What helps one child to learn can be harmful to another child. So I can see God allowing sickness to help a child or causing sickness as a form of judgement for those held doubly accountable like pastors/teachers when it is for their good or others.
Yes. A big part of what goes into it is spiritual responsibility. As I quoted early on in this thread, "To whom much is given will much be expected," and so it was with the New Testament saints. Hence the incident with Ananias and Saphira. How many people are lying to God about things today, and yet nothing happens. But we are not living in a time when the Lord is moving in powerful outpourings that are bringing hundreds and even thousands in by the day. And when we do again, the same conditions will return again. But for now, yes; those in positions of power and influence in the church are being held to higher standards, which is why you see some of them who go off the deep end into sin and heresy end up dying in plane crashes or from some other unnatural causes that lead to premature death.
What I see happening these days, like the tornadoes that ravaged the states this week... People are saying this is God's judgement. The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Not God. It wasn't God's will for so many families to be hurt/killed/homes to be destroyed. That is sad.
I think most tragedies in people's lives are the Devil coming to steal, kill and destroy as well. But now, always keep in mind that such things happen at the permissive will of God. And if we allow them to persist and gain victory over us, this is manifesting a type of defeatism on the part of the Christian. In other words,
He expects us to fight. Paul was continually being allowed by God to be thwarted from traveling to various churches to minister to them. He makes reference to this over and over again in the epistles. Did Paul allow this to stop him? No. He simply kept fighting as a good soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ, and fought the good fight of Faith.
This is
THEE most important aspect of Faith teaching, IMO. We should know God's will, not be lost in a fog somewhere, and it is most certainly the case with our callings and ministries. If we experience demonic resistance to fulfilling the calling on our lives, we should not be sitting around wondering what God's will is in the situation and letting time go to waste. Paul
KNEW it was Satan resisting him, and stated so in his letters (1 Thessalonians 2:18). The same would have been true of the snake bite incident, or anything else intended to slow him down. We use faith to overcome every tactic of the enemy.
This is why I am pleased you are learning the principles of faith. I won't go into it any more than that, LoL.