You cannot base your doctrine on other people's successes or failures!

Many people have the gospel preached to them. Many reject the message and go to hell anyway. Should we therefore conclude that the doctrine of salvation from hell is wrong because many do not receive it? It is equally senseless to conclude that the doctrine of divine healing is wrong because many do not receive it.

The disciples' failure to heal the demonized boy in Matthew 17:14-21 did not prove that healing isn't for all. It proved only their unbelief. Jesus himself said it was because of their unbelief. We don't like to hear that, but if this was the case then, we must suspect that many healings today do not happen because of our unbelief.

Jesus promised that some would receive and some wouldn't, and explained the consequences of both courses (Mark 16:16).


There are many reasons why people do not receive their healing after being prayed for. See the area, Mistakes that keep your healing away.

You don't need to take your Bible to the local dump just because Uncle Phil died without receiving his healing. You wouldn't throw your Bible in the trash just because Aunt Mary never believed the gospel and died and went to hell.

The failure of some to receive healing no more disproves the universal availability of healing any more than the failure of some to repent and believe the gospel disproves the universal availability of forgiveness.

Rather than explaining away our lack of results by tampering with "the faith as it was once delivered," we should strive to bring our experience in line with the Bible. If we are not seeing people healed as we would like, we need to bring our experience up to the Bible's standards, rather than trying to bring the Bible's standards down to our experience.


Besides, what about the people who do get healed after prayer is made for their healing? How are they getting it? If you say that the failure of some to receive proves that healing is not for all, what special trick did the healed ones use to get it? (Answer: Faith!)