The Prosperity Heresy

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me and take out to the chapter of Matthew, chapter six.
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And we're going to read verses 19 to 24.
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Now, I have no intention of doing this many verses all together in one week.
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But what I often do when there's a passage like this, where it all speaks to one issue, is I'll give an overview and then go back in the weeks coming and break down the individual verses.
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So that is where we are today.
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We're in the overview of this passage.
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And the title of today's message is The Prosperity Heresy.
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So let us begin by reading Matthew, chapter six, verse 19.
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Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.
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But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
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For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
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The eye is the lamp of the body.
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So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.
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But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
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If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness.
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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.
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You cannot serve God and money.
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Father in heaven, we thank you for your word.
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I pray first and foremost that you would keep me from error, for I am certainly capable of preaching error.
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And Father, I pray that you would protect me and the congregation and Lord, keep us tied to the truth of the word.
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I pray as we speak on this subject today, which is so infiltrated the hearts and minds of people who would consider themselves Christian that we would not look upon them with a judgmental heart, but that we would allow the word of God to be the judge and that we would pray for their repentance, that we might see a revival of true preaching.
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And an abandonment of heresy in our land and around our world is our prayer.
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Father, be with us by the power of your spirit.
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In Jesus name we pray.
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Amen.
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The more that I survey the landscape of evangelical Christianity today, the more I am convinced that the most pervasive and destructive heresy which has captivated the minds of people is the heresy known as prosperity gospel.
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Now, when I did something specific in my notes, every time I put the word prosperity gospel, I intentionally put lowercase g.
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Normally, when I put the gospel in my notes, it is a uppercase G.
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But my point in my own mind was to indicate that this is not the gospel.
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It's a hijacking of the word gospel and an application to it that is unbiblical and ungodly.
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People flock to have their ears filled with all manner of false teaching regarding how they might be recipients of abundance, prosperity, favor, glory, and the list goes on and on.
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I remember years ago, I went to buy an automobile and I was I was going through the paperwork process.
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And the lady behind the counter asked me, as they always do, what do you do for a living? You know, she's filling out the paperwork.
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And I said, I'm a minister.
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And she goes, well, you have nothing to worry about then.
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Not that I had anything to worry about to begin with.
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I mean, in regard to going through all the paperwork, you have nothing to worry about because you have favor.
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Whatever that means.
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But that was her, but that was that was she want to let me know you have nothing to worry about, Pastor, you have favor.
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We have certainly reached.
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The time prophesied by the Apostle Paul.
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When he said in Second Timothy, four, three, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves, teachers to suit their own pleasures and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
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One of the things we need to understand from that passage is this.
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The people who sit under this preaching are not victims of these false teachers.
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They're the reason why they exist, because people want it.
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People want to have their ears tickled.
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People want this teaching.
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That's why Joel Osteen rises up.
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That's why Kenneth Hagin rises up.
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That's why Gloria and Kenneth Copeland rise up.
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That's why people like that rise up is because people want it.
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Because it satisfies the natural heart and the depraved minds, their judgments on these people.
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They the people are not victims.
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They have demanded it like the people of Israel who demanded King Saul because we must have a king.
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These people have demanded this false teaching and thus God has risen up false prophets as judgments against them.
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Well, God wouldn't do that.
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Read the Old Testament and call me back.
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You don't think God would.
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Send upon them a spirit of deception because they want it, beloved, it's it's the truth.
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I want I have brought with me today.
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Some snippets.
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Of teachings, and I just want to share with you, because I think some people think I exaggerate.
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But, beloved, this is the this is the most important thing in the world.
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Some of those of you who've known me for long enough know that I truly believe that the gospel is the most important thing in the world, because it's the only thing in the world that really is of eternal consequence.
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You and I can disagree about football teams.
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We can disagree about all kinds of stuff.
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We can disagree about whether or not we like Ford or Chevrolet.
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We can disagree about whether we like hunting or fishing or guns or not.
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And you can be wrong about a lot of those things.
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And that's fine.
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But we cannot afford to be wrong about the gospel, for it is of eternal consequence.
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And yet, when you tag the word prosperity on to the word gospel, it becomes a little false teaching, and it's no longer the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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It's the gospel of prosperity.
