Former Country Star Calls Out Controversial Teaching About God’s Healing
By Movieguide® Contributor
Country singer-turned-pastor Granger Smith is diving into deep topics on his podcast.
“God is Sovereign, and God heals who he heals,” Smith said on his podcast last week, answering a parent’s question about needing a certain amount of faith to be healed.
“There’s no holding back healing. God can and will and does heal completely,” he said.
“We understand that He does as He pleases. The Psalms say He is sovereign over all life. He knows every hair on your head. He knows all of our days are numbered,” he explained.
Smith was reminded of 2 Kings 13:14.
“This is the story of Elisha. He came after Elijah the prophet, and Elisha is in fact even more powerful than Elijah was. His prophecies in his mighty acts that the Lord worked through him. He brought a kid back from death,” he explained.
“He healed leprosy. He changed the toxicity of the Jordan River. He did all kinds of crazy things. I think probably the craziest would be bringing a child back from death to life. The Lord did that through Elisha, but listen to this. 2 Kings 13:14, so interesting, it says this, ‘Now when Elisha had fallen sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash, King of Israel, went down to him and wept before him crying, ‘My father, my father.'”
The same person who, through God, restored life to a dead child, knelt and cried when he knew it was his time to die. He knew healing was not for him.
“God has a time and a season for everything,” Smith said. “…Sometimes illness is for healing, and sometimes illness is for homecoming, and this case in 2 Kings 13:14, Elisha’s illness is for homecoming, and the Lord gives him this illness, and he stays in this illness, and he dies of this illness. The man who literally healed others dies of a sickness.”
“What do you say to that? What would Joash, the king of Israel, say when he went down weeping before him, crying, ‘My father, my father’? What would he say? Would he say if I have enough faith, Elisha? ‘If I just believe, the Lord will heal you. I know he will and I just need to have more faith. So Elisha you you’re healed.’”
His response would not be to accept that, because he knows it’s not the truth.
Elisha “said, ‘My Lord is sovereign. This is my time,’” Smith said.
In speaking of his life experiences, Smith told Charisma Magazine, “I have grown to trust, and believe, and surrender, to a very big God. A sovereign, providential God.”
Movieguide® reported on Granger’s ministry last year:
“It sounds like a not-very-exciting news story — the story of a guy who had what I always dreamed of having, and turning it back over,” the singer laughed. “I’m turning it back in for a life at the local church. But I believe that that is what I am called to do.”
…Smith was quick to stress that he was not calling on anyone else to leave the entertainment business.
“I’m not saying what anyone else should do,” he stated. “This is something that I struggled with internally because I struggled with exalting myself and seeking that praise and that was something I needed to strip through sanctification.”
At Liberty University last year, Smith spoke about the importance of being a true Christian, rather than a “cultural” one.
“Who gets the credit in your life?” Smith asked the audience. “I’m not asking for your culturally Christian influence to answer; I’m asking your heart. Why are you seeking the degree that you’re studying for right now? And for whose glory will you use it?”
The right answer isn’t for self but for God.
