Heather, a podcast listener, writes and asks this.

Pastor John, I know there have been episodes about God ordaining evil, yes, episodes

104 and 204, and also one about whether God heals all of our diseases, episode 254.

But what I would like to know is this, does God ordain all sickness, as in, does God cause

all sicknesses to happen?

Before I give a yes or a no, I need to make something clear that may not be clear in

Heather's mind.

I don't know, maybe it is, but it's hugely important.

And so I need to say it before I give the answer.

In any answer, yes or no, we need to take into account that God's causing, God's causation

is not simple.

That is, it happens with multiple levels of secondary causes in between him or his direct

causing and the effect.

I'll give four examples, I think I can think of four, one.

He can cause directly with virtually no intervening causes, and that the clearest example of that,

of course, would be creation.

He's created out of nothing, he didn't use anything to create.

Nothing came between his word and the thing that came into being.

Number two, he can use physical means where the direct intervention is further back in

the chain.

For example, Acts 12, 23, since Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck

him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

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