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And it's not a gospel at all.
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This is Kenneth Copeland, and I quote, The basic principle of Christian life is to know that God put our sin, sickness, disease, sorrow, grief and poverty.
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On Jesus Christ at Calvary, you might say, well, what's wrong with that, beloved? Everything's wrong with that.
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Because what they have done is they have established a principle whereby because you are a quote unquote child of the king.
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Poverty is not something that King's children have, and thus, if you are impoverished, if you are not living in abundance financially, then you're not a child of the king.
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Thus, your bank statement indicates your level of spirituality.
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His wife goes on to say, Gloria, God's prosperity isn't just financial blessings.
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It also includes healing, protection, favor.
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There's that word again, wisdom, success, well-being and every good thing you could possibly need.
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All the good things Jesus paid for you to have.
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You see, this is that misunderstanding of that passage where the Bible says, by his stripes, we are healed.
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And you see what they say is he heals us from all sins and poverty is a sin.
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So your poverty is healed in the cross of Jesus.
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It's a terrible, by the way, I plan my preaching calendar out for, you know, because I preach verse by verse.
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I'm going to be preaching through first and second Peter sometime in the next two years.
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And I'm going to address the subject when Peter talks about by his stripes, we're healed.
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Beloved, the healing is not temporal.
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Jesus didn't die on the cross to heal you of temporal poverty or even temporal sickness.
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He died on the cross to take your sins upon himself and to give to you his blessed righteousness.
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And to apply that to something temporal is to steal the majesty of the cross.
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John Avanzini, I don't know if I'm saying that right.
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He said this, Jesus had a nice big house.
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Jesus handled big money and Jesus wore designer clothing.
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Robert Tilton teaches what is called the law of compensation, which is that when you give, it's to get for yourself.
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Gloria Copeland puts it like this.
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Give ten dollars, receive a thousand.
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Give a thousand, receive a hundred thousand.
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You see, it's all about self and getting for me, Creflo Dollar, the aptly named Creflo Dollar.
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When we pray, this is him saying this, when we pray, believing that we already have received what we are what we are praying, God has no choice.
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I just have a hard time going past that.
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But this God has no choice but to make our prayers come to pass.
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It is the key to getting results as a Christian.
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Beloved, that is heresy.
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God does whatever he jolly well pleases.
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That's the vernacular of Isaiah 46, says God does what he wants in the heavens and on the earth and under the earth.
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God does what he pleases.
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Benny Hinn, 2013, Benny Hinn pleaded with his followers to send two point five million dollars to rescue his ministry from debt.
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Ironic being that he preaches a prosperity gospel.
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Why are you in debt? Well, he promised send the money and you will receive a double return on your investment.
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Can't beat that.
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Little Joey Osteen out in Texas.
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God has already done everything he's going to do.
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The ball is now in your court.
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If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you're going to have to do more than meditate and believe.
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You must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and family.
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Beloved, that goes back to an old heresy.
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The word faith movement was born out of a pagan heresy called New Thought.
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It's not something that comes out of scripture.
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The New Thought idea was that you can literally speak things into existence.
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And this, of course, gets tied to God speaking things into existence.
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And thus this false theology grows.
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Frederick Price, another athlete named Teacher.
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He said this, God has pleasure in prosperity, so he must have displeasure in poverty.
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So if he does, then poverty couldn't be from God.
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Yes.
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But Brother Price, God allows it.
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God lets it happen.
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You're right.
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He does.
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He does because you do.
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He can't do anything about it.
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This is Frederick Price.
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And he goes on to say, God has to be given permission to work in this realm on behalf of man.
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You are in control.
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And he's just he's parodying Miles Monroe, who said, let me define prayer for you.
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Prayer is man giving God permission or license to interfere in his affairs.
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Prayer is earthly license for heavenly interference.
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God could do nothing on Earth without a human giving him access, giving him permission.
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End quote.
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Beloved, that should make our stomachs turn.
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Another one famous well-known prosperity gospel proponent rewrote the 23rd Psalm.
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We all know the 23rd Psalm.
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The Lord is my shepherd.
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I shall not want to make me lie down in green pastures.
