THE GOSPEL OF GREED PART 3
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What is wrong with seed-faith teaching and prosperity preaching?
1) It leads people to give in order to get.
Seed-faith teaching encourages givers to be motivated by selfish gain. In other words, it all comes back to what’s in it for me. Contemporary seed-faith teachers are not just offering spiritual blessings. Material blessings are for sale as well. If you want God to move, then you must pay for it. God’s blessing has basically been reduced to a business transaction. According to Parsley, the bigger your need before God, the bigger your giving should be, “I don’t know how big miracles you need, but let your seed represent your need.” (Rod Parsley, Praise the Lord: Praise-a Thon, TBN. November 9, 2000).
This teaching flies squarely against the teaching of Scripture. Jesus taught in Matthew 6:3 that when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. In other words, we’re not to give with some agenda, such as what we’ll get in return. 2 Corinthians 9:7 teaches that we should not give grudgingly or under compulsion because God loves a cheerful giver. But the seed-faith teaching makes us give under compulsion by presenting the notion that if we want God to move, we must pay Him for it. But God doesn’t say, “If the price is right, I’ll answer your prayer.” Instead, in James 4:2-3, the Bible says that we have not because we ask not, and when we do ask, we ask with the wrong motive, wanting to spend it on our own pleasures. Giving to get is certainly the wrong motive.
2) It leads people to sow to their flesh.
Let me reiterate that the Bible certainly affirms the principle of sowing and reaping, but prosperity teachers have twisted the principle. Galatians 6:7-8 is an important text here. It says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Seed-faith giving is undoubtedly motivated by greed and selfishness embedded in the mentality of wanting to know what’s in it for me. Paul would certainly categorize this as sowing to the flesh.
Therefore, it’s vital for us to notice what we actually reap when we sow to the flesh. Paul says that we reap corruption. If we’re not careful, the weight of that word “corruption” can be easily missed. In Galatians 6:8, corruption is the opposite of eternal life. So by “corruption,” Paul means eternal death in Hell. That’s a terrible harvest, but as Galatians 6:7 reminds us, God will not be mocked. We’re deceiving ourselves if we think that God doesn’t know the wicked, greedy, selfish motives of our heart when we give to get. Even our motives are laid bare before God. The seed-faith teaching leads people to sow to their flesh, which is pathway to destruction.
3) It minimizes the dangers of wealth.
Wealth can be dangerous. I want to show three ways that this is so:
a) Wealth can be a roadblock to salvation. You probably know the gospel account of Jesus meeting the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-26. The young man wanted to know what he must do go to heaven, and eventually Jesus told him to sell his possessions, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. Verse 22 captures the young man’s response, “But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.” He wanted his money more than he wanted Jesus! This response prompted Jesus to state in Verse 23-24: “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” There you have it. Money can be a powerful roadblock to salvation! And why is that? Jesus, in Luke 16:13, provides the answer, “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
b) Wealth can be so easily destroyed. We who are living through this current recession know this well. Jesus taught us this long ago when he said in Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not store up for your-selves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Money and material stuff is here today and gone tomorrow. Robbers, natural disasters, stock market crashes, and busting housing bubbles can wipe you completely out. And if your hope and happiness is in money and stuff, your hope and happiness dies when the stuff is gone. That’s what incited men to jump to their deaths out of buildings when the stock market crashed during the Great Depression.
c) The love of wealth leads to untold evil. It’s true that money is not evil, but it can certainly motivate people to do evil. That’s Paul’s point when he said in: 1Timothy 6:8-10, “If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many grieves.” People will do unspeakable things to satisfy their lust for money. It can easily be a dangerous temptation.
4) It undermines God’s purposes of suffering in the life of the believer.
The Bible teaches this life is but a momentary affliction for the believer that will one day result in eternal reward (Matthew 19: 27-30). The Bible goes on to teach that although the Christian life is full of sorrow and trial, we may rejoice in our affliction knowing our time on earth will translate into a glorious future (2Timothy 4:5; Colossians 3:1-4). God’s plan according to Romans 8:28-29 is to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ, and He does that by various means. One of which is suffering. Suffering is a powerful tool in God’s hand, but the prosperity gospel and seed-faith teaching says that God desires only for us to be healthy, happy, and wealthy. Yet Jesus told us that we would suffer in John 15:20 when he said: “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.” Furthermore, Paul encouraged and strengthened his fellow Christians by declaring in Acts 14:22, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
Trials and tribulations are very important in the life of believers. John Piper points to 6 benefits of suffering in the Christian’s life:
• Suffering deepens faith and holiness;
• Suffering makes your cup increase;
• Suffering makes others bold;
• Suffering fills up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions;
• Suffering enforces the missionary mandate to go;
• God’s ultimate desire is not to make you healthy and wealthy. He desires more than anything else to make you more like Jesus, which leads to true happiness.
5) It forces our gaze downward and stifles our hunger for Heaven.
What we need to understand is heavenly blessings do not equal earthly health and wealth. Paul makes it clear where we’re to fix our gaze in Colossians 3:1-4, “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” Paul says that the Christian’s hope is up Heaven, in the next life, and not on the earth. But the prosperity gospel and seed-faith teaching force our gaze constantly back down on the earth and the things of the earth—cars, houses, clothes, money, influence, prestige. In doing so, our hunger for Heaven is deadened
6) It prostitutes God.
I know that’s a strong verb, but I really see no other way of describing it. The prosperity gospel and seed-faith teaching implies that God is for sale and will dance at your whim if the money is right. How blasphemous to present God in that way! In the end, God is used for man’s pleasure just like a prostitute. It makes God a means to an end instead of the end Himself. It other words, the seed-faith teaching makes God a way to get what I really want. How belittling to the Creator and Lover of souls!
The gospel of greed dishonors God by cheapening the finished work of the cross, and by trampling grace and truth underfoot. The gospel of greed is a clever distortion of scripture designed to fill the bank accounts of pulpit thieves. From the pulpit, these wolves wale at the people to give more and decry their lack of faith to believe God for financial blessing. Blinded by greed and hardened to the call of repentance, they promote the gospel of greed unaware of its consequences to seekers of truth.
If you go on the Internet and search for those impacted by the gospel of greed, you will discover horror stories about people giving their entire life's savings in hope for a one-hundredfold return.
Matthew 7:15-16 says, "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits." The fruit growing from the branches of these ravenous wolves is a bank account exceeding the wealth of corporate executives, leaving their ministry supporters waiting for the one-hundredfold financial blessing that will never come. Regrettably, many supporters have and others will soon realize these unholy men and women of God are not what they say. These religious shysters view the body of Christ as a commodity of commerce, an object of earthly wealth to be looted by their manipulative doctrine punctuated with false promises and lies. The prosperity preachers are selling Jesus Christ at bargain basement prices, as though they alone have exclusive rights to profit from the God of our salvation.
In conclusion, the danger in the prosperity gospel is it will destroy the faith of many believers, preventing them from discovering the fullness of Christ. The seed-faith teaching blasphemes God and takes advantage of multitudes of gullible Christians. It’s a sad situation. It’s leading people to great disappointment and disillusionment. Just like a Ponzi scheme, the one who sends the money gets poorer, and the one receiving the money gets richer.
You can get Part 1&2 of the Greed Gospel here:
https://steemit.com/steemitchurch/@joejoesky/the-greed-gospel-part-2
https://steemit.com/steemitchurch/@joejoesky/the-greed-gospel-part-1
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