Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 105

00:00:00.000 Hello, Relatable listeners. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Can't believe

00:00:06.040 that we are almost done with April this week. It's going to be May 1st. That is crazy. I,

00:00:12.540 of course, am excited because summer is my favorite season. And also, I'm about to give

00:00:17.600 birth, which is really exciting. I'm going to talk to you guys at some point about what that's

00:00:24.100 going to look like post baby being born, whenever that is. It's supposed to be the end of June.

00:00:30.320 You never know. Could be a week after that. Could be a week before. I'm sure all of you have

00:00:34.520 your variety of birthing stories that you could tell me. This is my first time, so I just don't

00:00:38.760 know. But we are going to be fully prepared for after the baby is born. You are going to have

00:00:43.100 consistent content from me. I am going to be taking a break. So it'll be a lot of prerecorded

00:00:49.180 content, but that we are really, really thinking about. And I'm thinking about what is going to be

00:00:54.800 most valuable for my listeners while I am gone. It's not going to be a bunch of fluffy podcasts.

00:01:00.000 It's going to be extremely substantive stuff so that you feel like you're learning something

00:01:05.780 or we're really learning together theologically, politically. I'm going to have interesting

00:01:10.220 conversations. And so I'm actually really looking forward to the podcast that I'm going to put out

00:01:14.920 this summer that you guys are going to get to listen to. I'm really, really excited about that.

00:01:19.300 But I will be taking time off to be with my child and to be with my husband. Some of you

00:01:26.320 guys have asked if I'm going to stop working entirely. No, I'm not going to stop working

00:01:30.720 entirely. I love what I do. And thankfully, I'm able to work from home for the most part.

00:01:36.520 And I'm going to take some time off traveling as I have as well at the end of my pregnancy.

00:01:42.700 But I'm still going to be around. I'm sure I'll be at some point on Instagram stories and things

00:01:48.080 like that. And then after I take a few weeks off after the baby is born, we will pick right back up.

00:01:53.980 And like I said, I still get to spend a lot of time with my family and with my child while I'm

00:02:00.540 doing that because I work from home, save the few weeks every year that I have to travel. And

00:02:06.260 I will navigate that world whenever it comes. If you working moms have any, I guess all moms really

00:02:13.280 are working moms. But if you are a mom who also works outside the home, in addition to being a mom

00:02:19.060 of little ones, feel free to shoot me an email with some of your best advice. I would love to hear

00:02:24.360 from you. I have a lot of wise women in my life who have been giving me good, sound advice. If you've

00:02:30.020 got good, sound advice to give, I would love to hear it. Okay, enough about that. Today, we are going

00:02:37.080 to talk about the prosperity gospel. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Some of you are thinking,

00:02:42.440 gosh, I've heard about the prosperity gospel a million times. I know it's wrong. I've been hearing

00:02:48.680 that it's wrong for the past 12 years, however long it's been for you. I don't need to hear

00:02:54.260 another episode on Joel Osteen. Some of you are thinking, what's the prosperity gospel? And some

00:03:00.180 of you are thinking, I don't want to listen to this because I like Joel Osteen and the other pastors

00:03:05.520 that a lot of people say are prosperity preachers. And I think that this episode is still for all of you.

00:03:11.880 And the reason why I'm talking about it, the reason why I think it's relevant right now is

00:03:16.440 one, because it is still increasingly popular. And two, I read a very interesting article in

00:03:21.980 the Financial Times, which of course, as you can probably deduce from the name,

00:03:25.640 is a secular magazine written by Edward Luce. I actually heard about this article in another

00:03:30.280 podcast. It's an article titled, A Preacher for Trump's America, Joel Osteen and the Prosperity

00:03:35.800 Gospel by, like I said, Edward Luce. So this journalist, he's actually the editor for

00:03:41.860 this particular for this particular online outlet. He visited Lakewood Church, which is Joel Osteen's

00:03:47.540 church down in Houston, chronicled his experience there. I talk a lot to you guys about hipster

00:03:54.660 Jesus, about social justice Jesus, about this kind of like feel good, just pat you on the

00:04:00.620 back, self-love Jesus. We talk about that a lot. We don't talk very often about the prosperity

00:04:05.940 gospel. Now I have talked about it before, but we haven't talked about it in a really long time

00:04:11.660 on this podcast, mostly because I assume that most of my listeners who are believers already

00:04:17.580 know that this is an unbiblical message, that this is an unbiblical gospel. It is not a real

00:04:23.100 gospel. It is a false gospel. But every time I have in the past posted something about the

00:04:28.160 prosperity gospel or just alluded to how unbiblical the prosperity gospel is, I'm always surprised

00:04:34.020 at the number of people in my comments who are very incensed, who are extremely angry,

00:04:40.080 who are very confused, it seems like. And I don't mean that in a condescending way, truly

00:04:44.460 confused about what the Bible says about what the gospel is, really. And so I do think that

00:04:50.860 this is important, especially since this is an article that just came out. And as we'll

00:04:55.980 get into, it is a very popular doctrine. It's always important to talk about false doctrines.