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He laid it to me beside the still waters.
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He restored my soul.
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We're familiar with this.
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Here is the prosperity gospel version of the 23rd Psalm.
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The Lord is my banker.
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My credit is good.
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He maketh me to lie down in the consciousness of omnipresent abundance.
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He giveth me the key to his strong box.
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He restoreth my faith in his riches.
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He guideth me in the paths of prosperity for name's sake, yea, though I walk in the very shadow of debt, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me, thy silver and thy gold.
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They secure me.
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Thou preparest a way for me in the present presence of my collector.
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Thou fillest my wallet with plenty.
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My measure runneth over.
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Surely goodness and plenty will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall do business in the name of the Lord forever.
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And, you know, it's sad where I found that there was an opportunity for comments because that was online and comments.
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Underneath.
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Everyone, amen.
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Yes, Lord, praise God, amen, amen, amen.
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Not one person said.
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That's heresy, Jesus said.
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My kingdom is not of this world.
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John, 18 and 36, yet so many people claim to follow him and they're bent on making a kingdom here for themselves to fill their barns full, to build new barns with their names and lights.
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The attitude of the prosperity gospel is why wait for my mansion in heaven when I can have my mansion here? Now, some some may be asking the question, Pastor, why pick on the prosperity teachers? They're just wanting to make people's lives better.
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Here's the answer.
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They are heretics.
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They are charlatans.
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They do not help people.
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They line their pockets at the expense of their hearers and they deserve to be called out.
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That is why we say what we say.
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Do you know what a pyramid scheme is also known as multilevel marketing? The person at the top of the pyramid, the money funnels up and he is the beneficiary.
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And at the bottom, there's less and less and less and less.
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It's illegal, by the way, pyramid schemes are illegal.
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But if you compare the model of the modern prosperity movement with a pyramid scheme, it's very similar because the false promise of riches keeps the people at the bottom willing to participate.
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The false promise of prosperity coming from those who are already rich.
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Because they're fleecing the flock underneath them.
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And why do the people keep giving? Because my blessing is coming.
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My blessing is due.
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I heard a lady called Pat Robertson, who is also a heretic, and I don't throw that word around to be ugly.
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Pat Robertson says some crazy stuff.
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He told a woman who was he told a man who wanted to leave his wife because she had cancer that that was OK.
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Brother, you are that's dirty pool.
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But that's not the point here, but that kind of stuff is just dirty.
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But here's the thing, what he said, 80 year old woman calls him.
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Now, this woman was fully entrenched in prosperity theology.
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She calls Pat Robertson and she says, brother, she said, I have I have given a tithe of everything that I have all throughout my life.
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I've I've been faithful to God.
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She almost sounded like the Pharisee in Jesus's story, the Pharisee and tax collector.
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I tithe a tenth of my income and I do this and I do that and I do this other.
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I mean, she just she rattled off all these things that she does and I trust by faith my blessing is coming.
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But yet and this was her her problem, what she was calling Robertson for.
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She said, but at the end of the month, my husband and I are always lower than what we have need for.
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Why is it that I'm always in need if I'm doing what you tell me I'm supposed to do? I give and I do this and I tithe and I don't have any ill will towards people and I pray in faith knowing God's going to do this.
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Why is it that I am always less than what I need? And here is the answer.
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Get a job if I'm lying, I'm dying, I can pull it up right now on my iPad and let you listen to it.
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He said to an 80 year old woman, you got anything in your attic you could sell, have a yard sale.
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Look in the want ads, make a few phone calls, get a job, but what do you what could he say? My magic trick didn't work.
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Your prayers of faith have not given you the omnibenevolent abundance that you expected.
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Thus, what? Get a job, John Piper, who is a good pastor, I don't want him to get confused now because John Piper is a good guy.
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I'm going to quote him.
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I want you to think I'm confusing him with the with the with the heretics.
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John Piper said this.
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In a prayer, his prayer was that we break free from the Disneyland of America and begin to live lifestyles of missionary sacrifice that looks to the world like our treasure is in heaven and not on Earth.
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It's the only way the prosperity gospel will not make anybody praise Jesus.
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It will only make people praise prosperity.
