"God Wants Me Healthy and Wealthy"

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning everyone, how are y'all? This wonderful, beautiful, hot morning. Hope, wonderful, I got one answer. It's always funny, is that a rhetorical question or do I actually want an answer? I do like it answered. If you're wondering why I'm on my phone, I'm setting a timer. Your pastor Drew gave me a 30 minute window, but I noticed that he went about 51 minutes the other day, so I'm just gonna keep it in that range. Sorry Drew, not a, also do you stand behind the table or to the side? Like are you, okay, kind of a hippie vibe, okay. Well, you know, when in Rome, you know, do as the, no, I am thrilled to be here today. For those of you who don't know me or haven't had the opportunity to meet you, my name is Daniel Bollen. I am originally from Arkansas. My wife and I came down in 2014 to go to seminary and while we were in Fort Worth, we visited a church called Hulen Street

where Drew was on staff. We hit it off instantly over our love of coffee and it was through that that my wife and I got to know not just the Capertons, but a lot of other families that have connections there, specifically the Osters and then Dan Hayes. The three of us were all in a kind of life group together and so we moved to Burleson in 2017, right before my third was born and I believe shortly after that, we left Hulen Street, I got involved at a church called Grace U, which is right down the road and then lo and behold, Drew and Daniel, the Capertons, the Osters, the Hayes, the Lord called them to come here as well and so my family and I even wrestled with should we join this church, but we had just joined a church in Grace U and as God would have it, an opportunity to come on staff there presented itself shortly after. So I'm the discipleship pastor just right down the road,

I work with the men's ministry, the deacons, counseling, things of that nature, but have been very close to you guys because Daniel and Drew are like older brothers, I mean old, old brothers. I look to them for just guidance and counsel, inspiration, I think they look to me for my good looks and charm and so it cuts both ways just in case you're wondering, but it is exciting to be here, I've gotten to be here a couple of times and anytime Drew needs a break or you need a break from Drew, just feel free to call me. So I'm also excited about the series that y'all are working through and talked to Drew a couple months ago in the coffee shop and I was like hey, if you need anybody to preach, just let me know, told me about the series and we put this date on and he sent out this list of all these heresies that y'all were working through. Naturally, I never got back to him about which one

and about two weeks ago finally he's like hey, what do you wanna do and I was like just tell me, just tell me what to do and so we landed on the prosperity gospel and it goes by different names, health and wealth, word of faith, some people call it the name it, claim it and we're gonna look at that, but as I was preparing for this, one thing we have to understand is scripture speaks a lot about this but not the way that it's portrayed in the mainstream media or evangelical circles. So we're gonna listen first to what scripture says about health and wealth, we're gonna start with Jesus and listen to Paul and then we're gonna get kind of historical background, some of the theological ideologies that this heresy offers and then how it is contrary to scripture. That's gonna be the roadmap, if you will, of how we're gonna walk through today. If you hear anything I say, I pray that it's the word of God

because I am just a mouthpiece for that. If all the other stuff you tune out, that's fine but that's why we're putting the word of God first and foremost. So I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna read. God, I love you and thank you for the opportunity to preach today. Lord, you know all the things that make me inadequate and honestly unworthy of being here and it is your grace and mercy alone that allows anyone to preach and proclaim your gospel. So I pray, God, that all the things about me that might distract or take away from the preaching of your word, they would be set aside. I pray that your spirit would move through the proclamation of your word, that you would allow us to hear what you have to say to us as individuals and corporately, see, allow us to see what's in the text and see how that applies to our life. Lord, that is a work that only you can do and so if there's anything I say or do

that is inconsistent with your revealed word through scripture, I pray that it is forgotten and everything that is consistent with the message you have for us today, I pray that it takes root and bears fruit in the lives of those that are here. Lord, we ask you to move in the way that you see fit and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, I'm gonna begin reading in Luke chapter 12, verses 13 through 21. I'm not gonna tell you how many verses I'm gonna read because I'm afraid it might scare you away. So, we're just gonna begin in Luke 12, 13 through 21. It says, someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. So we just need to pause. I mean, we're a verse in. Someone tells Jesus to do something. Guys, I just wanna caution y'all. If you tell God to do something, you need to be careful, okay? This is just someone in the crowd,