00:05:02.560 Don't worry, I will explain exactly why it's a false doctrine. For those of you who already

00:05:06.720 know that it's a false doctrine, it's still good to be refreshed in what the Bible actually

00:05:12.400 says and what the gospel actually is. You've heard me say that I heard from a pastor a long

00:05:17.460 time ago that totally changed my life and how I approach theology. You never graduate from

00:05:22.820 the gospel. You never graduate from the gospel. It's not this thing that, okay, you understand

00:05:27.780 that Jesus saves you. Great, you're not going to hell. Let's move on to the more complicated,

00:05:31.700 applicable, pragmatic stuff. No, the gospel is in everything. It's from the first chapter

00:05:36.980 of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation. It affects everything we think, everything

00:05:40.980 we do, and everything we say. It is a part of every lesson that we should be learning

00:05:45.900 in church. It goes back to the gospel. And so this message is for you, no matter who you

00:05:51.340 are. The prosperity gospel has been around for a long time. I kind of want to just set up

00:05:56.440 a little bit of context for those of you who don't know. It is a pseudo-Christian message.

00:06:01.720 And what I mean by that is that it is a message that poses as a Christian message. It ensures

00:06:06.500 better health, more wealth, greater job prospects, healthier relationships, et cetera, if by faith,

00:06:14.340 and I'm kind of paraphrasing what they would say because I've heard so many of these sermons

00:06:18.260 from these kinds of teachers, if by faith you believe, if you are faithful to do what God

00:06:22.780 tells you to do in the Bible, if you think positively, and if you dwell on things optimistically,

00:06:28.460 and if you ask for these good things, good things will be brought to you. If you do your part,

00:06:34.480 essentially, then God will do his. God, they would say, is a good father. Therefore, like any good

00:06:40.860 father, it makes him happy to do good things for you, to do nice things for you, to give you

00:06:46.340 abundant blessings. Like any good father, they say he does not want you to suffer. He does not

00:06:52.700 want you to go without. He does not want you to be miserable. He wants you to be happy and healthy.

00:06:59.320 He wants you to live in abundance, to live in optimism. God wants you, they would say,

00:07:05.340 to be successful in your job. He wants you to be rich. He wants to expand your territory and give

00:07:11.860 you more influence. He wants you to be self-confident. He wants you to even be fit and to feel good and to

00:07:17.520 feel good about yourself and your body. Uh, now some scripture that they would use to back this up

00:07:22.860 because they do call themselves Christians and they call themselves Christian teachers. And so

00:07:26.760 they very often will make a point and then they go back to scripture to prove their point. And so

00:07:32.740 they might say, uh, Jeremiah 29, 11 for, I know the plans I have for you, uh, declares the Lord plans

00:07:39.380 for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. They might use a different version that

00:07:45.120 plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Uh, Psalm 84, 11, no good thing. Does he withhold, uh, from

00:07:52.000 those who, uh, walk uprightly? Sorry, I lost my place for a second. Matthew 7, 7, ask, and it will

00:07:59.680 be given to you. Seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you. Matthew 7, 11. If you then

00:08:05.500 who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in

00:08:10.420 heaven, give good gifts to those who ask him? James 1, 17, every good and perfect gift is from

00:08:16.920 above. So these are the Bible verses that they would probably use to support their doctrine and

00:08:22.460 to support their version of the gospel. Uh, they are also known as word of faith teachers,

00:08:27.980 people that teach that you can access the power of God by saying a word. They are also called

00:08:33.220 name it and claim it teachers that say that you can speak something that you want into being and God

00:08:39.360 will make sure that it happens for you. They are also called health and wealth teachers. Um,

00:08:44.160 this kind of doctrine, the prosperity gospel, as it is called is typically associated with a few

00:08:49.080 people. Of course, Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, Paula White, TD Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Eddie Long. There are

00:08:54.860 many, many others. Some you will probably see if you research this, some may even include people like

00:09:00.740 Beth Moore and Stephen Furtick. Uh, here is how Joel Osteen's church is described in this financial

00:09:06.940 times article that we referenced in the beginning. It says, quote, optimism, hope, destiny, harvest,

00:09:13.200 bounty. These are Lakewood's buzzwords prosperity to words that are rarely heard include guilt,

00:09:19.440 shame, sin, penance, and hell. Lakewood is not the kind of church that troubles your conscience.

