Session 4 - Ten Ways the Prosperity Gospel Maligns the True Gospel

The Purpose of the Session and the Danger of Prosperity Theology

This session is titled, 10 Ways Prosperity Theology Maligns the Gospel. It's a long title. If you want to just short form, you can just put 10 blasphemies, 10 heresies. You know, these are my 10 theses.

This session will help us understand conversation points, talking points, text message points, DM points, whatever you want to call them. These are anchors for you theologically. If someone were to say, okay, what's the big deal about the prosperity gospel?

Is it really, you know, an issue? Are you just mad? You know, who says that people can't be rich and be wealthy? And of course we know that wealth is not a sin. It's a responsibility. We're to use it well, use it faithfully.

We know all those things, but this is kind of the why. Why is the prosperity gospel so dangerous? What are the tenants of it that are blasphemous? And then in the next session before lunch, we'll look at what it means to be a church who stands firm.

And we'll talk through some of that. Let me pray and we'll jump in. Lord, as we walk through these 10 marks of why the prosperity gospel is so dangerous, would you hold high in our minds, your truth, your word, your glory, the beauty of what you are building in your church, and use these talking points in our lives.

Let them be tools in our toolboxes or tool belts of evangelism and dialogue. When we're trying to reach people, when we're asked a question, that we could go quickly to these truths, we could break down what your word truly says, and then tear down every thought, every ideology that raises itself up against your knowledge.

Let this be a session that equips us for trench work in evangelism and discipleship. In Jesus' name, amen. So one of the reasons that people will be blind to the prosperity gospel outside of biblical literacy, outside of them wanting these things, but in general, just the people that say, come on, what's the big deal?

Is how blissfully, perhaps not blissfully, but you understand what I'm saying, unaware they are of just how anti-Christian the prosperity gospel is. And if we truly understand how evil it is, then it's not difficult to see the satanic nature of it.

And the reason why every church, every pastor, and every Christian should be standing against this false gospel, and of course, being loud for the true gospel. Volumes have been written about this, and so I'm going to do my best to boil it all down into 10 concise truths of how or why the prosperity gospel maligns the true gospel.

The Prosperity Gospel Distorts the Biblical Gospel

Number one, the prosperity gospel distorts the biblical gospel. If this were Paul the apostle talking in Galatians 1, he would say, and he does write, it's really not a gospel at all. A false gospel isn't.

It's a so-called gospel. It's so-called good news, but it's not, which is why more and more I would opt to just call it prosperity theology, or the so-called prosperity gospel. The biblical gospel can be properly understood by looking at biblical passages on the gospel.

You know these if you took Iwana as a kid. Romans 5, 8 through 10, Paul declares, but God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him in Christ.

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we will be saved by his life. This is the true gospel and what the gospel is about.

In Romans 3, 23 through 25, we read that sin is something we've all committed, that all fall short of the glory of God, and Paul writes that, and then says, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith.

This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed. That is the gospel. Finally, and what is perhaps the most comprehensive passage about the gospel, and one of my personal favorites, if you were to just go to Ephesians 2 and live in verses 1 through 10, you would see it all right there.

It's plain as day. By the time you get to verse 4 and you've understood that we were all dead in trespasses and sins, Paul writes, but God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, and then he says, by grace you've been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus, for by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves.

It's the gift of God, not as the result of works, so that no one may boast. All of these things are so clear when it comes to the gospel. Paul, going on to say, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so we should walk in them.

When you look at passages about the gospel in the Bible, what do you notice? The gospel is all about who you were, dead, sinner, lost, damned, condemned, what Christ did, and now who you are. That's what it's about.

The gospel is not about what we receive materially, but rather what we've received spiritually. The gospel is about redemption, about salvation, not just from sin, but from the wrath of God. That's what the gospel is about.

It's not about the gifts, it's about the giver. It's not even about the redeemed, but really about the Redeemer. It's all about him. In a way, we're a byproduct, a gift from the Father to the Son, a people bought, redeemed, loved, called.

All of that is wrapped up in what is good news. Why is it good news? Well, because there is bad news. You're a sinner. You are condemned. You have the wrath of God pointed at you. I had the wrath of God pointed at me.

