The prosperity gospel is alive and well. It seeps into American churches, it's been called America's theological export to Africa, and it has seeped into the American prison system of all places, even in Angola. Angola is the largest maximum security prison in the US. An 18,000 acre complex comprised of five former plantations now home to 6,300 prisoners, limited to only murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and habitual felons.

The average sentence here is 88 years, with 3,200 people in one place serving life sentences. 90% of the inmates will die here. Yes, the prosperity gospel even reaches into a place like that. John Piper traveled to Louisiana and preached in Angola's chapel on November 20th, 2009. About 800 prisoners packed in to hear a message on John 6, on Jesus' feeding of the 5,000, and his walk on water.

"I preached with all my heart to those who could fit in the chapel," Piper recounted later. "I pulled no punches." Hundreds of other prisoners heard the sermon through closed circuit television, including those on death row, like Gerald Bordelon, a convicted rapist and child murderer we met in episode 1445.

Piper pulled no punches, and the result is one of my favorite all-time sermons. Pastor John, it is most urgent. Here's a clip from that Angola sermon. I want very much to say the best news in all the world for Christians is on the other side there's life. So there's another young lady in our church, young, late 40s, four kids, two in college, two smaller, and the doctors have told her maybe two weeks before her leukemia takes her out.

We're still praying, "Oh God, make this last ditch, unusual, creative, never tried before kind of chemo. Do the thing that might do it," but they are preparing themselves. And oh, I am willing big time to do that funeral if it comes, because I've got such good news for that elder in my church and that family and those kids.

God cares about the body. He'll never, ever throw it away. He will make it new, but he didn't come mainly to do that here. He didn't come mainly to cause all of our physical desires to be satisfied, but to change those desires at their core so that he becomes our treasure over everything.

And that can happen in this prison way better sometimes than it can in the free, prosperous, hell-bent world. So I hope you men get this, that Jesus Christ came into the world to do mainly what can be done here, mainly to do what can be done here in human beings, treasuring him, loving him, following him, living for him, rejoicing in him, being satisfied in him, making much of him in everything you do morning to night can be done anywhere on the planet, and that's the main reason we exist.

That's the main point of the message. Now let's go to the text. So if you have your Bible, you can read with me. If you don't, well just listen. Verses 1 to 15 is the story of the feeding of the 5,000. It goes like this. After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.

And a large crowd was following him because they saw signs that he was doing on the sick. Verse 3, "Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes then and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, 'Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?' And he said this to test him, to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.

Philip answered him, 'Two hundred denarii, that's 200 days' wages, would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.' One of his disciples, Andrew Simon Peter's brother, said, 'There's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?' Jesus said, 'Have the people sit down.' Now there was much grass in that place, so the men sat down about 5,000 in number.

Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, of what he distributed, when they had eaten their fill, he said, 'Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.' So they gathered up the leftover fragments, 12 baskets, with fragments from the barley loaves, left by those who had eaten the barley loaves.

They had all eaten from the five barley loaves. They had all eaten as much as they wanted, 5,000 people, and there's 12 baskets left over. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, 'This indeed is the prophet who has come into the world.' Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force, and to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself." Now, the rest of this chapter is a total of 71 verses, and it's all about bread.

It's all about Jesus as the bread. So Jesus has come to give a sign in the multiplying of these loaves, that he himself is the bread of heaven. Not mainly that he can make enough bread to feed everybody. He calls this a sign. What is a sign? Let me tell you what I think a sign is.

A sign is glory comes into the world. John 1, 14, "We beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." And shining down from that glory is like a beam, a beam of glory shining from Christ, the glorious, eternal, divine Son of God.

A beam is shining down and it lands, and when it lands, it produces out of five loaves and a few fish, enough food to feed 5,000. It creates out of nothing food to feed 5,000 people, and the sign is meant to do this. Your eyes behold the landing of the beam, and your eyes should run up the beam to the glory.

Instead, what did they do? They saw this miracle and they fixated on the product of the miracle, not the person of the miracle. Drop your eyes down, if you got a Bible, to verse 26. They found him the next day, so this is what he says to the crowd.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of loaves." He's angry. Can you imagine Jesus being angry that somebody is seeking him? Why would he get upset if you sought him? It's because they were seeking him as useful, useful for the bread, the money, the health, the prosperity.

He's useful to my stuff. And they didn't let their eyes run up the beam and say, "There he is. That's my treasure." Or picture it as the sun. Ninety-three million miles away, the sun sends out rays, lands on the earth, ninety-three million miles away, and it does amazing things.

It causes plants to grow, and it makes us warm, and it produces vitamin D in our skin, and it enables us to see beautiful things. And most people simply get the analogy, sun, Christ, beam, glory, landing, miracle. Most people just say, "Whoa, I love what I see. I love my skin.

I love my plants that grow." They don't let their eyes run up the beam to the son of glory, Jesus Christ. So when I said at the beginning, "Jesus Christ came into the world not to be useful mainly, but to be precious mainly," that's what I mean. They didn't do it.

What does verse 15 say? "Perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself." They didn't see him as precious. They saw his gifts as precious. Oh, what a useful king he will be, right? Yes.

Let's have Jesus be our king. He will keep our bellies full. Jesus doesn't want that kind of a disciple. Now, I don't know how many times you get that kind of a preacher in this place, but they're all over the world. The main export from America to Africa is this kind of theology that says, "He wants your stuff to multiply mainly.

Get the car. Get the gold watch. Wear the suit, the shoes. Get all that." That's what Jesus is for. I think that's demonic theology. Jesus came into the world to bless us in some measure now, and I'll get to that in a minute from this very parable, but mainly he's trying to forgive our sins, clothe us with righteousness, make himself our treasure, seal our eternity forever, and then put us to work in the world, whether we're in prison or on the outside.

The same reality is here as out there. The main thing is here. The other stuff feels real important. That's why I said it may be that your very presence here will enable you to see better than the people in my church can see. They got the stuff. Just take it for granted.

That's what it's about. It's not what it's about. It's about him. Yes. Amen. Amen. It is all about him. It is all about him. You can listen to or watch the full sermon at Angola at DesiringGod.org. Search for its title, "Jesus Came Not to Give Bread, But to Be Bread." And if you don't believe the prosperity gospel can seep into a maximum security prison, later after the sermon, Pastor John was asked by an inmate this, "Considering your message from John 6, what would you say to someone who considers Jesus to be precious only if he can give the hope of physical deliverance from prison?" Wow.

To find that video, you can Google it, "John Piper, Questions and Answers, Angola Prison." Just Google that. John Piper, Questions and Answers, Angola Prison. And scrub forward to the 10-minute, 13-second mark and you'll hear that question. Well, there's an important and too common theme in our inbox of men belittling women as inferior, perhaps in the name of complementarity.

It's a hard topic, but we must address it head on. We will next time on Friday. I'm your host Tony Reinhart. We'll see you then. 1 John Piper, Questions and Answers, Angola Prison Page 1 of 9 Page 2 of 9 Page 3 of 9 Page 4 of 9 Page 5 of 9 Page 6 of 9 you