Are We Overdoing the Anti-Prosperity Gospel Theme?

00:00:00.000 | We are launching this episode on Thanksgiving evening, so happy Thanksgiving.

00:00:04.120 | But you may be hearing this the day after Thanksgiving on Friday. In either case,

00:00:08.260 | we need to talk about giving gratitude to God for his abundant mercy to us in our lives and for his abundant

00:00:14.000 | promises to us. And the next question on the docket

00:00:16.500 | comes from Michael in Massachusetts.

00:00:18.980 | "Dear Pastor John, you speak a lot against the prosperity gospel, which I appreciate.

00:00:24.440 | However, there are texts such as Psalm 3527 which state that the Lord has "pleasure in the prosperity of his servant."

00:00:31.720 | That's from the KJV.

00:00:33.720 | When I try to encourage other believers,

00:00:35.680 | I will sometimes use verses like this one to show them that God has their best interest at heart, also like Romans 8 32 as well.

00:00:41.660 | Yet at times, I think they are hesitant to believe a verse like this because of our response to the heresy of the prosperity gospel.

00:00:48.800 | How can we properly and faithfully to the truth of the gospel

00:00:52.840 | comfort other believers using prosperity texts like this one in Psalm 35

00:00:57.820 | without then falling off the other side of the boat in light of a verse like Luke 12 15?

00:01:03.900 | What would you say, Pastor John, to Michael?"

00:01:06.520 | Well, I'm gonna get exactly at his question in Psalm 3527 in a minute, but

00:01:14.160 | let me start by saying in all my

00:01:18.020 | criticism of the so-called

00:01:21.440 | prosperity gospel, I

00:01:23.440 | don't wish for or pray for poverty on anyone. I don't wish for or

00:01:29.320 | pray for sickness on anyone. I don't wish for or pray for

00:01:35.040 | persecution or calamity on anyone. No one, I think, should make it his aim to suffer

00:01:41.920 | from poverty or sickness or calamity or persecution. Those are not

00:01:47.280 | the goals of life, and we rejoice when people are delivered from them into Christ-exalting

00:01:55.320 | well-being or what the Bible calls

00:01:58.000 | shalom.

00:01:59.840 | To be sure, we should be willing

00:02:03.160 | always to endure

00:02:06.160 | suffering or sickness or poverty for Christ. We should be ready to embrace it

00:02:11.680 | joyfully when God calls us to it as part of a larger vision.

00:02:17.000 | But

00:02:18.280 | Jesus makes it very clear, seek the kingdom of God

00:02:23.080 | first, the hallowing of God's name, the pursuit of God's

00:02:27.400 | saving rule, the doing of God's holy will, the pursuit of purity, the

00:02:34.680 | glorifying of God's name, the rescue of the perishing, and loving our neighbors ourselves. These are the

00:02:41.600 | great, all-consuming

00:02:44.080 | goals of life. Whether we're rich or healthy or safe are

00:02:50.360 | secondary issues.

00:02:53.440 | Praying that God would give us our daily bread is

00:02:56.360 | subordinate, just our daily bread, let alone lots of bread, is

00:03:00.480 | subordinate to praying that his name would be hallowed and his kingdom would come. And God may will

00:03:09.240 | that we hallow his name through poverty and sickness and persecution and death.

00:03:15.200 | He has done that often for his people. He'll decide

00:03:19.520 | that. We won't make that choice for ourselves. And our job is to trust him in all of his

00:03:27.160 | providences and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. So my issue with so-called

00:03:34.640 | prosperity gospel or teaching or churches is

00:03:38.960 | threefold, and I need to clarify this so that I can answer Michael's question about Psalm 35. One,

00:03:45.440 | the prosperity preaching tends to bring into this life

00:03:50.200 | greater expectation of

00:03:52.760 | prosperity than is intended for this life and only intended for the next life.

