A Note from Pastor Jeff –
“Tickle Me NoMo”
2 Timothy 4:3, “The time will come when many will not tolerate sound doctrine, but will want their ears tickled in accordance with their own desires.”
If riches were a reasonable goal for the godly, Jesus would’ve pursued it. But He did not, preferring rather to live in poverty in order to humbly identify with us (Matt. 8:20; 2 Cor. 8:9), and taught His disciples to live the same way. We should remember that Judas was the only disciple concerned with wealth. The Prosperity Gospel is rampant in American theology. It is also called the “Word of Faith” movement, or “name it and claim it.” In PG, the believer is told to use God, whereas true biblical Christianity is just the opposite, God uses the believer to accomplish His will. PG views the Holy Spirit as a power to be used for whatever the believer wills, but the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is a Person who enables the believer to do God’s will. The PG movement closely resembles the “greed sects” that infiltrated the early church, so-called faith systems that seek and promise earthly, material, temporal riches and success (1 Tim. 6:5-11). The Word of Faith PG movement teaches that faith is a matter of what we say more than who we trust. In PG, you will often hear about “the power of the spoken word.” PG believes that words themselves have creative power; what you say determines everything that happens to you. PG teaches that the confessions and favors you ask of God must all be stated in a positive way without wavering. But that is merely a false formula that tries to manipulate God and His spiritual laws by repeating manmade prayers and sayings to “release God” to do what we want. But buyer beware, because true biblical faith is a submissive trust in God’s will, God’s purposes, and God’s plans, not my positive words releasing God to give me my desires. The danger with PG is that God’s ability to bless us hangs on our faith, we control God, our faith releases Him to bless us. This is false teaching. James 4:13-16 directly contradicts PG teaching, for it says we don’t even know what tomorrow holds, therefore we cannot “speak things into existence in the future” by our positive prayers. Jesus warned us about stressing wealth, prosperity, and success for “a man’s life does not consist of an abundance of possessions” (1 Tim. 3:3; 6:10; Heb. 13:5; Luke 12:15; Matt. 6:19, 24). Beware, there are tremendous irreconcilable contradictions between prosperity teaching and the true Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Please turn your discernment dials up to #10 setting!