00:09:24.300 If you want to feel bad, Lakewood is not the place for you said a member. Uh, most people want to

00:09:30.980 leave church feeling better than then, than when they went in. Um, it also says that Joel Osteen

00:09:37.940 during his sermon told the packed stadium that each and every one of us was a quote masterpiece.

00:09:43.420 We should quote shake off the shame and open our hearts to God's bounties. Uh, the article goes on

00:09:50.340 to say, Osteen knows his audience. We want fatted calves slaughtered in our honor. There was no hint in

00:09:55.900 his message of the fire and brimstone of a Billy Graham or a Jerry Falwell. Uh, Osteen is more like

00:10:01.420 Oprah Winfrey in a suit. He is not peddling the opium of the masses. It is more like therapy for

00:10:06.760 a broken middle class. If God had a refrigerator, Joel Osteen said in his sermon, your picture would

00:10:13.280 be on it. If he had a computer, your face would be the screensaver. So there are some other quotes

00:10:20.240 from Joel Osteen that just kind of give you a good picture of who he is. When you focus on being a

00:10:26.860 blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance. He also says, do all you can to make

00:10:33.500 your dreams come true. And lastly, God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money,

00:10:40.560 to fulfill the destiny that he has laid out for us. Uh, when the writer of this article asked Joel

00:10:47.280 Osteen, uh, how did you manage to keep sin and redemption out of a Christian message? I'm

00:10:52.300 guessing that this author himself, I assuming that he's not a Christian. I don't know that I'm

00:10:56.600 assuming he's coming from a secular perspective. And so I think it's interesting that he is the one

00:11:00.980 to bring up sin and redemption. He says, how do you manage to keep sin and redemption out of a

00:11:04.880 Christian message, Joel? And Joel said, look, I am a preacher son. So I'm an optimist. Life already

00:11:11.040 makes us feel guilty every day. If you keep laying shame on people, they get turned off. Now you can

00:11:18.820 probably guess that this is a massively popular message. It's obviously a massively popular church,

00:11:25.480 a 16,000 in his congregation. Uh, he draws 7 million TV viewers a week and many more on satellite

00:11:33.240 radio podcasts and online streaming. It is also, as you would probably guess, massively lucrative.

00:11:40.520 Joel Osteen has a reported net worth of over 15 million. A recent book received a 13 million

00:11:45.960 dollar advance, which is really incredible. That's just a tiny bit more than the advance

00:11:51.200 that I got from my book. Uh, he and his family live in a $10.5 million home with a variety of

00:11:56.880 luxury cars. So he's doing pretty well. Uh, he doesn't any longer take his $200,000 salary that

00:12:03.140 he used to get paid from the church. Uh, I'm guessing that he probably gets a lot of his money from books

00:12:08.420 and other media speaking engagements, things like that. Uh, now, like I said, most of you probably

00:12:14.660 already know the dangers of the prosperity gospel. You listen to his quotes and you just kind of cringe,

00:12:20.220 or maybe it makes you really mad. Maybe you're like, Oh my gosh, why are so many people buying into

00:12:25.740 this? Because you know what the Bible says. But as I said in the beginning, it's still important for us

00:12:31.360 to talk about it right now, because as crazy as it seems, it is growing, it is popular. And we will

00:12:37.140 discuss why a little bit more. Uh, many of you might not understand you're listening to this and

00:12:44.020 you're just kind of nodding along and saying, amen, what he's saying sounds great. Doesn't sound like

00:12:48.980 it's false to me. You don't really see a problem with Joel Osteen's ministry. Um, and I, I understand

00:12:55.460 that. I actually do. I was raised by entrepreneurs. My parents came from nothing. They, uh, became very

00:13:02.840 successful from working hard using a lot of the principles that you hear someone like Joel Osteen

00:13:08.920 talking about. And that is because he has good practical business advice that if you apply,

00:13:16.160 probably will help you in some way. It probably will help you to think positively. It'll probably

00:13:21.060 will help you to do the things that he says to achieve your goals. Uh, I used to watch Joel Osteen

00:13:27.100 growing up. I thought that he was great. I didn't think there was anything wrong with what he said.

00:13:31.520 I was raised in a very up by your bootstraps family, which by the way, I'm very thankful for

00:13:36.860 and was instilled with wonderful principles because of that. But I didn't see a problem growing up with

00:13:42.440 conflating this kind of up by your bootstraps health and wealth thing with the Bible. I thought

00:13:48.460 that that's kind of what we were supposed to do. And so you might be like I was growing up.