nameless, faceless person, commanding, right? And not with any authority. It's not like he's a police officer, but he is telling Jesus, the Son of God, to do something. When this is how Jesus responds, he said to him, man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? And so Jesus just, I'm not gonna do that, right? That's not my job. That's not my role. And Jesus, that's not his ministry right now, his to settle disputes. But this is a caution that we will see over and over as we work through this. We do not tell God to do something. He tells us to do stuff. We do not remind God of his word. A, he hasn't forgotten it. And B, we have zero authority. We are nobodies. We are nameless, faceless people in the economy of God when it comes to his will and his work. And you may say, man, that is just not nice. And no, what's beautiful is that God would take us nobodies and he would give us life.

He would give us purpose. Of all of his creation, he would use us. That's what's impressive. That is what is so gracious and so merciful. What we deserve is to be eternally separated from him and what he offers is eternal connection and relationship and restoration. That is beautiful. So if it sounds like I'm being mean, the gospel will come through and show how God in his grace and mercy actually does give us the things we need that fit in line with the ultimate purpose of building his kingdom. And that's what we're gonna look at as we move through Jesus' teaching. He tells him a parable, this is 16. The land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul,

you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. So in this section in Luke, we are starting to see a shift. We're starting to see the Lord create this temporal state or acknowledge, there's a temporal existence. Temporary, momentary, right here, it has a short live, short years in the grand scheme of all things, but then there's an eternal. There is an existence that has a time before us and a time after our current existence. There is a place where things do not rust and decay and destroy. And we need to take heed not to build up things in the temporal when we're not guaranteed a, another day, another second, another step, another breath.

And so this is one of the problems with the health and wealth is that the name it claim it, the speak it into existence, how can you leverage that when we're not even guaranteed another day in this temporal state? We're not guaranteed functionality moving forward. Nowhere in scripture will you see build up in this place your kingdom, establish it, protect it, defend against threats. No, we have this temporal state and this eternal state. We are either investing in the eternal or we're sowing into a temporal place that will fade, that will destroy, be destroyed. Every culture has had a rise and a fall and the culture we find ourselves in right now, we don't know if it's on the up tick or the down tick but rest assured only one kingdom will survive when it's all said and done. And so this is just a great passage in Luke where we see a few things displayed, right?

Somebody commanding Jesus to do something. We see this eternal temporal dynamic but if we move on into Matthew chapter six verses 19 through 34, we see in 19 through 21, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I would say we have a further revelation, a further explanation of the eternal temporal. Wherever, whatever you're building into is going to expose where your hope is, where your love and affection is. And so Jesus is exposing right here, there is an eternal place where treasures can be but it's not on earth where moth and rust destroy. If we skip just down to 24, it becomes even more clear. It says, no one can serve two masters

for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. If we're talking about health and wealth, we need to understand that wealth competes with God. Now I'm not saying you cannot have wealth. I would even argue that God chooses to whom he bestows wealth on and whom he withholds it from. And he does that in accordance to a plan for his kingdom. He is building his kingdom. He established it with Christ and it is marching forward until the eventual return of Christ and the final installment and actualization of it. And so a kingdom was established and it is being built right now. And so if you are treasuring things on earth, if you are serving God or money at the expense of God, then what you are effectively doing is building your own temporal kingdom. This is a kingdom that competes with God

rather than building into the kingdom that God has established and drawn us into and called us into. We will see at one point that it is not money that is sin, it is rather the love of money. I will admit that that is something that I have often wrestled with. I like to say that I have had a crush on money. I don't love it but I like it. And that is something that the Lord just had to work out in my own life. I remember accepting the Lord and responding to the obedient step of baptism

and then walking with the Lord, being plugged into the church, reading the word and then I felt this stir, this call to ministry to teach and preach. But the problem with that call is that all the preachers I knew were poor and I did not wanna be poor. And if I'm just being honest, I did not desire that thing. Proverbs 30, and I'll paraphrase it, but it talks about, Lord, don't make me rich but don't make me poor. I don't want to forget you in my abundance but I don't want to steal and hate you. And so it's interesting, I don't think the author of that Proverbs is saying, we need to strive for middle class. What I think he's doing is showing the ditches that are on both sides, that if we don't have enough, we tend to blame God. You didn't give me enough, this isn't fair. Why does the wicked prosper and the righteous struggle and suffer? All suffer, we'll see that.