And because of Christ, there is propitiation, a substitute. That's the gospel. The prosperity gospel distorts all of that by making the good news about what you can get out of God materially. That if you follow Jesus, the John 10 verse 10 abundant life is not a full, peaceful, joyful life.

Even if you died young as a martyr, even if you suffered in trial here on earth, you know that great joy awaits you. Blessing in heaven awaits you because you know they make John 10 10 all about stuff that the abundant life is Bentleys and mansions and job promotions and guaranteed healing and great relationships and a promotion at this job and the next job and a legacy in your children, all of it, you enjoying the good life.

That's not at all what the abundant life is about. When Jesus says in John 10 10, the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. But I have come that you may have life and life more abundantly. It is about the security of your soul for all eternity, the joy, treasure and riches of heaven, ultimately the greatest treasure of all, the great reward himself being Christ and being with him for all of eternity.

This is the abundant life. It's not about a comfortable 70 years and a little retirement on some lazy green acres and playing lots of golf and driving nice cars. It's about being saved from the wrath of God.

The Prosperity Gospel Insults God's Nature

The prosperity gospel distorts the biblical gospel. Number two, the prosperity gospel insults God's nature, insults God's nature. God is divinely infinite. He's beyond our human comprehension. One of the most important truths that you could study, and if you haven't, this is a great opportunity for you to do that after this conference and to spend great time jumping into the attributes of God, that you would know him and comprehend whatever level you're able to by his revelation.

You can see who he is and understand who he is and know what he's revealed. Of course, he's infinite and not even fully knowable on this side of heaven, but you can know enough about God to see his nature and all of his attributes.

He's made himself known, and when you get to know him, you find he's not some formula. He's not some magic genie. If you give enough money and make a confession of faith and say the right things and get under the right anointed leader who can unlock the blessings of God in your life that you'd have it all, not at all.

He's not that. He is eternal. Time cannot hold him. He cannot be manipulated. He does not tolerate sin and licentiousness and deception. He is holy, the definition of perfection, and he's sovereign. He's the majestic ruler over the entire universe in every single way, shape, and form.

Psalm 115 .3, one of my favorite passages after I was saved, but our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. God is sovereign over all things. Job said this, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will return there.

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In Job 1 .21, John 4 .24, means there's no words. Jesus says God is spirit. Those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

Think about the conversation with the woman there at the well. Worship no longer about a place, but about a person. It's all about God, all about Christ, all about his glory. We've got to realize that God in his nature, in his holiness, in his majesty, it's not something we manipulate, not something we ever talk about in the ways that prosperity preachers do.

The truth about God is something we submit to. In stark contrast, the prosperity gospel teaches that God is essentially a puppet on your string. You can manipulate him and make him do whatever it is you want him to do or would like him to do that'll grant your wishes if you do these things.

That's a works-based reward system, no doubt, but I would even go further to say it's a works-based gospel. It turns God into nothing more than a cosmic banker, and he is a transactional being who just gives you what you want and what you're after.

That is dangerous, it is abusive, it does not introduce people to their creator in the right way, in the biblical way. It leads people to come to know a God who is not God at all. He's a God of their own imagination.

That, if anything, is what you should take away from the last session in the historical heretics who basically made up a version of God that is not at all the biblical God. And so the prosperity gospel insults his nature.

We are called to be ambassadors who represent precisely who he is according to scripture. Number three, the prosperity gospel confuses the atonement, confuses the atonement. The atonement can be defined simply as what Jesus did when he went to the cross and he bore our sins and he conquered death by rising from the grave.

To atone for something means that you have paid for it, you've made amends, you've made it right. And Jesus provided redemption and atonement for us as lost sinners. He was the atonement lamb, he paid the for our sins, he bore the wrath of God that you and I would not now as his people.

The benefits of the atonement are eternal. In most of what the Bible describes, there is an eternal picture when it comes to the atonement. Are there side benefits, if you will, here on earth? Of course.

You and I are sitting here right now. This is a side benefit. It's a temporal benefit because of the atonement. Yes. Is there a promise of what's to come? Of course. Did you wake up this morning with great peace, joy in your heart, assurance of salvation, a confidence?