00:13:52.920 You don't see anything wrong with that. And in fact, it makes you feel good. It makes you feel

00:13:56.860 motivated. It makes you feel inspired. That's the thing that you want to listen to on a Monday morning

00:14:01.240 so that you can seize the day and really succeed it at work. And you feel like God is on your side.

00:14:07.120 I totally get that. Um, some of what he says or certain things in what he says in some ways is

00:14:17.520 true. Uh, God does love you. He loves you so much. Uh, you should think positively. You should not dwell

00:14:25.820 on your misery. You should work hard. You should be responsible with stewarding your money. It is not

00:14:31.860 bad to make money. It is not bad to have a job. So we listen to what he says and we think, great,

00:14:39.000 it's true. And scripture seems to support it. So this must be it. This must be the empowering

00:14:46.460 message of God that I am meant to hear, that I am meant to internalize and use as I go forward in my

00:14:53.360 life. It must be God's will that I'm successful and I'm going to figure out how to do that. And I'm

00:14:58.240 going to feel good about it. But here's the problem. Here's the problem that I had to realize.

00:15:03.440 So as someone who believed in this at one point in my life, I want you to know that if you are

00:15:10.400 listening to this and you're like, you don't agree with me, you agree with Joel Osteen, know that I'm

00:15:14.300 coming from a place, not of condescension or coming from a place of telling you, wow, you're so stupid.

00:15:19.760 How could you believe this? I believed it too. And I know lots of wonderful people who do believe it.

00:15:24.960 Know that I'm speaking from a place of love when I tell you that is not the gospel. That is not the

00:15:33.120 message of Christ. That is not the hope, the good news that God offers us. And that's a good thing.

00:15:40.060 That's a good thing. And we're going to get to why. God wants you by his grace to come to faith in

00:15:45.920 Christ and to follow him, period. Following him as we read in scripture, and as I will specifically cite

00:15:52.480 in just a little bit, entails suffering. It entails self-denial. It entails sacrifice. It entails

00:15:59.460 sorrow. It entails discomfort. It entails hardship, always in some way. And following Christ does not

00:16:06.560 relieve you from becoming sick. It does not relieve you from dying physically. It does not relieve you

00:16:13.840 from suffering loss as we see throughout the Bible, as we've seen with martyrs throughout history,

00:16:19.700 with missionaries throughout history, as we've seen through everyday Christians throughout history,

00:16:25.140 that suffering, physical suffering, worldly suffering doesn't go away when we become Christians.

00:16:31.380 Life does not become easier when we become Christians. In fact, in many ways, if not in every way,

00:16:37.320 it becomes much harder. Following Christ asks you to deny yourself, to take up your cross,

00:16:44.920 which is, of course, a form of crucifixion, and follow him. If that does not sound easy or convenient

00:16:51.440 to you, that's because it is not supposed to be. It was never supposed to be. If you hear that and you

00:16:58.640 say, well, that's not for me. Okay, that's fine. That means that Christianity isn't for you. There's not

00:17:06.260 another brand of Christianity. There's not another way. Being a Christian who seeks to avoid all suffering

00:17:13.280 is like being a swimmer who seeks to avoid all water. Doesn't work. It's impossible. So remember

00:17:20.020 that scripture that I gave you in the beginning that seemed to support the prosperity gospel,

00:17:25.440 Jeremiah 29, 11, Matthew 7, 11. Let's take a look at some other scripture, and then we'll get back to

00:17:33.020 those verses. Luke 9, 23. And he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself

00:17:41.140 and take up his cross daily and follow me. Luke 14, 26. If anyone comes to me and does not hate

00:17:47.940 his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own

00:17:54.320 life, he cannot be my disciple. John 16, 33. I have said these things to you that in me, you may have

00:18:02.580 peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world.

00:18:09.580 2 Corinthians 12, 10. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, with insults,

00:18:16.220 with hardships, with persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

00:18:22.940 In Philippians 3, 10, Paul says that I may know him and the power of his, Jesus's resurrection,

00:18:28.620 and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. 2 Timothy 1, 8. Therefore,

00:18:36.520 do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering

00:18:42.000 for the gospel by the power of God. 1 Peter 3, 14. But even if you should suffer for righteousness's

00:18:50.020 sake, you will be blessed. 1 Peter 4, 13. But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings,

00:18:58.080 that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. Because we should ask ourselves

00:19:04.740 what Jesus asks in Mark 8, 36. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit

00:19:13.780 his soul? So we will suffer. We are guaranteed it as Christians. Jesus says that part and parcel of

00:19:23.460 following him is that we will have to give things up. Not just a few things, but everything that he

00:19:30.360 asks us to. We aren't just denying parts of us. We are denying us. I am denying me. You are denying

00:19:37.740 you. You are now to be everything and do everything that God asks you to do. This is no longer about

00:19:45.200 expanding my kingdom. This is no longer about making myself great. This is not about me at all. This is

00:19:51.960 about Jesus. My life is about him. Your life is about him. Your life is about making him great.

