Doesn’t Prosperity Preaching Glorify Jesus?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - We have a question from Matt in Houston, Texas.
00:00:08.040 | Recently, Pastor John, you spoke on the prosperity gospel.
00:00:10.880 | I'm moving to Africa at the end of this year
00:00:13.000 | to be a missionary in Zambia.
00:00:15.280 | The prosperity gospel is on every street corner there.
00:00:18.560 | It's ingrained in the people.
00:00:20.560 | Africans don't deny the spiritual world
00:00:23.020 | like many Americans do.
00:00:24.800 | They just wanna know who is more powerful,
00:00:27.080 | Satan or Jesus?
00:00:29.200 | And the prosperity gospel is one way of saying Jesus is.
00:00:33.120 | So the question is this,
00:00:34.160 | how would you encourage someone
00:00:35.520 | to address the prosperity gospel errors
00:00:37.800 | in a spiritual power-based nation
00:00:41.040 | like many of those in Africa?
00:00:42.800 | - Yeah, well, right off the bat,
00:00:46.600 | the more I think about this,
00:00:47.880 | and I think about it a lot
00:00:48.880 | 'cause everywhere I go, I run into it.
00:00:51.160 | The more I think about this,
00:00:53.000 | the more I realize prosperity preachers
00:00:57.280 | are not preaching a very powerful Christ.
00:01:00.360 | They're not.
00:01:01.640 | He's not nearly powerful enough,
00:01:03.880 | not nearly sovereign enough over Satan.
00:01:07.120 | So let me see if I can get at this.
00:01:09.520 | The way I approach this is not to tear down
00:01:13.400 | the positive claims of the prosperity gospel,
00:01:16.760 | but to present the parts of the Bible
00:01:19.680 | that they leave out and show them
00:01:22.440 | that the glory of Christ and the greatness of Christ
00:01:25.440 | and the power of Christ and the superior worth of Christ
00:01:29.280 | is more clearly displayed
00:01:31.920 | when these texts are taken seriously.
00:01:34.920 | They leave out so many texts
00:01:37.480 | that have to do with the glory of Christ.
00:01:40.520 | They think they're presenting a more glorious Christ,
00:01:43.120 | and they're not.
00:01:44.080 | They're not.
00:01:45.360 | Now, of course Christ is stronger than Satan.
00:01:48.480 | Of course he's able to stop disease and still storms
00:01:51.480 | and cause rain to fall and prevent crime
00:01:54.160 | and open blind eyes and prison doors
00:01:56.560 | and shut the mouths of lions and halt malaria
00:02:00.040 | and make airplanes stay in the air
00:02:01.920 | and a thousand other things.
00:02:04.480 | But do the prosperity preachers really believe
00:02:07.400 | in the absolute sovereignty of God over Satan?
00:02:10.000 | I don't think they do.
00:02:11.720 | So there are two things I would teach
00:02:15.600 | on those street corners in Africa or anywhere else.
00:02:19.440 | Hawaii, I just got back from there.
00:02:21.440 | And they are very closely related.
00:02:25.360 | I would lay out all the texts
00:02:28.080 | on the absolute sovereignty of God
00:02:31.360 | and all the texts on God's control
00:02:34.400 | and God's design for suffering.
00:02:37.480 | I think these are the two underlying deficiencies
00:02:42.280 | in the prosperity preaching,
00:02:43.880 | a biblical understanding of God's sovereignty
00:02:46.840 | and a biblical understanding of God's purpose in suffering.
00:02:50.480 | Now, in regard to sovereignty,
00:02:52.400 | the prosperity preachers speak of God's power
00:02:55.640 | to bless and to make you prosper.
00:02:58.360 | But in the end, it's man who pulls the string.
00:03:02.000 | Man is decisive, not God.
00:03:04.360 | Because if you don't prosper, it's always your fault.
00:03:08.720 | It's always your doing, not God's.
00:03:11.600 | This is not divine sovereignty.
00:03:13.120 | This is divine frustration.
00:03:15.120 | God wants to bless, but he won't.
00:03:17.960 | He can't.
00:03:18.800 | Because you won't do the right things.
00:03:20.880 | This is magic.
00:03:22.560 | With man as the all-powerful magician, medicine man.