I hope so. If you're truly saved and you know you're saved, then you did. And while in this area, I could say that I woke up with a great deal of peace because there was a rabbit eating outside of the cabin I'm staying in and there was green everywhere and I had my instrumental hymns playing and the coffee was on and as a dad of five kids, in a way, I do miss them.

But in other ways, I briefly enjoyed the silence of the morning and there wasn't a soul around. And then I did text my wife and say, I love you, I miss you, I'm sure it was a long night for you, missing you and wishing you were here.

And I sent her a photo of the little bunny eating in the grass right outside the forest that surrounds my accommodations. There's a lot of reasons to feel peace. There's a lot of common grace benefits.

But ultimately, the great benefit of the atonement is that your soul is secure. You are bought, saved, justified, free from the condemnation that would be yours if you were not in Christ. This is what we're promised.

And are there other benefits to come because of the atonement? Yes. In heaven, there will be no more sickness. In heaven, there will be no war. There will be no death. There will be no pain. There will be no divorce.

There will be no broken relationships. There will be no wayward, prodigal children. There will be none of those things. Why? Because Christ has bought and paid for everything. And what awaits us is the perfection of heaven.

Entrance into that perfection to enjoy the doxa glory of God in eternity. Why? Because he bought you. That is a benefit. But no, you will not experience on earth wealth, guaranteed health, guaranteed perfection, guaranteed healing, guaranteed salvation for every single person that is in your family, or guaranteed ease and comfort simply because of the atonement.

What a lot of prosperity preachers do is they write checks with their mouths that the Bible doesn't cash. They say, Jesus not only died and atoned for your salvation, but he also died to atone for sickness.

And if you are sick, it's because you've not received what he's already freely given. They make it all about salvation and sickness as a package deal, or salvation and healing. They will say that Jesus' death on the cross didn't just provide for you the riches of eternal life, but also earthly riches here in this life.

All you have to do by faith is tap into those things he's already paid for. This is damaging. It's a lie that makes people feel as though they don't have enough faith, and it takes the beautiful work of the atonement, and it demeans it so much that it's simply a cheap transaction that makes it all about you and your fleeting pleasures.

The Prosperity Gospel Demeans Jesus Christ

In that, number four, the prosperity gospel then demeans Jesus Christ. It demeans Jesus Christ. Paul says, to live is Christ, to die is gain in Philippians 1 .21. John the Baptist says in John 3 .30, he must increase, I must decrease.

Over and over, the Bible explains the glory of Jesus Christ as the be all, end all. You look at Hebrews chapter one. You just walk through those first 10 verses and you see he's the radiance of his glory.

He's everything. Jesus is wholly other, set apart, different. He is the sustainer of all things. Whoever has Jesus has life, 1 John 5 .12 says. He's the only way to heaven, John 14 .6 says. Without Jesus, even heaven would be hell.

People often think about heaven and say, oh, I want to be with my loved ones. I can't wait to reunite, and other pagan people at these funerals I've been at before or heard, you know, they get up there and they act like God is their homeboy in heaven.

They say these things. At a funeral not long ago, a guy got up and said, hey man, crack one with the big guy upstairs and have one ready for me. I'll be there soon. And I just thought, what a way to view God.

What a blasphemous picture. Recently talking with another person who's outside of the Christian faith about a loved one they had lost, and the entire conversation was about how they can't wait to hang out with their loved ones again in heaven.

It's all about hanging out in heaven. I begin to obviously unpack the gospel and that there won't be any hanging out in heaven for you unless you repent and turn to Christ. So often Jesus is sort of the cherry on top of our American dream, and that's what gets a lot of people into these churches and into these troubles in which they spend 15 to 20 years in some seeker-driven megachurch because they walked an aisle, they prayed a prayer, and they thought they were good, and Jesus is so good.

God is so good. Why? Because my kid's on the honor roll, and my kid got a scholarship, and he's so good at sports, and we have a beautiful home, and everything's so good in our life. God is so good. Jesus is awesome, and then they go through trials, and they get mad at God, and they lose their faith.

Well, it wasn't a faith in the first place, and that wasn't Jesus. That was an American dream version. This is what the prosperity gospel sells. All the health and wealth this world can offer will never compare with the vast riches of Christ and eternity with Him.