00:19:58.740 Jesus is not a genie to give you what you want. God is not Santa Claus. Joel Osteen said in his sermon

00:20:07.200 that if God had a refrigerator, my picture would be on it. Your picture would be on it. If God had a

00:20:13.180 screensaver, our pictures would be the screensaver. No. If God had a refrigerator,

00:20:18.720 he would have a picture of himself on it. God does not worship us. God does not stand back and admire

00:20:27.200 us. God does not need us. God is self-sufficient. God alone is worthy of admiration. God alone is

00:20:35.620 worthy of our worship. It is not the other way around. So, okay, how do we reconcile this?

00:20:43.600 How do we reconcile these verses about suffering with the verses that say God wants us to prosper

00:20:50.140 and is going to give us good things? Like any good father, how do we reconcile that?

00:20:55.380 Well, I'll tell you what I do. So when I see two verses or two passages that seem in my finite mind

00:21:01.480 to contradict each other, I look for reconciliation in scripture. I don't ignore one verse in favor of

00:21:08.500 the other. That'd be a lot easier. I could just say, well, this one kind of is more attractive to

00:21:13.860 me. This one's more appealing to me. This one makes more sense to me. So I'm just going to kind of

00:21:17.820 forget that the Bible said that over there. And I'm just going to take this one and apply it to my

00:21:23.000 life because that feels a lot better. That unfortunately is what the prosperity gospel does.

00:21:27.740 It takes things out of context. Doesn't look at the rest of the Bible. Doesn't look at a verse in

00:21:31.500 light of scripture. Doesn't look at a verse in reflection or in the context of the character

00:21:36.600 of God. It says, well, this sounds good. This kind of fits what I feel. And so I'm going to go for that,

00:21:42.520 but that's not what we're called to do. So when I see something that seems like a contradiction

00:21:47.320 in scripture, I default to my misunderstanding, not God's confusion, not the Bible's wrongness,

00:21:56.360 but my misunderstanding, because second Timothy three 16 says that the word of God is sufficient

00:22:01.260 for everything. It's full. It is also infallible. I know that that means that everything in it is

00:22:07.440 useful for me. That means that it can't contradict each other. That means that I can't throw one thing

00:22:11.480 out because I don't feel like it's helpful. The Bible tells me that it's all helpful and it's all

00:22:15.880 useful. Okay. So it's not contradicting each other. So there must be another way that I can look at

00:22:21.700 this that is also illuminated by the word of God in order to gain complete wisdom that is informed

00:22:29.020 by God. So a few passages do that for me. And when I look at the passages about seeming prosperity,

00:22:35.420 and I look at the passages about suffering, I find reconciliation in some other passages.

00:22:42.220 One is Romans five, three through five. Not only that Paul through God or God through Paul says,

00:22:48.300 but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance

00:22:53.440 produces character and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's

00:22:59.520 love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy spirit who has been given to us. James one,

00:23:05.840 two through three counted all joy. My brothers, when you meet trials of many kinds for, you know,

00:23:10.920 that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect

00:23:16.720 that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. Romans eight 31 through 39, a passage that

00:23:23.840 all of us love. Uh, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

00:23:29.120 He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How we, how will he not also with him

00:23:36.080 graciously give us all things who shall bring any charge against God's God's elect? It is God who

00:23:41.740 justifies who is to condemn Christ. Jesus is the one who died more than that. Who was raised,

00:23:46.980 who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us, who shall separate us from

00:23:51.480 the love of Christ, shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or sword or

00:23:57.260 danger. As it is written for your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to

00:24:02.620 be slaughtered. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am

00:24:09.540 sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come,

00:24:15.140 nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us

00:24:21.540 from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So what I find then is that suffering does occur

00:24:29.860 and the hope in our suffering is not that God's going to take it away in this life, but that he is

00:24:36.440 going to be present with us. He is going to be faithful with us until the end and we can look forward

00:24:41.320 to eternal glory. As 2 Corinthians 4.17 says, 4.17 through 18, for this light momentary affliction is

00:24:49.500 preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are

00:24:55.540 seen, but to the things that are unseen for the things that are seen or transient, but the things that

00:24:58.260 are seen or transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. If you want more on biblical

00:25:04.660 suffering, you can go back a few episodes. A few weeks ago, I did an entire episode on biblical

00:25:09.400 suffering and what God has to say about it. So in light of what we're talking about now,

00:25:14.840 the question is, it's really a statement. It's a rhetorical question, I guess. So in light of the

00:25:20.460 rest of scripture, when we look at these verses that seem to say that God is going to give us

00:25:24.880 prosperity and success, whatever we want, we can just name and claim and he'll give it to us just

00:25:29.700 like a genie in a bottle. When we look at those verses and we look at the verses that guarantee

00:25:35.440 suffering, and then we look at the reconciling verses that say it is suffering that is good.

