The Sin of Suffering

Those in the Word Faith movement feel the spoken word is so powerful that individuals can bring tragedy upon themselves without even realizing it:

We live in an environment of our own making -- one that we have largely created by our own words. Whether you realize it or not, you frame your world with your words daily. Somebody says, "You mean the world that I am living in right now originated by the words of my mouth?" They certainly did, because the Bible says you are snared by the words of your mouth, you are taken by your words. With words you bind things or you loose other things. Sometimes you think you are just being honest and you loose the Devil against your finances by saying things like, "Well, we just never can get ahead"[or] "If I ever do get a job, I'll lose it." You prayed the problem. Your heart received that as being your will and worked day and night to bring you into a position where the things you were saying would come to pass.

Dr. James Kinnebrew, in his 1988 doctoral dissertation for Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, rightly stated, "The faith message is, perhaps above all else...an attempt to harmonize the loving righteousness of an omnipotent God with the evil and suffering that prevail in a world gone awry."

Unfortunately, Word Faith proponents explain suffering through a convenient appeal to the sovereignty of man. There are no victims, nothing is out of control, and everything can change because those afflicted are calling the shots. As long as someone possesses enough knowledge about what God has promised, says the right words, and has enough faith, all will be taken care of -- bills will get paid, family members will be healed, and money will fall like manna from heaven. One's own words control life because words "are the most powerful things in the universe today." "HEALTH, SUCCESS, HAPPINESS and PROSPERITY are God's Will for YOU when you believe His Word enough to ACT ON IT."

In the Word Faith movement, all suffering is caused by man, rather than God. As Frederick K.C. Price says, "You are suffering because you are stupid!" The only alternative is even worse: "If God is running everything, He does have things in a mess."

The stupidity to which Price refers is expressed either through speaking negative confessions or through not realizing that positive confessions will bring about good things. Kenneth Copeland explains:

Your tongue is the deciding factor in your life...you have been trained since birth to speak negative, death-dealing words. Unconsciously in your everyday conversation, you use the words of death, sickness, lack, fear, doubt, and unbelief: That scared me to death. That tickled me to death. I laughed until I thought I would die. I am just dying to go. That makes me sick. I am sick and tired of this mess. I believe I am taking the flu. We just can't afford it. I doubt it...You say these things without even realizing it. When you do, you set in motion negative forces in your life.

Satan is painted into the Word Faith's picture of suffering as simply an adversary who afflicts the ignorant. Like Job, we are the ones who bring about our own problems by the words we speak. According to Copeland,

God didn't allow the devil to get on Job. Job allowed the devil to get on Job...all God did was maintain His [God's] confession of faith about that man. He said "that man is upright in the earth." But Job, himself, said he was not upright in the earth. He said, "I'm miserable."

Capps also points out that Job's problems were caused by his own words: "Job activated Satan by his fear...'The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me'"(Job 3:25).

Scripture, however, indicates that God did indeed allow Job to be afflicted: "The Lord said to Satan, 'Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on this person'" and "the Lord said to Satan, 'Behold, he is in your hand but spare his life'" (Job 1:12; 2:6). Furthermore, Job did not acknowledge his misery until after he had been afflicted (Job 3:1-26).

Word Faith teachers are forced into misinterpreting Job's story because they hold that there is "no glory in knuckling down and enduring a trial." In other words, no good whatsoever can come from suffering.

Kenneth E. Hagin asserts, "You cannot find anywhere in the Bible where God causes these things [tragedies] to happen to teach His people something." (Walter Martin)