Jesus is everything to the believer. The prosperity gospel makes human satisfaction and material in Jesus to be just sort of the cherry on top of our already great life. I remember hearing Kenneth Copeland say something to this degree, that I know there's treasure in heaven, but who says we can't have that now?

As though faith is like swiping your debit card, punching in the code, and reigning down from heaven is the real treasures and the riches. This delivers a gospel that is no gospel at all, and a version of Jesus that is not our Lord at all.

It demeans Jesus Christ. Number five, the prosperity gospel then, of course, twists Scripture. To get these things, you've got to twist God's Word. The Bible is a big book, and it can seem really intimidating for people, but upon investigation, you can find out how simple it is still to approach God's Word the right way.

The Bible is a compilation of Spirit-inspired writings through human authors carried along by the Spirit of God to various audiences with various applications. It's not that hard to approach the gospels or the epistles for what they are.

We complicate it, prosperity preachers do, when they do what is typically called eisegesis, which is simply to pull out some random thing from the Bible and then make it mean whatever you want, or to simply read yourself into the text.

And this is where we get funny one-liners like, hey, you're not David. You know, people will preach David and Goliath. They'll preach the story, and they'll say, I wonder what giants you're facing in your life right now.

Maybe that Goliath of debt needs the stone of faith to bring it down. You think, how about you just stop overspending? Maybe go to Proverbs and see some principles from wisdom literature. Proverbs 6, in particular, will be really helpful for not racking the credit card and then having to use the narrative about David and Goliath as some get-out-of-debt story.

There's a whole lot of others I could go on. You could preach entire sermons on this type of lunacy and then beeline to sound hermeneutics, and there's a place for that. If you're looking for a book that will help you, Nate Pikowitz, a real dear brother of ours, wrote a book called How to Eat Your Bible.

Anybody heard of that book? Awesome. Okay, some of you. The rest of you, you need to buy that book. It's short. It's a little blue book. It's cheap, and he's done a great job giving you a very palatable way to approach the Bible.

It's not hard. We just need to give ourselves to proper hermeneutics and the understanding of Scripture. We also need to be careful if we're going to teach God's Word. James 3 says, let not many of you become teachers, lest you incur a stricter judgment.

There's a weightiness to teaching. The prosperity gospel takes the age-old, time-tested interpretive strategies that Bible scholars have used for generations and turns them upside down. They throw the rules for hermeneutics out the window.

However you feel about a passage, that's what you preach, as long as it'll preach. Of course, this leads now to characters like Stephen Furtick and the latest player who's eclipsed them all, it seems, Michael Todd, the pastor of Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to say and preach things that are barely fit to even quote in the pulpit.

If their strategy was to be so blasphemous and so outlandish that not even Justin Peters would quote them in a seminar, they're accomplishing their goal like an evil imposter, taking a heartfelt letter from a king to his royal subjects and twisting it for self-serving purposes that it was never intended to be.

Prosperity preachers take the Bible and they twist it into a tool for their own abusive purposes. Number six, the prosperity gospel then is motivated by a love for money. Motivated by a love for money.

And money is like a microscope. It magnifies what's really going on inside of the heart. God, knowing that money would be no small issue for human beings, gave instructions in the Bible for using it well, making it the right ways.

It's again, not a sin to be wealthy, hardworking people, wise and prudent people will amass for themselves some level of wealth in whatever God would providentially allow. And the Proverbs are full of wisdom that will save you a lot of health and wealth gospel headaches.

Wisdom is better than riches, Proverbs 3 .13 says. Trusting in riches will do you little good, Proverbs 11 .28 says. Money gained by deception doesn't last, Proverbs 10 .2. If somebody were to ask me, what happened to all the houses?

What happened to all the money? How are these people living now, even in our family? I'll tell you this, that whether before they die or just shortly after, like the Proverbs say, ill-gotten gains don't last.

You watch, and over the course of just a couple of decades, the decline of these ministries is so clear. I think it's in a way a kindness of sorts when it happens during their lifetime, because perhaps maybe God will grant repentance, there'll be a wake-up call.

But for many of these people, the fear and the crushing weight of brokenheartedness is for their children and their churches. When after these men and women die, their legacy leaves a body count that only heaven will fully tell the story of.