00:25:42.340 It is suffering that is sanctifying. It is suffering that is doing something with you,

00:25:46.120 doing something in you, through you, and God is going to be with you, and you are going to be

00:25:53.180 glorified with him one day. Could it be, could it be that these things that are promised to us,

00:25:59.860 this prosperity that is promised to us is eternal prosperity rather than temporary prosperity?

00:26:07.060 Could it be that God guarantees us eternal glory after this life, not worldly comfort?

00:26:13.460 It seems that the answer is yes, in light of all of scripture, that that is the case. It seems that

00:26:20.120 the good gift that God gave us is his son, Jesus Christ. And though we will suffer, we will suffer.

00:26:27.740 Not we might, not if we pray hard enough, we'll avoid it. We will suffer because of him. We will also

00:26:34.620 live with him forever and nothing, no amount of struggle in this life will ever stop that from

00:26:39.500 happening or ever diminish that. Maybe that is the proof that God is talking about, that he is faithful

00:26:45.000 and not your job promotion. And in fact, I would venture so far as to say in light of scripture,

00:26:50.540 yes, that's exactly what he's talking about, eternal glory. And that's more than we could ever deserve.

00:26:56.860 Now, let me say a few things. God does give us tangibly good things in this life. He does.

00:27:04.440 He does choose to give us spouses and children and jobs and even allows promotions and influence. He

00:27:11.280 does. I have this podcast. It's a good thing. I have an audience. It's a good thing. I do have

00:27:16.160 influence. That's a good thing. I have a job. I have a husband. I'm pregnant. I thank God for these

00:27:21.720 things. These are beautiful, wonderful gifts from him that I rejoice over. But these are gracious gifts,

00:27:28.780 not guaranteed gifts. And if God never gave us any material thing, if we lived in absolute squalor

00:27:37.360 forever, he would still be more merciful and more gracious than we ever deserve simply because he

00:27:44.720 sent his son to die for us. And he didn't even have to do that. He was completely justified in

00:27:49.860 wiping all of us out because all of us are guilty apart from him. That, that he offered redemption for

00:27:56.800 us through Jesus Christ is the greatest blessing. That is the only blessing that really matters.

00:28:02.540 That alone is so far beyond what any of us could possibly earn or deserve that while we were yet

00:28:08.780 sinners, Christ died for us, that that is all we need for gratitude. That's all we need for joy. You want

00:28:14.740 to talk about the power of positive thinking, dwell on that. You want to talk about optimism, dwell on

00:28:20.660 that. You want to talk about what you can do to make your life better. You want to talk about what

00:28:27.600 you can do to make yourself feel more successful, dwell on the beauty of the gospel and the grace that

00:28:32.940 God has given you through Christ. That'll change your life. That'll transform your thinking. That'll

00:28:39.380 transform everything. It doesn't mean that life is going to be easy. In fact, as we've talked about so

00:28:44.900 many times in this episode, it means that life is going to be really hard in a lot of ways,

00:28:48.600 and it's going to guarantee a lot of sacrifice, and it's going to guarantee and demand of you

00:28:54.220 absolute and total self-denial and obedience to the God who saved you, and it is all worth it

00:29:00.420 because this life is like that. Wealth, I will say, because I know people are thinking about this,

00:29:10.380 wealth in itself is not bad. Money is not bad. The love of money

00:29:17.880 is the root of all evil, but money in itself is not bad. Jobs aren't bad. Spouses aren't bad.