We'll read scripture that tells us that we are going to suffer. The world is going to hate us if you are in Christ. But on the other side, the ditches that when you are rich and understand that rich is relative, we can go to communities in Fort Worth, we can go around the world and we can quickly realize that, I heard a guy say, if your car has a home, in other words, if you have a house with a garage that you park your car in or that you leave it outside the garage because you have too much stuff in it, then you automatically are richer than the majority of the world. But no, my neighbor has more money. I don't make as much as my boss or my sister or siblings or whatever. This is the problem with chasing wealth is that it's all relative. I heard a guy say that rich is always the next rung in the ladder. The second you pull yourself up and you think you've arrived and you enjoy the view,

you realize there's a little bit higher and if I can just get there, it'll be a little bit better. I'll be a little safer, a little more secure and so we keep climbing only to realize that we'll never reach the top. So as we are working through this, it's important to hear Jesus's words, you cannot serve God and money. These are passages, by the way, that the health and wealth and prosperity gospel, they hate, they avoid, they kind of twist. They'll twist the words of Paul where he talks about the thorn in his flesh and it's like, it's not really a physical thorn, it's a spiritual thorn. This is a problem. Anytime you're having to twist the word of God, your antennas need to come up. We need to be able to say, this is what God says. I need to be able to say, I cannot serve God and money. I need to say, if I love money, do I love money? I need to be able to evaluate that.

We need to be able to pass that on in our relationships, our discipleship relationships. Now we're gonna move into the next section of Matthew 6 because I think this is why, one of the reasons why the prosperity gospel has footing, why it's so powerful, so enticing. So in verses 25, this is also in Luke, it's right under that one passage I read, so Jesus talks about this often. But in Matthew 6, 25, he says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on, is not life more than food and the body more than clothing. So I think this is why the prosperity gospel has such a foothold is it prays on our fears, on our anxieties, on our worries, and it offers a solution. Instead of God being the solution, don't worry, but look to the Lord, it is don't worry, tell God to give you.

It tries to fill that gap, that natural tension that should exist in God's created image bearer that we are dependent on him. Instead, it doesn't create that dependency dynamic that we should be aware of, it creates this equal nature where God is this genie, this cosmological bank account or entity that we go to and we tell, I need this, you give this. What it assumes is that man can rightly understand his own needs. Last night, being the great father that I am, I brought home a half pint of the best ice cream in the world, a cookie two step from Bluebell. There's a couple people who know, some of y'all who need to learn. Naturally, we all had our bowl, and there's different sized bowls, daddy deserves a bigger portion. Some of the kiddos, after the first helping, they wanted more. Now again, as a good father, you understand the things that are good for you, that nourish you.

You also love them as the parents, we love them and we want to give them fun things, sweet treats, but we know that it's not wise for them to eat two bowls, three bowls, that causes problems. It's interesting that we are good enough parents to know that it's okay to have a little of a good thing, a sweet thing, a fun thing, but if some of my children were left to their own device, they would eat the whole thing until they were so full that they made themselves sick. If we, broken, sinful human people, are smart enough to discern that, how much more, as an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-wise creator God, how much more does he know what we need? How much more is he capable to give us good treats in due season, but not too much because he knows our own personal tendencies? I think there have been plenty of times I've asked the Lord for more, and oftentimes what he does is expose

what I did with what he gave. He shows the ways that I wasn't as wise, I didn't steward as well, and I tell him things like, oh Lord, if you gave me X amount, then I would give X amount, percentage, or whatever, but he just exposes how inconsistent I am with little. Why do I think I'll be better with more? Because this is the problem with the Name It Claim It movement, it assumes the best of people instead of realizing we're all wicked, broken, selfish people. Now, again, it's helpful to continue to read through this because Jesus says, look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? The, let's see, and which of you, by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life,

and why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the fields, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will they not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Now, you might be thinking, that's a lot to read when really, hopefully, you detected that bottom part, that last verse, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

That's the key, that's the point. Seek the kingdom of God, and the needs that we have, God will provide. The problem is, the word of faith, the health and the well, it will twist verses like this. It will highlight God's provision over his providence, over his plan. It will switch out the object that is being built, God's kingdom, and it will supply, or it will substitute your own kingdom. The problem with the health and wealth is that it assumes people are good, and know what we need, and that God wants us to build our own kingdom, and not ultimately his. Seek first the kingdom of God, flies in the face of the health and wealth gospel. The subliminal message, the hidden message is, seek your own kingdom and tell God to give you whatever you need.