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Of course, I will have a Jesus who will give me a car who wouldn't want a Jesus who will give me help, a car, a fine marriage.
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I'll take your Jesus if the payoff is right, end quote.
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Beloved, that's the Jesus that's being presented by these false teachers.
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It's a Jesus with a payoff.
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It's a BMW.
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It's a Maserati.
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It's a mansion.
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It's a filled bank account.
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It's a filled stomach.
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It's a filled anything following Jesus for Jesus's sake is not enough.
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There must be a payoff.
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The church must never stand idly by in regard to heresy, beloved, in the early church, people say, why do you speak against false teaching? Do you read church history at all? Do you understand that the reason why God raised up men like Athanasius and the reason men raised the reason why God raised up men like Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and the reason why men God raised up men like Jonathan Edwards and other things like that were to preach truth.
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Even when the people didn't want the truth, Athanasius stood against the Aryan heresy in the fourth century and he ended up Athanasius Contramundrum, that was a statement in Latin that comes out of the fourth century and what it means is Athanasius against the world because he was the only one who was standing up for the gospel, not in reality there were others, but it was seeming to be him alone.
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But yet he said we must stand.
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We cannot simply live and let live.
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We must name and claim heresy to use their term.
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We must.
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Second, Peter, chapter two, verse one says, but false prophets also arose among the people just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresy.
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They don't come in with a big sign that says, hi, I'm Jim Jones and we're going to drink Kool-Aid today.
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Nobody does that.
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They come in seemingly to be just like all the rest and they secretly bring in these destructive heresies and they garner a following.
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And souls are murdered as a result.
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The apostle Paul in the books of Timothy was not shamed to name names.
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Alexander, Hymenaeus, Philetus, these are men that Paul named by name and said, do not follow such as these.
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What are the heresies of the prosperity teaching? I want to give you five things.
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This comes from Mark Dever.
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How many of you know Mark? Mark Dever is a great teacher to I think it's Capitol Hill Church.
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It's in Washington, D.C., of all places.
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Great church, great pastor, terrible location.
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But he Mark Dever.
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He on nine marks is the name of his ministry.
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And he put out five things, he said, these are the five major errors of the prosperity gospel movement, I would give them to you.
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Number one, the Abrahamic covenant is a means of material entitlement.
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I don't know if you know the Abrahamic covenant, Genesis chapter 12, when God promised Abraham the land and when God promised Abraham the blessings, they take that promise, they extract it from Abraham and his and the context and they apply it to us and say this, it involves prosperity in regard to land and property and houses and those things.
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So that's one of the first things they have misunderstood the Abrahamic covenant and reapplied it in a place that never was intended to be applied.
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Number two, Jesus's atonement extends to the sin of poverty.
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We've already mentioned this one, so I won't spend too much time, but that stripes he is healed verse does not apply to your poverty or even to your health that applies to your soul.
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Number three, Christians give in order to gain material compensation from God.
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What verse do they use given it will be given to you? See, Jesus taught prosperity.
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That's false.
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It's a misunderstanding of what Jesus is saying, especially in regard to treasure.
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Do you really think that in that passage, when Jesus talks about pressed down, shaken together, running over, that he's really talking about this life? When he could Jesus contradict himself? Because Jesus is the one who told us that our goal in making money was to share.
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We don't gain to store, we gain to share.
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So do you really think that Jesus is running over principle had anything to do with you having a Maserati or a mansion? No.
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Number four, faith is a self-generated spiritual force that force that leads to prosperity.
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You see, when you hear these people talk about faith, they are talking about an understanding of faith as an actual power.
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Faith has the power to do something that faith is what heals.
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I've heard people say Jesus never healed anyone.
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They were healed by their faith.
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You know what story I always like to respond with? When Peter was going into the gate, beautiful, this is after the resurrection, the ascension, when Peter is going into the to the city and the man is sitting there asking for a handout and Peter said, what silver and gold have I none, but this I have to you in the name of Jesus Christ, rise and walk.
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And the guy got up and they walked in together.
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Beloved, that man didn't have faith from nothing.
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He was asking for a handout.
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He didn't know who Peter was.
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He didn't know anything.
