(upbeat music) - We have a question from Matt in Houston, Texas. Recently, Pastor John, you spoke on the prosperity gospel. I'm moving to Africa at the end of this year to be a missionary in Zambia. The prosperity gospel is on every street corner there. It's ingrained in the people.

Africans don't deny the spiritual world like many Americans do. They just wanna know who is more powerful, Satan or Jesus? And the prosperity gospel is one way of saying Jesus is. So the question is this, how would you encourage someone to address the prosperity gospel errors in a spiritual power-based nation like many of those in Africa?

- Yeah, well, right off the bat, the more I think about this, and I think about it a lot 'cause everywhere I go, I run into it. The more I think about this, the more I realize prosperity preachers are not preaching a very powerful Christ. They're not. He's not nearly powerful enough, not nearly sovereign enough over Satan.

So let me see if I can get at this. The way I approach this is not to tear down the positive claims of the prosperity gospel, but to present the parts of the Bible that they leave out and show them that the glory of Christ and the greatness of Christ and the power of Christ and the superior worth of Christ is more clearly displayed when these texts are taken seriously.

They leave out so many texts that have to do with the glory of Christ. They think they're presenting a more glorious Christ, and they're not. They're not. Now, of course Christ is stronger than Satan. Of course he's able to stop disease and still storms and cause rain to fall and prevent crime and open blind eyes and prison doors and shut the mouths of lions and halt malaria and make airplanes stay in the air and a thousand other things.

But do the prosperity preachers really believe in the absolute sovereignty of God over Satan? I don't think they do. So there are two things I would teach on those street corners in Africa or anywhere else. Hawaii, I just got back from there. And they are very closely related. I would lay out all the texts on the absolute sovereignty of God and all the texts on God's control and God's design for suffering.

I think these are the two underlying deficiencies in the prosperity preaching, a biblical understanding of God's sovereignty and a biblical understanding of God's purpose in suffering. Now, in regard to sovereignty, the prosperity preachers speak of God's power to bless and to make you prosper. But in the end, it's man who pulls the string.

Man is decisive, not God. Because if you don't prosper, it's always your fault. It's always your doing, not God's. This is not divine sovereignty. This is divine frustration. God wants to bless, but he won't. He can't. Because you won't do the right things. This is magic. With man as the all-powerful magician, medicine man.

Man has become the witch doctor, the shaman here. This is just old-fashioned magic. This is voodoo with man poking the needles and God just responding whenever man pokes in the right place. This is not a sovereign God. The prosperity gospel doesn't go to the heart of the sovereignty issue.

So they talk about power all they want. But what we need is to see the absolute sovereignty of God made plain to them. And that means showing them texts, not just about the power of God over Satan, but power over the smallest events, like the bird falling out of the air and the roll of the dice in Reno, Nevada, or the picking of the lot in the lap, as Proverbs says.

Sovereignty over man, specifically man's will. That's absolutely essential that that be taught. If you want Christ to be sovereign, He's not just sovereign over a few things. He's sovereign over all things. "The king's heart is a stream of water "in the hand of the Lord. "He turns it wherever He wills," Proverbs 21.

So then it depends not on human will or human exertion, but on God who has mercy, Romans 9, 16. So preaching the absolute sovereignty of God would show prosperity preachers. You don't preach a powerful Christ. You preach a wimpy Christ, for goodness sakes. He's not in charge. Man is in charge in your scheme.

And that leads to the second great deficiency of the prosperity preachers. Since they don't go deep enough with the sovereignty of God, they don't go deep enough with the sovereignty of God in suffering. And therefore they don't deal with the passages that teach about God's purposes in suffering. When I have dealt with people, like I did with one family from India, who had never heard anything but prosperity preaching, I just spent a half an hour with them showing them passages of Scripture on suffering.

And they were blown away. They said they had never heard or seen anything like this, that God actually has some purpose or design in their suffering. So since prosperity preachers don't think He controls suffering, they can't see any purpose or design in it. They never teach on the design of God in suffering.

The Bible's full of His design in suffering. I just came back from Hawaii and they asked me to preach on suffering. And I did, and the whole thing was my just giving reason after reason after reason from biblical texts that God says He ordains or permits suffering in the world.

It's all over the Bible, but they can't talk about it 'cause it's not part of their system. They're not biblical enough, which means that they leave people without the massive help that the Bible gives to sufferers. And they dishonor Christ, who intends to be magnified in our suffering. So for example, just one closing example here, 2 Corinthians 12, where Paul has the thorn in the flesh, which is called a messenger of Satan.

And yet God uses it to bring holy, humbling, to Paul, which means He turns Satan into a servant of sanctification. He makes Satan serve holiness, which must just gall Satan when God so sovereignly rules over his thorn that He makes it turn Paul into a humbler, more Christ-like person.

And then here's the nub of the matter. Jesus says to Paul when He says, "No, I'm not gonna take your thorn away." He says, "My grace is sufficient for you. My power," okay, now this is a power they never talk about. "My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore," Paul says, "I will boast all the more gladly in my weakness so the power of Christ may rest upon me." Yes, oh, we believe in a very powerful Christ.

And He is shown to be more magnificently powerful in satisfying the suffering soul than He is in giving BMWs to the worldly soul. Do prosperity preachers ever show this power of Christ, the power to satisfy the suffering soul with the superior majesty and presence of Christ? So that's my approach, Tony, and to the brother who asked about going to Africa.

Teach on total sovereignty and not just bogus power preaching that gives man the decisive power over God. Teach on God's control over and the design of God in suffering for His glory. - Amen, that's wonderful counsel, Pastor John. Thank you for that. And thank you, Matt, for the wonderful question.

We talked about how to detect the prosperity gospel back in episode number 320. In an episode, we titled "Six Keys to Detecting the Prosperity Gospel." Be sure to check that out for more details on what this looks like theologically. Tomorrow in the States, we celebrate Thanksgiving, and we will return on Monday to ask more of your questions.

But you asked, "Tony, I want a Thanksgiving-themed episode for tomorrow. Do you have any suggestions?" Well, of course I do, always I do. Episode number 225, you can find that in the app, episode number 225. And speaking of thankfulness, I wanna close out this episode by sharing my gratitude for you.

Thank you, listeners, for sending us your encouraging emails. We read all of them, even if we don't respond. So thank you for your encouragements and your prayers. And thank you for asking great and thoughtful questions. We need you to ask great questions, and you constantly deliver. Also, thank you for listening every day so that you can share specific episodes strategically with your family and friends in the moments when they face serious questions in life.

Nothing encourages me more than to hear a story of how a listener opened their APJ app in a coffee shop or in a living room or in a kitchen to share a specific episode to care for others. I love seeing how many of you strategically serve your friends because you have made the commitment to make Ask Pastor John part of your routine.

So thank you. May your Thanksgiving celebration be full of gratitude for the abundant grace of God in your life. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We will see you on Monday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)