So don't be anxious about tomorrow. This is verse 34, tomorrow be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own troubles. If we move to 1 Timothy 6, 3 through 10, this helps answer, why should we even talk about this? Why should we talk about this? Well Paul warns, if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. Paul is writing to Timothy, and he's telling him, you need to look out for these false teachers. And here's how he describes them. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, decisions, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

And a second, I'm gonna give a brief historical sketch about just how we see this. Godliness is a means of gain. But Paul gives us a very powerful word that I say dismantles the health and wealth. Godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing with these, we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and perceived them, pierced themselves with many pangs. For reference again, or just for your own notes, Luke 12, 13 through 21,

if we covered it too quickly, go back and read it. Matthew 6, 19 through 34, go back and read it. Meditate on the message that's in there. First Timothy 6, three through 10, go back and read it. Meditate on it. See what the Lord is saying to you. And I would trust that it is warning, cautioning against this mindset that is, build your own kingdom. Tell God to give you health and wealth and prosperity. Speak it into existence and expect God to give it back. Rather, we should submit to God. We should strive to build a kingdom. We should bring our anxiety and fears and needs to the Lord, believing that he is a good father and will provide what we need, but not necessarily what we want. We should avoid the love of money because through it, many have wandered away from the faith. Now, that's the most important part of the sermon. So, I hope you took notes. I hope you know where it is.

Now we're gonna move into a little more technical application, if you will. We're going to identify people that do this. Why do this? Well, this is a warning. Look out for these people. We're gonna sketch a little bit of this through Scripture itself, just so we see this is not a new thing. So, it's gonna be helpful to identify who does it now, but also helpful to see this is within mankind. I dare say it's within you. And you may say, Daniel, I'm broke as can be. Well, the beauty of counseling people and counseling people at every state of financial success, I've known people that had nothing in the bank account and were as content as could be, and then people that had seven figures liquid. Not in a retirement account, not in an asset, not tied up, I'm talking about cash, money, bank account getting .03% interest, and that wasn't enough. So, how can somebody with nothing be content,

and then somebody with numbers that all of us, more than likely in here, would say, I'm good. Well, there is something to be said about. Money in and of itself never saves. The safety net you feel you need, it just rises with each level. If your hope is misplaced in a thing, rather than the creator of all things, then you will never be satisfied. So, some of today's modern people you may know, Joel Osteen with his Your Best Life Now,

I think it speaks for his self. Scripture tells us that you will suffer in life. It develops your faith and tests your faith. We are not guaranteed our best life now. Our best life is yet to come on the other side of eternity, that is what we put our hope in, that is what we strive for. TD Jakes, early on in his writing career with Maximize the Moment and The Great Investment, he quickly moved into different teachings about how the death of Christ, the greatest thing was that it built our self-esteem and that his work on the cross ultimately saves us

from things like poverty and failure. Others, Jerry Savelle, who recently passed away, but is local in Crowley. Robert Morris up in North Texas, Kenneth Copeland in Fort Worth, others, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, I mean, they're all over and we know them or people we know know and read them and there are parts of the gospel in their message that are true, but they offer things that throw it off. There are prominent churches, Elevation Church, Hillsong Church, Bethel Church, where you will see this. My wife and I, we actually, kind of before Bethel blew up, we stumbled into that, we had friends up and reading and so we went to their church and I'll never forget, they did an offerings reading and this is what they read. They asked God for jobs and better jobs, raises and bonuses, benefits, sales and commissions, favorable settlements, estates and inheritance,

interest and income, rebates and returns, checks in the mail, gifts and surprises, finding money, debts paid off, expenses, decreases, blessings and increase. And then they thanked the Lord for meeting all their needs that they would have more than enough to give into the kingdom and promote the gospel of Jesus Christ. So the thing is, it's so subtle. They're telling God, they're not asking God, they're saying, your word says we should ask if we pray will receive. So they're telling God, you need to give us these things because you say you will give us things we pray for. So we're praying for all these things and we're praying for these things so we can build into your kingdom. The reality is God does not need us to build his kingdom. He can do it without us, he chooses to use us. He does not need to reroute gold or wealth or money through us, instead he graciously, mercifully chooses us.