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It's something to consider when they say it's your faith that does this magic trick of healing.
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Now, number five, prayer is a tool to force God to grant prosperity.
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And again, we've already read or we've already heard what Myles Monroe said, that when we pray, we're giving God permission to do something for us because God can't do anything that we don't permit him to do.
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Beloved, these are not just false, these five things are not just false, these are the antithesis of Jesus's teaching on wealth and prosperity.
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They are the absolute opposite of what Jesus tells us about material wealth and gain.
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I call your attention back to our passage, it was a rather lengthy introduction, but I want to call your attention back to the passage that we started with.
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Now, next week, as I said, I'm going to break this down further and we're actually going to get into the text and really open it up.
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But I want to just stress for you two parts of it today in regards to what we're talking about.
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He said, do not lay for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.
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Do not lay up for, but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither wrath nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
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Verse 21 is one of the most famous and important passages of the New Testament in regard to money.
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It says, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.
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He goes on to talk about the eye next week.
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I'll explain how that relates to finances and covetousness and things like that.
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But in regard to this, just know that within the context, he's staying within context because in verse 24, he goes right back to talking about money and not serving two masters.
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And the last little sentence is the second one of the other most famous phrases of Jesus, who cannot serve God and money.
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So those two things are together in the mind of Christ, where your heart is or where your treasure is, that's where your heart is and you can't serve two masters.
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And basically what Jesus has done in this short little section is he's given us an application of three of the Ten Commandments.
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The Ten Commandments is the encapsulation of God's moral law.
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It can be further distilled down to love your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbors yourself.
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That's the Ten Commandments brought down to two as the first four commandments are bound up in the idea of loving the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
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And the last six are bound up in loving your neighbors yourself.
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So the law can be brought brought down to two commandments.
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But when we expand it out to ten commandments, we see Jesus giving application here of three of those ten.
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Ten.
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What's the first commandment? Have no other gods before the Lord.
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It's an absolute attack on idolatry.
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Actually, it's an attack on polytheism.
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Because he's saying there's no other gods to be in my presence, I don't share my glory with anyone and I am a jealous God.
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And then number two is the idolatry.
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Do not make for yourself any carved or graven image.
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And then number 10 is what? What's the 10th commandment? Do not covet thy neighbors anything.
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He lists property and wife and those things.
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But really, it's covetousness.
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And that if you look at Matthew 6, 19 through 24, that's what you see.
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You see Jesus talking about wealth.
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And he says, the heart which treasures wealth is bound by that wealth, the eye that covets wealth is clouded and darkened by that wealth and the servant who obeys wealth is the slave of that wealth.
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Consider the rich ruler who ran to Jesus.
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What did he say? Good teacher, how might I be saved? Jesus said, why does that call us to be good? There is none good, but God alone.
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Right.
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Jesus wasn't denying his own goodness, but he was denying that guy's understanding of goodness because Jesus then asked him to keep the commandments.
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Did not commit murder, did not commit adultery, did not steal.
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The guy says, I've done these since my youth.
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And Jesus said, OK.
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One thing you like.
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Go and sell everything and then come and follow me.
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And the pastor says, and that man left sorrowful.
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I've often asked the question, how would you or I respond? If Jesus said that to us, would you be sorry? John Calvin said this, where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost his authority.
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And that's the way it was with the rich ruler.
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And that is often how it is with us.
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We don't own things.
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Things own us, and that's what makes the prosperity gospel so dangerous is because it feeds that thinking.
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There's a poem.
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It's an older poem, and I must admit, I heard John MacArthur read this poem.
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I always like to give credit where it's due.
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He read it in the 70s, so this is not a new poem.
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But I want to read it to you because, you know, we ask the question, is money our master, is money, is wealth our pursuit? Are we occupied with things? Because that's what gives rise to the prosperity gospel, because that's what people want.
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And that's why churches, whole basketball stadiums are filled with people, because it's filling their desires.
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As I said, they're not victims.
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They're the they're they're getting what they want.
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But here is this poem, it's called Mr.
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and Mrs.
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Thing.
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It's titled Mr.
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and Mrs.
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Thing are a very pleasant and successful couple.