00:29:25.060 Things in this life aren't bad, but the worship of them is. We view all that we are given as things

00:29:33.180 to be stewarded for the glory of God. All of our money, all of our titles, all of our jobs,

00:29:40.580 all of our marriages, our children, none of it is ours ultimately, our time. It is all God's to be

00:29:49.060 used as he wants us to use them, and we are all learning. Gosh, me included. I would say me the

00:29:54.580 foremost, me the most. I don't know if that's grammatically correct, but me the most. I am

00:30:00.000 learning what that looks like, and I am so grossly imperfect at that every single day of using my time

00:30:08.580 and everything God has given me wisely, stewarding it well, stewarding my talents to the glory of God

00:30:14.880 and not my glory. That is so, so much of what I, on a daily basis, need to work on and get better at

00:30:23.480 through the power of the Holy Spirit. So I'm not speaking as someone who has come even close,

00:30:28.280 come even close to perfecting this in my life, but I am telling you what the Bible says and what the

00:30:33.140 Bible says about the things that we have and how we should learn through his wisdom and through his

00:30:38.360 power to use them. That means we do not pursue being rich. We do not pursue being famous. We do

00:30:46.980 not pursue having everything the world tells us that we need to be happy. We pursue Jesus, and we are glad

00:30:53.700 with whatever he chooses to give us. Whatever that means. You do what you're good at or what you're called

00:31:00.660 to do. A lot of times it's what you're good at, but I guess maybe that's not always true. I always say

00:31:07.680 do what you're good at for the glory of God, but hey, God can call you to do anything and equip you

00:31:11.420 to do anything. So do whatever you do for the glory of God. Work hard at whatever you work at for the

00:31:16.660 glory of God. That's what we're called to do. Let me just be really clear. The prosperity gospel isn't

00:31:23.620 just an imperfect gospel. It's not just an incomplete gospel. It's not just a decontextualized gospel.

00:31:29.380 It is a false gospel from hell. It is from Satan. And if you believe it, you will not find Christ.

00:31:40.280 If that is what you believe, if that is what you center your life on, this prosperity gospel,

00:31:45.540 that will lead to hell. End of story. That's it. There's no gray. It's black and white. What the

00:31:52.860 Bible tells us is the gospel is the gospel. What Joel Osteen tells you is the gospel is not the gospel.

00:31:57.620 And my heart breaks for the hundreds of thousands, millions of people who follow that and think if

00:32:03.660 they just pray a little bit harder, if they're just a little more faithful, if they do a little

00:32:08.520 bit more than God's going to do his part and they're going to, he's going to grant them that

00:32:14.060 promotion. You are missing out on so much freedom. You are missing out on so much joy. You are missing

00:32:19.260 out on eternal life. You are missing out on the riches of following Jesus in this life and the next.

00:32:24.880 And my heart breaks for you. My heart breaks for those people. The good news is that Jesus came

00:32:33.580 to die and rise again to save you. And we get to share in his sufferings. And then we get to share

00:32:39.600 in his glory. It does not guarantee us anything material in this life. And that's okay. God is still

00:32:46.220 good. He's amazingly good and merciful and gracious. Second Timothy four, three says for the time is coming

00:32:52.780 when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for

00:32:58.620 themselves teachers to suit their own passions. Now there is a similarity to this prosperity gospel

00:33:07.600 in the hipster Jesus gospel, in the feel good gospel, in the self-love gospel that is typically

00:33:16.120 associated with the progressive left. And I would say that the prosperity gospel is typically

00:33:21.640 associated with the right. Um, probably I would guess, but here are the similarities in these two

00:33:29.920 false gospels. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, when I talk about hipster Jesus,

00:33:33.960 there's actually a, an episode titled hipster Jesus that I would go back and listen to. There are some

00:33:39.600 old episodes from about a year ago where I talk about self-love and all of that stuff. I have lots

00:33:45.960 and lots of episodes on that particular topic. Anything, anything with the title woke in it,

00:33:51.380 you'll probably listen to that, understand what I'm talking about. But the similarities between the

00:33:55.300 prosperity gospel and the hipster Jesus gospel is that both gospels are all about you. They're all

00:34:01.960 about worshiping you. They're all about God serving you. They're all about the Bible being about you.

00:34:07.720 They're all about you being glorified and you being comfortable. And that's not, that's the opposite

00:34:14.020 of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel or that's the opposite of the gospel in the Bible.

00:34:21.360 The only gospel that exists. They have very, very strange similarities. I guess you could say that

00:34:28.860 really about any religion or any false doctrine is that it's on you and your feelings and not on God

00:34:35.860 in his will. God calls us to be holy, not necessarily healthy, or that doesn't guarantee

00:34:42.000 our health. God calls us to be his. God calls us to be obedient. God calls us to be sanctified.

00:34:49.200 He doesn't necessarily call us to be rich and he certainly doesn't guarantee those things.