It doesn't last. The damage wreaks havoc. Beyond Proverbs, the Bible says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil in 1 Timothy 6 .10. And so where you have the love of money in ministry, you will have wickedness and evil.

The prosperity gospel is obsessed with money and material gain. We need to understand nothing comes from the love of money that honors the Lord. Number seven, the prosperity gospel produces false converts.

It produces false converts. If the prosperity gospel is not the real gospel, if it's Jesus is not the real Jesus, if the word preached is not the actual word preached faithfully, then many people chasing the prosperity gospel and believing in this gospel aren't actually saved.

And without broad-brushing every human soul that's involved in these movements to say that they're just all hell-bound, it is no stretch to say that there are millions of false converts in these movements.

We have to say that. They think they're saved, but they're deceived. And so that's why our mission becomes so vital. This isn't fun. It's fun to think about how God has saved us, but it's not fun to think about how many millions of people are deceived.

If anything, you think, wow, there's work to be done. The work of evangelism, the work of discipleship, the work of pleading with souls, and God will do it. There's many people in those movements that will be saved.

Many sheep will come home. I think of, you know, 15 years ago, there were many of you who were saved, there were many faithful people in ministry, and I was lost. And thankfully, they didn't stop putting out resources and proclaiming the truth.

And so you have to understand that God will still do what He does. But there are so many false converts in these movements, and they are in bondage. The confusion that they're under is not the mark of the Spirit's work.

The Holy Spirit they claim to know and represent is not the Holy Spirit of the Bible. And what the Holy Spirit does and what His resume shows to be true is what Jesus says in John 16. He guides the disciples into truth, and you could say by secondary benefit and extension, the Holy Spirit will also guide us into the truth.

Now those men were being guided into the truth of writing Scripture, but is the Holy Spirit going to ever guide us into error? No. Is that His ministry? Is that consistent? Like He was able to help the biblical authors with their accuracy, and to write the truth, and to recall the truth.

But then for us, well, you know, He'll lead you into verdicts ministry, because there's some good in it. Or, well, everybody's human, so everybody makes mistakes, but as long as you just claim Jesus. This is what we see on these interviews when, whether it's Joel Osteen or somebody else who goes on Larry King, and essentially, you know, I don't know.

I don't know. I just, if somebody claims Jesus, though, that's faith. You know, that's a Jesus, and we're on the same team. No, we're not. What you have is mass false conversion because of a false gospel.

The Prosperity Gospel Overcomplicates Faith

Number eight, the prosperity gospel overcomplicates faith. It makes it so complicated. You talk to people in these movements, and some of you perhaps remember when you were in these movements, and the bondage, and the spiritual abuse, the feelings like you're never good enough.

You're never doing enough. Why? Well, you just don't have enough faith. If only I had more faith. When it comes to our salvation, faith is a monumentally important thing to understand. It's also very simple.

The idea, the Greek word pistis, is to throw oneself upon something, to trust fully, to believe, to have faith. That's faith. Simple. That you would believe on Jesus Christ. That he would be your only hope, your only trust for salvation.

That is faith that saves. Jesus promises in Matthew 11 30 that his yoke is easy, his burden is light. He did not make it complicated. In fact, it was so simple that the Judaizers were really mad at Paul because he was preaching the free gift of salvation.

Well, what do you do? Nothing. Okay, but we should still be circumcised and keep the law, right? No. No. Just believe. Okay, you're preaching a people-pleasing gospel now, Paul. You're just trying to make it too easy.

Faith is simple. Faith is not giving money to get God's love. It's not paying a fee for his saving grace. Faith isn't going broke to get healed, although some will say, you just need to have faith. Take a step of faith.

Give that seed of faith. Nope. It's not traveling to a special service to get healing or get the anointing. Faith is repenting of your sin, no longer trusting in yourself and your own ways to be saved or to live your life, but to trust fully on Jesus Christ alone to be saved from the wrath of God.

That's faith. Simple. Any religion that says you need to do good works, give enough money, speak enough positive declarations, or do anything to unlock God's saving grace or his blessings upon you is a false religion.

The prosperity gospel turns faith on its head, making it some other heretical version that isn't true faith at all. If anything, while we'll be accused of being Pharisees, because we call this stuff out, the Pharisees, by definition, added things to the law, keeped burdens on people they couldn't carry, and put rules and regulations on people they themselves did not even keep.