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At least that is the verdict that most people who tend to measure success with a thing on the door.
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When the thing on the door is put to work in the life of Mr.
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and Mrs.
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Thing, the result is startling.
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There he is sitting down on a luxurious and very expensive thing, almost hidden by a large number of other things, things to sit on, things to sit at, things to cook on, things to eat, things, things, things, things to clean with and things to wash with and things to clean and things to wash and things to amuse and things to give pleasure and things to watch and things to play, things for the long, hot summer and things for the short, cold winter, things for the big thing in which we live and things for the garden and things for the lounge and things for the kitchen and things for the bedroom and things on four wheels and things on two wheels and things to put on top of four wheels and things to pull behind the thing with four wheels and things to add to the interior of the thing on four wheels, things, things, things.
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And there in the middle are Mr.
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and Mrs.
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Thing smiling and pleased pink with things, thinking of more things to add to their things secure in their castle of things.
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Well, Mr.
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Thing, I have bad news for you.
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Oh, you say you cannot hear me because of the things that are in the way.
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Well, I just want you to know that your things cannot last.
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They are going to pass.
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They there's going to be an end to them.
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Oh, maybe an error in judgment, maybe a temporary loss of concentration, or maybe you'll just pass them off to the second hand thing dealer.
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Maybe they'll wind up a mass of mangled metal being towed off to the thing yard.
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And what about all the things in your house? Well, it's time for bed.
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Put out the cat.
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Make sure you lock the door to make sure some thing taker doesn't come and take your things.
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And what is the way life goes? Well, someday when you die, they're only going to put one thing in the box.
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And that's you.
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A popular Internet slogan is very true.
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People were made to love and things were made to use.
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But the problem is we use people and love things.
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Too many people are spending money they haven't yet earned for things they don't need to impress people they don't like.
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Paul Washer said materialism never leads to godliness.
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Things only get in the way of an eternal perspective.
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And that is so true.
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Beloved, there's so much more that I could say on this, and I will be saying more in the weeks to come.
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But I want to I want to end with a quote from Charles Spurgeon.
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If I'm going to end with anyone, I like him.
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And I know I've quoted a lot of people.
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If this is your first time ever hearing me, you might think I just quote, quote, quote.
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But today just happens to be one of those days where so many people have said these things so much better than I could.
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But here's the consideration.
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Charles Spurgeon said this, I believe that it is anti-Christian.
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And unholy.
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For any Christian to live with the object of accumulating wealth, you will say, are we not to strive all we can to get all the money we can? You may do so.
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I cannot doubt.
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But what in so doing you may do service to the cause of God.
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But what I said was that to live with the object of accumulating wealth is anti-Christian.
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Patsy and I were talking about that this morning.
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It's not a sin to earn wealth.
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But what do you do with that which you earn? Do you store, do you build your own mansion, do you feel your own barn or do you acquire so that you might share, do we earn? That we might expand.
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To others, Luke 12, 15.
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Take care and be guard against all covetousness for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.
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And he told them a parable saying 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.
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And he said, I will do this.
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I will tear down my barns and build larger ones.
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And there I will store all my grain and my goods.
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And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.
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Relax, eat, drink and be merry.
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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 is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.
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Father, I thank you.
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I thank you for your word.
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I pray, oh, God.
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First and foremost, I pray that we would not as a congregation ever be infected with this prosperity heresy.
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That our goal is self enrichment, that our goal is individual prosperity, but that we would understand that our goal in prospering.
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Is that we might build your kingdom and not that our barns would be filled.
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I pray that we would understand our role, all of us in the building up of the kingdom.
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That we might take into account everything that we spend and ask ourselves the legitimate question, are we doing this for the glory of God or the glory of self? I believe, father.
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That you have not called us necessarily to live as beggars, but father, you have called us to be ones who work diligently, as your word tells us to.
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Not so that we would store up for ourselves, but so that we would see that others don't go without.
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Father, help us as a church to understand the mandate of the church to not be in love with things, but to be in love with Christ.
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For if we need more motivation than Jesus, we are lost.
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And if Jesus is not enough to motivate us, then we don't know him.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Let's stand together and sing together.
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And if you have a need, I encourage you to come as we sing.