Why I Abominate the Prosperity Gospel
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | The prosperity gospel continues to plague pulpits and churches around the world.
00:00:10.000 | So what is the prosperity gospel? Why is it popular? Why is it dangerous?
00:00:14.000 | And why is John Piper so opposed to it?
00:00:17.000 | Here's how he explained it back in the fall of 2008.
00:00:21.000 | So why do I feel so strongly about the so-called prosperity gospel?
00:00:29.000 | There's an easy answer, but before I give it, let me define it a little bit.
00:00:36.000 | It's on a continuum from the most radical to what would be called soft or light.
00:00:44.000 | And the most radical would basically say, "God wants you rich,
00:00:51.000 | and you should partner with him by faith to pursue riches."
00:00:57.000 | And the justification would be given, "You can't accomplish much in life without money,
00:01:02.000 | and so go for it."
00:01:05.000 | Or another rationale might be, "You're kingdom kids,
00:01:08.000 | and kingdom kids don't wear tattered clothes. They dress like the king," and so on.
00:01:15.000 | The light would be simply being more cautious not to say those gross things about wealth,
00:01:23.000 | but to minimize sin and minimize pain and only talk about how well things will go for you
00:01:33.000 | if you follow Christ.
00:01:36.000 | So why do I abominate this so-called gospel? I think it is another gospel.
00:01:43.000 | And the first reason would be simply to go straight to the Bible and see what Paul says
00:01:53.000 | about those who want to be rich.
00:01:57.000 | He says, this is 1 Timothy 6.6, "Now there's great gain in godliness with contentment,"
00:02:07.000 | in other words, without craving for stuff, "for we brought nothing into the world,
00:02:11.000 | and we cannot take anything out of the world.
00:02:13.000 | If we have food and clothing, with these we'll be content."
00:02:17.000 | It's just amazing.
00:02:19.000 | "But those who desire to be rich," now here's the key text, this is verse 9,
00:02:23.000 | "those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare,
00:02:30.000 | into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
00:02:35.000 | For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils.
00:02:38.000 | It is through this craving," that is, this craving to be rich,
00:02:42.000 | "that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs."
00:02:50.000 | In other words, the very thing that leads people to suicidal piercings of pangs,
00:02:58.000 | namely the desire to be rich, is nurtured and cultivated by the prosperity preachers.
00:03:04.000 | They are encouraging that this suicidal behavior happen.
00:03:10.000 | That's abominable.
00:03:13.000 | Where Jesus said, "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
00:03:20.000 | than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
00:03:24.000 | Why would he say that?
00:03:26.000 | It's because riches are such dangerous things.
00:03:31.000 | They're not a blessing usually.
00:03:35.000 | They're usually a curse.
00:03:38.000 | People are cursed with riches.
00:03:40.000 | They're destroyed by riches.
00:03:43.000 | And here again, a little parenthesis of qualification,
00:03:45.000 | I don't mean it's sinful to make a lot of money.
00:03:49.000 | I just mean it's sinful to want to keep a lot of money.
00:03:52.000 | And it's suicidal to want to keep a lot of money.
00:03:54.000 | Bigger barns and bigger cars and bigger houses and bigger portfolios
00:04:00.000 | and finer clothes and everything is growing with your income
00:04:05.000 | so that your conscience is getting harder and harder.
00:04:09.000 | Because if you're a Christian at this point,
00:04:12.000 | your conscience is having to say, "It's okay. It's okay.
00:04:15.000 | This is okay. This is the Calvary Road.
00:04:18.000 | This is what it means to deny yourself.
00:04:20.000 | This is what it means to follow Jesus.
00:04:22.000 | This is what it means to die every day.
00:04:24.000 | This is what it means to have my treasure in heaven."
00:04:27.000 | And it doesn't. It won't work.
00:04:29.000 | Your conscience has to be lacerated in order to keep from killing yourself.
00:04:35.000 | And so, Jesus says, "It's hard for a rich man to give you the kingdom of heaven."
00:04:41.000 | Paul says, "Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation
00:04:45.000 | and pierce themselves with many pangs."
00:04:47.000 | And along comes a prosperity preacher who says,
00:04:49.000 | "Yes, the Lord really wants you to be rich.
00:04:52.000 | We should pursue riches."
00:04:53.000 | Following Jesus is the pathway to riches.
00:04:56.000 | Riches are the sign of God's blessing.
00:04:59.000 | I would just say those are in mutual contradiction for each other,
00:05:03.000 | and therefore, this is deadly.
00:05:05.000 | Here's another reason I'm really upset about this.
00:05:08.000 | These prosperity preachers don't just talk to Americans
00:05:12.000 | who are already fairly well off
00:05:15.000 | and try to help them become a little more rich.
00:05:18.000 | They get on their jets, their personal jets,
00:05:20.000 | and they fly to Africa or the Philippines.
00:05:23.000 | And they land, and they gather a stadium full of 100,000 desperately poor people
00:05:29.000 | and tell them if they'll believe in Jesus, they'll get rich
00:05:31.000 | and all their needs will be met,
00:05:33.000 | and their wives won't have miscarriages anymore, blah, blah, blah.
00:05:37.000 | Then they get in their jet with their pockets full and go home.
00:05:41.000 | That's wicked.
00:05:43.000 | Because the Bible is so filled with teachings
00:05:47.000 | that in this life, this is a momentary affliction here.
00:05:52.000 | This light, momentary affliction is working for us
00:05:56.000 | an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
00:05:59.000 | What's Paul referring to there?