00:03:25.800 | Man has become the witch doctor, the shaman here.
00:03:28.080 | This is just old-fashioned magic.
00:03:30.760 | This is voodoo with man poking the needles
00:03:33.880 | and God just responding
00:03:35.600 | whenever man pokes in the right place.
00:03:38.080 | This is not a sovereign God.
00:03:40.160 | The prosperity gospel doesn't go
00:03:42.120 | to the heart of the sovereignty issue.
00:03:44.400 | So they talk about power all they want.
00:03:47.720 | But what we need is to see the absolute sovereignty of God
00:03:52.720 | made plain to them.
00:03:55.800 | And that means showing them texts,
00:03:57.720 | not just about the power of God over Satan,
00:04:01.440 | but power over the smallest events,
00:04:04.080 | like the bird falling out of the air
00:04:06.640 | and the roll of the dice in Reno, Nevada,
00:04:10.320 | or the picking of the lot in the lap, as Proverbs says.
00:04:14.800 | Sovereignty over man,
00:04:16.200 | specifically man's will.
00:04:18.520 | That's absolutely essential that that be taught.
00:04:20.560 | If you want Christ to be sovereign,
00:04:22.400 | He's not just sovereign over a few things.
00:04:24.600 | He's sovereign over all things.
00:04:26.240 | "The king's heart is a stream of water
00:04:28.640 | "in the hand of the Lord.
00:04:29.720 | "He turns it wherever He wills," Proverbs 21.
00:04:33.160 | So then it depends not on human will or human exertion,
00:04:36.800 | but on God who has mercy, Romans 9, 16.
00:04:40.160 | So preaching the absolute sovereignty of God
00:04:43.240 | would show prosperity preachers.
00:04:44.720 | You don't preach a powerful Christ.
00:04:46.760 | You preach a wimpy Christ, for goodness sakes.
00:04:49.160 | He's not in charge.
00:04:50.680 | Man is in charge in your scheme.
00:04:53.480 | And that leads to the second great deficiency
00:04:55.800 | of the prosperity preachers.
00:04:57.360 | Since they don't go deep enough
00:04:59.960 | with the sovereignty of God,
00:05:01.160 | they don't go deep enough
00:05:02.080 | with the sovereignty of God in suffering.
00:05:03.760 | And therefore they don't deal with the passages
00:05:06.560 | that teach about God's purposes in suffering.
00:05:10.600 | When I have dealt with people,
00:05:12.080 | like I did with one family from India,
00:05:15.920 | who had never heard anything but prosperity preaching,
00:05:18.920 | I just spent a half an hour with them
00:05:20.280 | showing them passages of Scripture on suffering.
00:05:22.720 | And they were blown away.
00:05:24.200 | They said they had never heard or seen anything like this,
00:05:27.200 | that God actually has some purpose or design
00:05:30.920 | in their suffering.
00:05:32.720 | So since prosperity preachers don't think
00:05:36.640 | He controls suffering,
00:05:39.200 | they can't see any purpose or design in it.
00:05:42.240 | They never teach on the design of God in suffering.
00:05:46.080 | The Bible's full of His design in suffering.
00:05:48.440 | I just came back from Hawaii
00:05:49.520 | and they asked me to preach on suffering.
00:05:52.560 | And I did, and the whole thing was my just giving reason
00:05:55.400 | after reason after reason from biblical texts
00:05:58.160 | that God says He ordains or permits suffering in the world.
00:06:02.840 | It's all over the Bible, but they can't talk about it
00:06:05.920 | 'cause it's not part of their system.
00:06:07.920 | They're not biblical enough,
00:06:09.960 | which means that they leave people
00:06:12.320 | without the massive help that the Bible gives to sufferers.
00:06:16.680 | And they dishonor Christ,
00:06:18.200 | who intends to be magnified in our suffering.
00:06:20.520 | So for example, just one closing example here,
00:06:23.360 | 2 Corinthians 12, where Paul has the thorn in the flesh,
00:06:27.760 | which is called a messenger of Satan.
00:06:31.840 | And yet God uses it to bring holy, humbling,
00:06:37.840 | to Paul, which means He turns Satan
00:06:41.600 | into a servant of sanctification.
