, or for that matter, to any other location where Joyce Meyer will be
‘ministering’.

Cecil Andrews – ‘Take Heed’ Ministries – 26 January 2017