But this comes up in their teaching, it comes up in their worship, it comes up in their songs. Now the other thing, and we alluded to this, is the problem is that men are a mankind, a sinful, wicked, selfish, prideful. We do not view the world like we should. We need salvation to bring us to life. We need the word of God to reveal how to live in a right relationship with God and a right relationship with others. So we need to ask God to provide for our needs, understanding that from our perspective we are ultimately limited. We see examples all throughout the Old Testament of the wickedness, covetousness, selfishness of man. Whether it's Jacob stealing Esau's birthright, Eli's sons, I do wanna be careful, I'm not saying do not support the local church. What I'm pointing to is how the local church can utilize the Holy Spirit to enrich itself. There are false teachers that do that,

therefore causing harm to the ministry of the word. God set this whole system up where he draws people out and appoints them and gifts them to lead the corporate body into worship. You see it in the nation of Israel where everyone had a tribe, allotment, a land, except for the Levites. They were dispersed throughout and they led the corporate congregational worship. And so in order to do that, there was a sacrificial system that when they brought their tithes and offerings according to the law, that's what fed the priest. So in God's economy, he will oftentimes pull people out and then ask the local congregation to support those people who have no home, no land, no heritage, no retirement system. So this is not a don't support the church, don't give. This rather is a call to see what scripture says about giving and how to support it. Paul himself in the church of Corinth says,

I could have asked for money, but I didn't in chapter nine. He says that twice. I could have appealed to the law. It says, don't muzzle the ox when it treads the grain, but I never did that. But there are other churches where they supported him. So this is why the universal proclamation of the health and wealth of prosperity gospel is so dangerous because they take scriptures and then these charlatans, if you will, these men who are greedy for gain, they will use the word of God. They will use the spirit of God to enrich and empower themselves. It is a wicked pyramid scheme where there's usually one person on top asking for all your money so that they can give you a blessing. Build my brand, I mean, build their ministry and expand their kingdom and yet they have jets and cars and you can tell a church, the health of a church by their leadership and how they steward the resources.

Judas betrayed Jesus for silver. In Acts, Simon the sorcerer, Acts chapter eight, when he saw that the spirit of God was leading to healing and miraculous things, he offered money. Why did he do that? Well, before the apostles came in, that's how he made his money. He was a magician, an illusionist, a sorcerer and so this thing's powerful, I want that, here's money and Peter confronts him. You see this in the Roman Catholic Church and please note, I said Roman Catholic, I'm not talking about the universal Catholic Church that dates all the way back to 313 AD but the Roman Catholic Church that began to change and stray because the Pope had authority that was equal to or greater than scripture. There are things like the veneration of relics and pilgrimage where they would have these little relics and then they would sell access to it to be blessed. They would teach that you have to go on these pilgrimages

to be blessed and they were costly, they were expensive. Probably the most egregious and famous is the sale of indulgences where they would basically use this institutionally to offer salvation or freedom from sins if you paid enough money. So we have seen this from the beginning is what I'm ultimately driving at. Even though it has modern day manifestations, the wickedness, sinfulness, selfishness of mankind that will leverage the good things of God, the good word of God to enrich themselves, to build their own kingdom has existed from the very beginning. We need to identify these and reject these things. I'm gonna quickly give a couple of points that are the theological points of this movement. This is from a site, I'm gonna say Monergism, Monergism, Drew sent it to me and I'm, yeah, you just talked to Drew for correction. I'm gonna use this a couple of reasons.

One, it's just really good. I just, in researching this, they're hitting all the key spots. You're gonna even hear and see some of the verses I reference. But also, if you want to know more, go to Drew, ask him for this, okay? So faith as force is a theological principle. In other words, faith is often seen as this spiritual force or power that believers can activate to bring about desired outcomes. Guys, faith is viewed of a transaction with God. So if you have enough faith, then God will make you wealthy or he will make you healthy. That is unbiblical. In this life, you will face trials of many kind. I did not write that. I did not put that in there. In this life, you will suffer. If the world hates you, know that it hated me first. Like these are the words of Jesus and Paul and Peter, men inspired by God to give a universal message that transcends time and culture.