00:03:57.880 | It means crystal clear that in the next life, in the age to come,

00:04:01.520 | there will be no sickness, no poverty, no persecution, no calamity, no evil, no

00:04:07.480 | discouragement of any kind.

00:04:09.480 | In other words, the gospel does include health, wealth, and prosperity. It's coming.

00:04:15.040 | Namely, in the age to come when we are so spiritually

00:04:19.320 | mature and perfected that we're suited to enjoy these things to the full with no hint of

00:04:25.880 | idolatry. But

00:04:28.720 | prosperity preachers tend to

00:04:31.760 | bring this promise into the present in a way that is out of

00:04:37.040 | proportion with the way the New Testament describes the embattled position of the Christian in this fallen world.

00:04:44.960 | And it's

00:04:47.160 | it's not just

00:04:49.160 | prosperity preachers who make this mistake. I think it permeates

00:04:53.080 | most of the modern church. As far as my limited eyes can see, most of us, us,

00:05:01.640 | love this world too much and live in a compromised situation that does not

00:05:08.280 | comport

00:05:10.200 | with the wartime situation in which we find ourselves with millions of people perishing eternally and millions suffering in this life. And

00:05:17.840 | most of us using our resources to make ourselves more comfortable rather than relieve temporal and eternal

00:05:23.680 | suffering. So my first criticism of prosperity preaching cuts across most of Christianity, not just prosperity,

00:05:31.640 | preachers, and I don't elevate myself

00:05:33.640 | above that criticism. We all need great help and

00:05:39.320 | deliverance from

00:05:41.680 | the love of this world that John warns about in 1 John 2 15.

00:05:46.600 | My second problem with the prosperity churches is a lack of clear deep biblical teaching on the necessity of

00:05:55.200 | suffering in this life and the goodness of God in it and his control

00:06:01.120 | over it. Not just Satan, God's control over it and the benefits that may come

00:06:07.160 | from it that God decides we don't. It's a

00:06:12.360 | missing note, it seems to me, that gives the legitimate promises of God's earthly help a

00:06:19.640 | superficial ring because

00:06:22.880 | through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom. That was

00:06:26.920 | Discipleship 101 in Acts

00:06:30.200 | 1422 as Paul taught the churches. The New Testament is

00:06:35.240 | replete with the teaching that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ including

00:06:42.120 | tribulation, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, even

00:06:46.520 | Paul says when we're being killed all day long in

00:06:51.800 | Romans 8 35. And

00:06:53.800 | right alongside

00:06:56.320 | those assurances that faithfulness will be accompanied by suffering

00:07:01.600 | are the promises of forgiveness and acceptance with God and peace and joy and hope that are worth

00:07:07.420 | 10,000 times

00:07:09.600 | more than physical prosperity and health and safety in this life, which leads me now to my third

00:07:15.560 | difficulty with

00:07:19.200 | prosperity teaching and my answer to Michael's question, finally, about Psalm 37.

00:07:25.660 | All of this, everything I've said so far, I think tends

00:07:29.840 | to lead prosperity preachers

00:07:33.200 | to comfort people

00:07:35.880 | not with the presence of Christ in suffering and his rescue

00:07:42.040 | from suffering in the age to come

00:07:46.400 | but rather to comfort people with the assurance

00:07:49.720 | that they'll get out of suffering in this life if they follow the right prescription.

00:07:56.480 | I was just in what I would call a

00:08:00.160 | Prosperity Light Church last Sunday in Florida and

00:08:05.440 | the first thing that happened in that service, and there were thousands of people in the room and it was the second service,

00:08:16.280 | and by the way, the sermon was good.

00:08:18.800 | I mean, I was helped by this sermon.

00:08:23.160 | But the first thing that happened in

00:08:26.120 | that service was that the lead pastor stood up and made a case for

00:08:31.440 | tithing and that students shouldn't get into debt because then they can't tithe, and if they don't tithe,

00:08:36.680 | they're not going to experience God's blessing in their lives.