00:06:44.440 | He makes Satan serve holiness,
00:06:47.080 | which must just gall Satan when God so sovereignly rules
00:06:52.080 | over his thorn that He makes it turn Paul
00:06:56.000 | into a humbler, more Christ-like person.
00:06:59.560 | And then here's the nub of the matter.
00:07:01.640 | Jesus says to Paul when He says,
00:07:03.520 | "No, I'm not gonna take your thorn away."
00:07:05.760 | He says, "My grace is sufficient for you.
00:07:08.640 | My power," okay, now this is a power they never talk about.
00:07:13.320 | "My power is made perfect in weakness.
00:07:18.040 | Therefore," Paul says,
00:07:19.320 | "I will boast all the more gladly in my weakness
00:07:22.200 | so the power of Christ may rest upon me."
00:07:26.440 | Yes, oh, we believe in a very powerful Christ.
00:07:30.240 | And He is shown to be more magnificently powerful
00:07:34.400 | in satisfying the suffering soul
00:07:37.800 | than He is in giving BMWs to the worldly soul.
00:07:42.800 | Do prosperity preachers ever show this power of Christ,
00:07:48.120 | the power to satisfy the suffering soul
00:07:50.960 | with the superior majesty and presence of Christ?
00:07:55.520 | So that's my approach, Tony,
00:07:57.840 | and to the brother who asked about going to Africa.
00:08:01.480 | Teach on total sovereignty
00:08:04.680 | and not just bogus power preaching
00:08:07.960 | that gives man the decisive power over God.
00:08:11.040 | Teach on God's control over and the design of God
00:08:14.920 | in suffering for His glory.
00:08:17.840 | - Amen, that's wonderful counsel, Pastor John.
00:08:19.800 | Thank you for that.
00:08:20.640 | And thank you, Matt, for the wonderful question.
00:08:23.800 | We talked about how to detect the prosperity gospel
00:08:26.240 | back in episode number 320.
00:08:28.040 | In an episode, we titled "Six Keys
00:08:30.160 | to Detecting the Prosperity Gospel."
00:08:32.560 | Be sure to check that out for more details
00:08:34.240 | on what this looks like theologically.
00:08:36.600 | Tomorrow in the States, we celebrate Thanksgiving,
00:08:39.400 | and we will return on Monday to ask more of your questions.
00:08:43.320 | But you asked, "Tony, I want a Thanksgiving-themed episode
00:08:46.360 | for tomorrow.
00:08:47.200 | Do you have any suggestions?"
00:08:48.440 | Well, of course I do, always I do.
00:08:51.240 | Episode number 225, you can find that in the app,
00:08:53.720 | episode number 225.
00:08:55.480 | And speaking of thankfulness,
00:08:56.960 | I wanna close out this episode
00:08:58.080 | by sharing my gratitude for you.
00:09:00.440 | Thank you, listeners, for sending us
00:09:01.920 | your encouraging emails.
00:09:03.280 | We read all of them, even if we don't respond.
00:09:05.400 | So thank you for your encouragements and your prayers.
00:09:07.880 | And thank you for asking great and thoughtful questions.
00:09:10.360 | We need you to ask great questions,
00:09:12.200 | and you constantly deliver.
00:09:14.760 | Also, thank you for listening every day
00:09:16.320 | so that you can share specific episodes strategically
00:09:19.480 | with your family and friends in the moments
00:09:21.160 | when they face serious questions in life.
00:09:23.640 | Nothing encourages me more than to hear a story
00:09:25.960 | of how a listener opened their APJ app in a coffee shop
00:09:29.560 | or in a living room or in a kitchen
00:09:31.360 | to share a specific episode to care for others.
00:09:34.440 | I love seeing how many of you
00:09:35.640 | strategically serve your friends
00:09:37.120 | because you have made the commitment
00:09:38.480 | to make Ask Pastor John part of your routine.
00:09:41.880 | So thank you.
00:09:42.960 | May your Thanksgiving celebration be full of gratitude
00:09:45.520 | for the abundant grace of God in your life.
00:09:48.920 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:50.160 | We will see you on Monday.
00:09:51.480 | (upbeat music)
00:09:54.080 | (upbeat music)
00:09:56.680 | [BLANK_AUDIO]