00:34:53.820 God does not exist for you. You exist for him. That's what people who either ascribe to the

00:35:00.500 hipster Jesus narrative or the prosperity gospel narrative need to understand. A really good way

00:35:07.020 to check your theology is to one, verify it with scripture in light of all of scripture. And as I've

00:35:15.020 said before, when you read the Bible, the question to ask is what does this mean? And what does this say

00:35:23.320 about God? Not what does this mean for me? Or how do I apply this to my life? Now, what the Bible

00:35:30.120 verse means, period, and what the Bible verse says about God will have implications for how you live

00:35:35.200 your life. But you don't need to constantly place yourself in the place of Bible characters in order

00:35:40.240 to know the truth that he is saying through his word. You ask yourself, what does this mean in

00:35:45.160 context? What does this mean in light of scripture? What does this say about God? And in light of that

00:35:49.940 wisdom, that objective wisdom, what, how does, how do I apply that to my life to be more like

00:35:55.780 Christ? So when you're reading scripture, those are the kinds of questions that you ask. I use,

00:36:02.460 a lot of people ask me this. I use ESV study Bible. I also, I have to look, I use a keyword study Bible,

00:36:08.340 a Hebrew Greek study Bible. I don't use that every single day, but I also have systematic theology by

00:36:14.900 Wayne Grudem. So if you want to know more about how to read your Bible, which is a totally

00:36:19.880 legitimate question, you can email me about that. I probably answer those kinds of emails

00:36:23.880 every week. And I, of course, take the wisdom from other people who have been doing this much,

00:36:28.940 much, much longer than I have in order to answer those questions as adequately as I can. But I say

00:36:33.560 all that to say a really good way to check your theology is to one, align it with scripture. See if

00:36:40.460 what you believe is actually true. That's something I do on a daily basis. On a daily basis,

00:36:44.720 I am reading scripture and saying, well, okay, I believe this. The Bible says this. I will, the

00:36:52.520 question, the answer is always, I'm wrong. If I believe something differently than what the Bible

00:36:56.180 says, but there's also a lot of questions of, okay, well, I thought the Bible also said this. How do I

00:37:01.980 reconcile that? And then, like I said, I go into scripture to find that reconciliation. And of course,

00:37:06.540 we are also always praying for wisdom. So that's a really good thing for us to do on a daily basis.

00:37:11.080 Check what we believe in alignment with scripture. We always defer to what the Bible says and what the

00:37:17.100 Bible actually means. Also, just a really good, I think, rule of thumb when you are trying to figure

00:37:25.020 out theologically what you believe, of course, that it aligns with scripture, but also does what I

00:37:30.160 believe make myself bigger, make myself better, or does it make God bigger and better? I always defer

00:37:37.860 to the latter. I always say, okay, if what I believe, if a certain section of my theology is making myself

00:37:45.540 seem awesome and God seem more as this kind of like partner who is coming alongside me to make my life

00:37:52.260 great, then that part of my theology is wrong. You are going to be on a really good track if you defer in

00:37:57.760 every theological belief you have to God's glory. If you ask yourself, what brings God the most glory

00:38:05.440 and reminds me of how small I am? I found that that's a really good question. Again, always in

00:38:12.500 deference to scripture. But I mean, that's how, for example, and I won't get into this right now,

00:38:17.120 because this is going to be one of my subjects for my summer series. I mean, predestination,

00:38:21.860 that's a really good, that's a really good way to kind of understand predestination. What gives God

00:38:27.200 the most glory and takes all of my human effort out of it in order to understand what in Ephesians it

00:38:33.080 says, why it says that man should not boast, that we have nothing to boast in when it comes to

00:38:38.060 salvation. Oh, that's because God chose us before the beginning of time, as Romans 9 and other passages

00:38:43.580 elsewhere say. So I think that's a really good way to understand your theological beliefs. Does this

00:38:51.420 give God more glory or does this give me more glory? If it's giving you more glory, it's probably not

00:38:56.240 theologically correct. Like I said, always defer to scripture and pray for wisdom. So it's important

00:39:02.180 that we have a proper theological framework when we are approaching things like the prosperity gospel,

00:39:07.760 when we are approaching things that any pastor says to make sure that it is right, to make sure

00:39:12.200 that it is in line with who God says that he is, any pastor, no matter what. And that's how I want

00:39:18.760 to approach this prosperity gospel as well. And of course, the hipster Jesus gospel, not deferring to my

00:39:24.280 own feelings, but to deferring to what God's word says. And that's exactly why I ask you guys to

00:39:29.260 always email me if I've gotten something wrong in light of scripture, because I want to know that I

00:39:34.220 want to remedy that immediately apologize for it and make it right. So please let me know. Thank you

00:39:40.200 so much for listening. I hope that you guys have a great rest of your day and I will see you back here

00:39:44.780 on Wednesday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 29, 2019

Ep 105 ｜ Plans to Prosper？

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