00:08:39.840 | And so the note struck from the beginning is that there's a strategy of

00:08:45.800 | getting God's material blessing in their lives, and that happens to be giving to this church enough to pay for this gigantic

00:08:52.880 | building, and I think that's really

00:08:58.240 | dangerous. Now, I think God does very often

00:09:02.800 | regularly bless people who give sacrificially in ways they could never imagine

00:09:08.360 | because he delights in cheerful givers and he loves Christ-like

00:09:12.560 | generous hearts.

00:09:15.000 | But instead of attaching a sure material blessing

00:09:19.240 | to an act of tithing, I

00:09:21.920 | think we need to cultivate a love for Christ,

00:09:26.160 | for Christ,

00:09:28.640 | not his gifts, for Christ, that would tithe and double and triple and quadruple the tithe that God prospers

00:09:36.200 | even when the hoped-for physical blessing does not come, or even when there is no

00:09:43.000 | double and triple and quadruple tithes

00:09:45.880 | seemingly

00:09:47.840 | possible from a human standpoint. Paul says

00:09:50.920 | because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, he counts everything,

00:09:56.360 | everything as loss.

00:09:59.200 | So,

00:10:00.480 | this is what Paul praises,

00:10:02.560 | it seems to me, about the Macedonians, which are an

00:10:08.000 | unbelievably precious example of what I want to be, 2 Corinthians 8. In a severe test of affliction,

00:10:15.000 | their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

00:10:22.320 | This is the joy that we should emphasize, the joy that flows from saving grace in spite of

00:10:30.640 | affliction, in spite of

00:10:34.320 | poverty. So Michael asks, "How can we help people feel that God has their best

00:10:40.720 | interest at heart?" Or to use the words of Psalm 35, 27,

00:10:45.040 | "How can we help people believe and enjoy the truth? Great is the Lord who delights in the welfare of

00:10:53.000 | his servant, all of his welfare." And

00:10:56.480 | surely the answer is—this is my

00:11:01.160 | answer, really, to Michael's question—surely the answer is

00:11:05.680 | walk with people through

00:11:08.240 | Romans chapter 8,

00:11:10.920 | memorizing it together

00:11:13.800 | because there is no greater chapter to prove that God is for us,

00:11:19.560 | 100% for us, not 99%, and

00:11:23.480 | not against us, and no greater chapter to show that when he gave Christ for us,

00:11:31.240 | it was not to remove suffering in this life, but to assure us with

00:11:37.640 | unshakable joy and hope that in all our pain and in all our sorrow and frustration and disappointment,

00:11:44.880 | nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. So my short answer to Michael is

00:11:51.720 | let Romans 8,

00:11:54.640 | perhaps the greatest chapter in the Bible,

00:11:57.080 | put Christian gladness and

00:12:00.640 | Christian groaning in their painful and precious

00:12:05.240 | relationship in this age.

00:12:07.960 | That's a wonderful perspective. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you listeners for your attentiveness.

00:12:13.520 | We deeply appreciate your financial support and your prayers for us and for your

00:12:18.880 | questions that you send in to us and for the way you

00:12:22.040 | strategically use our episodes to share with friends and family, and we appreciate the fact that you listen every week.

00:12:28.080 | There is so much for us, for Pastor John and I, to be thankful for

00:12:31.200 | in just how he has connected our lives through this little podcast. So thank you. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving day, and

00:12:39.480 | we are gonna return on

00:12:41.760 | Monday. Until then, for more details or to catch up on old episodes or to subscribe to the audio feed and

00:12:46.160 | find new episodes as we release them, go to our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:12:53.040 | I am your host Tony Reinke, thanking you once again, and we will see you on Monday.

00:12:58.320 | *Music*

00:13:00.320 | *Music*

00:13:02.320 | *Music*

00:13:04.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Are We Overdoing the Anti-Prosperity Gospel Theme?

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