They took advantage of widows. They were corrupt when it came to money. The Pharisees are not those who call out error and proclaim the truth. The real Pharisees are the heretics and the blasphemers who preach the prosperity gospel.

They are the ones heaping burdens on people that they can never carry, manipulating and exploiting. The words we see in Luke 11, 46 are not true of men like your pastor or others who are faithful, but rather false teachers.

The Prosperity Gospel Ruins Christianity's Witness

Ninth, the prosperity gospel ruins Christianity's witness. Jesus says in Luke 14, 33, so then none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all of his possessions. So when you preach a gospel that says following Jesus will get you more possessions, you have, in fact, trampled a foot on our witness, our actual purpose.

Prosperity preachers misrepresent us. Now, numbering in the hundreds of millions around the world, prosperity gospel followers have bought into a version of Christianity that isn't Christianity at all.

The prosperity gospel worships material goods, and men and women who preach the prosperity gospel are laughing their way to the bank. The world looks on as it makes a mockery of this as well. It's not just the people that are false converts buying into it.

You can do some Googling or YouTubing of Comedy Central and all the other spoofs that comedians have put out, because prosperity preachers are one of their favorite punchlines. You think people say, well, all preachers want is your money.

Why? Because the most popular preachers today really do. And so we have work to do to be faithful. Christian leaders are expected to be free from the love of money, 1 Timothy 3, 3. We don't obsess over how to raid the offering buckets.

We're expected to care for people as loving, humble, exemplary shepherds. 1 Peter 5, 2 is so clear about that. We're not manipulative salesmen. We're expected to use our God-given authority to protect people and care for them, not to exploit them.

We steer the church into the truth. Hebrews 13, 17 tells the people of God to be submissive to their leaders, and then says, for they keep watch over your soul as ones who will give an account. If leaders operated the way the New Testament calls us to, more in mass, our witness would be more accurately and more biblically presented.

The prosperity gospel is a stain on the name of Christ. Finally, the prosperity gospel abuses vulnerable people. Vulnerable people are abused by the prosperity gospel. Yes, there are many who raise up these teachers in accordance with their own desires, but there are many, like a brother just came up at the end of the last session to tell me about his father, who was a faithful man, a dear pastor, and at one point just desperate for healing, hoping to just maybe discover that this particular faith healer that said he could heal, maybe he can do it, and he went to one of his services.

You think about Justin Peters, who went as a young child to a supposed healer. Parents that are just hopeful that maybe, maybe, out of all the liars, maybe just one of them is telling the truth, or maybe God would just kindly make an exception, because we have good intentions.

The prosperity gospel attracts people, yes, who are looking to get rich, but it attracts many others who are desperate and who are vulnerable and who need a pastor who will love them and protect them and give them real hope through the hope of the real gospel.

So many churches are overrun by charlatans, and so faithful churches have to say enough is enough, we're not going to play the game, we're going to do it the right way, we're going to be faithful, we're going to make the hard decisions, preach the hard truths.

Why? Because we love Christ and we love His bride. We do not want to abuse or exploit vulnerable people. People should come to our churches and experience healing, and more often than not, that should be a restorative spiritual healing.

It is good and right. We should be hearing people say, you know what's just so amazing about this church? What? It just is so refreshing. I feel loved. I feel cared for. I feel like I'm healing from so many of the things that have tormented me spiritually.

It's so simple. I just wish I knew this sooner. I wish I had a pastor like you sooner. I wish I had friends and family like this sooner. The prosperity gospel is abusing vulnerable people. This ought to motivate us, that we would stand firm and we would trust the Lord, preach the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it would be, knowing that true healing begins when we've got the right diagnosis, and we can say accurately, biblically, faithfully, that the prosperity gospel is a disease, but the true gospel and faithfulness to God's Word is the solution.

That's 10 ways in which the prosperity gospel maligns the true gospel, and hopefully helpful talking points and things for you to consider and study. We are going to take a 10-minute break, and then we're going to talk about a church standing firm, and then we are going to have, well, it's normal for you, but for me, some of the best barbecue that I get to enjoy.

Enjoy your break.