The prosperity gospel seems to be straight from the mouth of hell.
Trained as I was to prize moderation, intellectual sophistication, cultural nuance, and deliberate, careful articulation of the truth, I, nonetheless, can do nothing else but say this.
Biggest, fanciest, snazziest
I remember one man who came to our church. Lonely. Young. Bounced around churches for a while. Desperate to find the reality, the truth. He had gone to prosperity gospel churches. When I got to know him he told me the story. He had gone there for a while and then he started to look at the car parks. In the car parks, the biggest cars, the nicest, fanciest, snazziest vehicles were being driven by… the pastors. He started to realise that this thing they had been preaching was actually one giantponzi scheme. The guys at the top were getting richer by persuading the newcomers to give everything, so that they could all keep moving up like a sick conveyor belt until it met the opening jaws of the man at the top swelling with greed and money and ‘prosperity’. And those at the bottom were driving beaten up old cars.
He told me that after a while he decided he would confront the person at the top. He asked for an interview in his office. He told him what he thought, as calmly as he could, about all the very nice cars, and fancy clothes, that the pastors had — while the poor people who attended were being asked to give more and more and more.
He was never invited back to the church.
The real thing
After some time he stumbled into our church. He sat at the back. I preached a 45minute long (at least) expositional sermon. At the end, he said, the thought came into his head: ‘Oh, my goodness I think this is the real thing’.
If you haven’t seen John Piper’s clip on the Prosperity Gospel you should. It can be found at this link. http://thegospelcoali tion.org/blogs/justintaylor/2013/09/10/the-contemporary-footprint-of-the-american-prosperity-gospel/ If you can’t see it online, Piper says that what he feels about the prosperity gospel is ‘hatred’ because it is being
image: iStock
exported from America to sell the poor of the world a bill of goods that is not the gospel.
And if you have any influence, do all you can to defeat this evil that will leave people disappointed, undone, and having given their lives for a load of nonsense, untruth and deceit.
Christ is our allin all—not things, not cars, not possessions. True prosperity is him and him alone.