00:06:01.000 | He's referring to a lifetime.
00:06:04.000 | Light and momentary corresponds to the weight of eternal glory in heaven.
00:06:09.000 | He means when you come to Christ, you come and die,
00:06:13.000 | and you can count on it through many tribulations
00:06:16.000 | we must enter the kingdom of heaven.
00:06:20.000 | Normal Christianity is pain.
00:06:23.000 | Sorrowful yet always rejoicing is the pattern.
00:06:27.000 | Prosperity preachers do not prepare new converts in third world countries
00:06:33.000 | to endure the realities of what it will cost them to be a Christian.
00:06:37.000 | Here's another reason.
00:06:40.000 | There are 1,568 or so, as we talk,
00:06:45.000 | people groups in the world out of 13,000
00:06:48.000 | that don't even have missionaries engaging them,
00:06:52.000 | and therefore everybody in them is without hope.
00:06:56.000 | Most of those 1,500 people groups are in very dangerous places,
00:07:00.000 | meaning if you go there, your kids might either get diseased and die,
00:07:04.000 | or your wife might be captured and raped,
00:07:07.000 | or your family might be butchered and killed.
00:07:12.000 | Who's going to go?
00:07:14.000 | We have to go.
00:07:16.000 | Jesus said, "Make disciples of every people group,"
00:07:20.000 | not just the easy ones, not just the comfortable ones.
00:07:23.000 | Who's going to go?
00:07:24.000 | The product of prosperity preachers?
00:07:26.000 | I don't think so.
00:07:28.000 | The people that are going to go are the people that have been taught
00:07:31.000 | that to follow Christ is to suffer, and it's brief.
00:07:37.000 | It's only 80 years.
00:07:40.000 | And then comes heaven.
00:07:44.000 | I just read this morning with Noel and Talitha
00:07:48.000 | the first paragraphs of Revelation 21.
00:07:52.000 | "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
00:07:55.000 | for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away,
00:07:59.000 | and the sea was no more.
00:08:01.000 | And I saw the new Jerusalem coming down like a bride prepared for her husband,
00:08:06.000 | and he will dwell with us, and we will be his people,
00:08:09.000 | and he will be our God, and then every tear will be wiped away,
00:08:13.000 | and every pain will be gone,
00:08:18.000 | for the former things, the former things, have passed away."
00:08:23.000 | That's common.
00:08:25.000 | One of the essential biblical problems with the prosperity gospel
00:08:28.000 | is an over-realized eschatology,
00:08:32.000 | meaning the things that are promised gloriously for us,
00:08:36.000 | we're all going to be rich, we're going to own the world,
00:08:38.000 | we're going to judge angels.
00:08:41.000 | Paul used that argument in 1 Corinthians 3.
00:08:43.000 | Don't you realize that you are going to inherit the world?
00:08:46.000 | The world is yours, Paulus is yours, Cephas is yours,
00:08:49.000 | life is yours, death is yours.
00:08:51.000 | And the conclusion he drew was, "Why would you boast in men?"
00:08:56.000 | In other words, why wouldn't you take that as a means of enabling you to suffer
00:08:59.000 | and be lowly and kind and servant-like and walk on this Calvary road
00:09:03.000 | and take the pain of being a Christian?
00:09:05.000 | That's coming.
00:09:06.000 | But what they do, instead of saying, "We have to wait for that
00:09:09.000 | and pour our lives out through many tribulations here,"
00:09:12.000 | they say, "Bring it now, bring it now.
00:09:15.000 | The kingdom is already here, right?
00:09:17.000 | Jesus brought the kingdom."
00:09:19.000 | And it's the overlap of these two ages they don't understand.
00:09:23.000 | The New Age is a beautiful age,
00:09:26.000 | and there are healings that happen in this world.
00:09:28.000 | I don't deny that.
00:09:29.000 | I just deny very vehemently everybody is going to be healed.
00:09:33.000 | You let these prosperity preachers with their healing talk
00:09:35.000 | and their word of faith talk
00:09:37.000 | go to the fourth floor of Augustana Home
00:09:40.000 | or go to the emergency rooms
00:09:42.000 | or to the intensive care rooms of hospitals.
00:09:45.000 | Go there, go there and preach your gospel.
00:09:49.000 | No, they don't.
00:09:50.000 | They wear their nice clothes, stand up to the lights,
00:09:52.000 | money strewn all over the thing with people out here
00:09:54.000 | who desperately want somebody to tell them how to get rich,
00:09:57.000 | and there they make a lot of money that way.
00:09:58.000 | They don't go to the places where it's impossible to deal with reality
00:10:02.000 | unless you've got a theology of suffering.
00:10:05.000 | And so for all those reasons and more,
00:10:08.000 | it's a tragic thing that one of our greatest exports of America
00:10:12.000 | is the prosperity gospel.
00:10:14.000 | People are being destroyed by it.
00:10:16.000 | Christians are being weakened by it.
00:10:18.000 | God is being dishonored by it,
00:10:20.000 | and souls are perishing because of it,
00:10:23.000 | and a lot of guys are getting rich on it.
00:10:27.000 | That was Pastor John Piper back in 2008
00:10:30.000 | on a concern that is still alive and well today.
00:10:33.000 | Thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:10:35.000 | We'll be back very soon with all new episodes,
00:10:37.000 | so please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:10:41.000 | You can visit us online at DesiringGod.org
00:10:43.000 | to find thousands of books, articles, sermons,
00:10:45.000 | and other resources from John Piper all free of charge.
00:10:48.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.
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