They believe, the health and wealth believe in positive confessions. So central to the prosperity gospel is the practice of making positive confessions. Speaking allowed claims of health, wealth, and success based on certain interpretations of scripture. One of the most egregious offenses to this happened in California with Bethel where a child lost their life and for days they claimed that God would heal or resurrect that child.

They called their whole church, both locally and abroad, to unite in prayer to bring this child back because God does this in scripture and says if you ask, he will do that. The heartbreaking thing is he did not do that. And so the world witnessed corrupt teaching that had these positive confessions that displayed faith as a force that returned void. They had twisted scripture, manipulated scripture so much that they made a mockery of Christianity and what it teaches. Another theological principle is that material wealth is a sign of God's favor. I would argue that contentment with whatever you have is a sign of God's favor. We love that verse, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. But the context, whether I have much or little, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Material wealth is not a sign of God's favor. He enriches the wicked and the righteous as he sees fit.

Another tenet is that health and healing is guaranteed. I know there are people here who have suffered health-wise, whether it's a chronic illness, whether it's something as bad as cancer. You don't escape that in this world until God returns and restores his kingdom on earth. We are dying. We will be touched by sickness and suffering. So health and healing as a guarantee is a false teaching. And then finally, seed faith-giving and financial prosperity. This is the idea that giving money to a ministry yields the promise that God will multiply that financial contribution. I saw this when I was a young believer. I heard a guy who was going through a lot and I tried to encourage him. And he said, it's okay, I've been tithing regularly, and so we're just waiting for those dividends to pay off.

Guys, that's not how this works. Your offering is an act of worship. It demonstrates belief that everything you have is from God and that anything you will receive is from him. There are the tithes of the firstborn and the first fruit in the Old Testament. You're not guaranteed a secondborn, a second fruit. And so to tithe from that is this demonstration of faith that God will give you what you need, that he gave you what you have and will give you what you need. In the same way that we sing songs that we meditate on scripture, contributing in a healthy way with a cheerful heart, not under compulsion or guilt, but gratitude towards the Lord and trusting in him for his future provision, that is the heart of giving. So five little quick points of why the prosperity gospel is considered heretical. It is a distortion of the gospel. It shifts the focus of the message

from spiritual salvation and reconciliation with God to material prosperity and wealth. It's not about saving you from death and hell. It's about giving you a great life now. That is anti to the gospel. The next thing is the denial of biblical teaching on suffering. I've already said a couple of Peter and Romans and James where suffering is a part of the process. So it denies what scripture clearly teaches about suffering. It's a misinterpretation of scripture. The prosperity gospel often relies on misinterpretation, misapplication. It isegetes, it puts something into the text rather than taking out of the text. Anytime we detect, like, you're reading a cultural thing into this. You're reading a generational thing into this. You're not lifting out of this, what the author really means and what he meant to the original reader. It undermines God's sovereignty. The prosperity gospel undermines the sovereignty of God

by treating faith and positive confession as tools to manipulate God into giving you blessings. And finally, the exploitation of the vulnerable. The prosperity gospel has been heavily criticized for its exploitation of the poor and vulnerable, often encouraging financially struggling individuals to give more, to pray more. To believe more. This is a predatory, erroneous, heretical, destructive teaching. You probably know the people that I mentioned earlier and you probably know more. You probably know people that have been ensnared by this and if you don't, you will. And so we need to look and this is the final thing. I'm gonna end with 1 Timothy 6, 11 through 12. This is the final part of what I read earlier. And Paul says, as for you, oh man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith.

Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. When you hear prosperity gospel, health and wealth, name it, claim it. Flee from those things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness and gentleness. So Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for how clear it is when we really read and listen and sit in your teaching.

God, I'm thankful that you will use broken, sinful, selfish people to do your will. We don't deserve that and I think that's what we saw today. One of the most egregious things about the prosperity gospel is it assumes that we deserve health, that we deserve riches. The reality is we deserve death. We have broken your law. We have sinned against you. And so the fact that you have spared us, the fact that you offer salvation, that is the greatest gift you could ever give us. And so I pray, God, that we would always be sensitive to the gospel, we would always be defensive of anything that manipulates or twists or thwarts the gospel proclamation. Thank you for today, thank you for your word. I pray your spirit moved as you saw. Amen.