GOSPEL-INCORRECT
If they had a
social gospel in the days of the prodigal son, somebody would have given him a
bed and a sandwich and he never would have gone home.
Today, the
pressure to fill auditoriums and services has driven many pastors to place the
felt needs, or tastes, of the people above their duty to Christ. On every hand
we hear of the Gospel being molded into a non-confrontative
message intended to meet felt needs and impress the sinful heart. And, by most
standards, this new philosophy of church life is working, as more and more
auditoriums are filled with people hungry for a message that will affirm that
they are actually on fairly good terms with the
Almighty. But the biblical message is the message of the cross. It cuts right
across the grain of the modern age's preoccupation with pride, tearing down the
façade and exposing the wretchedness of the human heart… Unfortunately, while
the modern “un-gospel” may fill seats, it is the true gospel of sin and grace
that is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16).
David W. Hegg
Appointed to Preach,
Christian Focus Publications, 1999, p. 46.
The nature of Christ's salvation is woefully misrepresented by the
present-day evangelist. He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior
from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are
multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of Fire who have no desire to be
delivered from their carnality and worldliness.
A.W. Pink
[The
prosperity gospel is] basically what the sixteenth century German monk turned
church reformer Martin Luther called the “theology of glory”: How can I climb
the ladder and attain the glory here and now that God has actually promised for
us after a life of suffering? The
contrast is the “theology of the cross”: the story of God’s merciful descent to
us, at great personal cost, a message that the Apostle Paul acknowledged was
offensive and “foolish to Greeks.”
Michael Horton
Joel Osteen and the Glory Story:
A Case Study, 2007, Westminster Seminary California.
[Their]
message is also a good example of the inability of Boomers to mourn in the face
of God’s judgment or dance under the liberating news of God's saving
mercy. In other words, all gravity is
lost – both the gravity of our problem and of God's amazing grace. According to this message, we are not
helpless sinners – the ungodly – who need a one-sided divine rescue. (Americans, but especially we Boomers, don't
take bad news well.) Rather, we are good
people who just need a little instruction and motivation.
Michael Horton
Joel Osteen and the Glory Story:
A Case Study, 2007, Westminster Seminary California.
So who needs
Christ? At least, who needs Christ as
“the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn
1:29)? The sting of the law may be taken
out of the message, but that only means that the gospel has become a less
demanding, more encouraging law whose exhortations are only meant to make us
happy, not to measure us against God's holiness.
Michael Horton
Joel Osteen and the Glory Story:
A Case Study, 2007, Westminster Seminary California.
In fact, one
would be hard-pressed to find anything in this message that would be offensive
to a Unitarian, Buddhist, or cultural Christians who are used to a diet of
gospel-as-American-Dream. Disney’s
Jiminy Cricket expresses this sentiment: “If you wish upon a star, all your
dreams will come true.”
Michael Horton
Joel Osteen and the Glory Story:
A Case Study, 2007, Westminster Seminary California.
If one’s
greatest problem is loneliness, the good news is that Jesus is a reliable
friend. If the big problem is anxiety,
Jesus will calm us down. Jesus is the
glue that holds our marriages and families together, gives us purpose for us to
strive toward, wisdom for daily life.
And there are half-truths in all of these pleas, but they never really
bring hearers face to face with their real problem: that they stand naked and
ashamed before a holy God and can only be acceptably clothed in His presence by
being clothed, head to toe, in Christ’s righteousness.
Michael Horton
Joel Osteen and the Glory Story:
A Case Study, 2007, Westminster Seminary California.
It is
appropriate that a prosperity gospel be born in the hedonistic, self-centered,
get-rich-quick milieu of modern American society. We are, by nature, pagan.
Either our religion will transform us or we will transform our religion to suit
our sympathies.
Michael Horton
The
Agony of Deceit, Moody, 1990, p. 123-125.
It is to
trivialize greatly the work of Christ to suggest that God the Father sent His
only-begotten Son into the world to bear the world’s blasphemy,
insults, and violence, and, most of all, to bear the Father’s wrath – all for
increased cash flow and fewer bouts with asthma. It is to make a joke out of
the great displeasure, anger, and wrath God has toward sin and sinful persons.
God’s real problem, say the faith teachers, is not that we are wicked, selfish,
God-hating rebels who deserve eternal punishment, but that we aren’t enjoying
ourselves!
Michael Horton
The
Agony of Deceit, Moody, 1990, p. 123-125.
Despite the
obvious emphasis of Scripture (in regard to suffering), we are bombarded by
suggestions that the “successful” Christian living takes place in the realm of
constant victory, health, wholeness, and financial prosperity. In response to
this we are not to pretend that suffering doesn’t exist or that it might be
instantly cured. Such notions are the product of empty heads and closed Bibles.
Alistair Begg
Made For His Pleasure, Moody Press, 1996, p. 107.
When we come to
Jesus for salvation, we come to the One who is Lord over all. Any message
omitting this truth cannot be called the gospel according to Jesus. It is a
crippled message that presents a savior who is not Lord, a redeemer who does
not demonstrate authority over sin, a weakened, sickly messiah who cannot
command those he rescues.
John MacArthur
The Gospel According to Jesus, © John MacArthur, 1988, p. 209-210.
[Flaws
with] the so-called "prosperity gospel":
1. They depend almost entirely on Old Testament promises of prosperity,
which were spoken to the nation Israel and were not repeated in the New
Testament to either Christian individuals or the Christian community.
2. They are insensitive to the poverty and hunger of many believers in
developing nations, to whom the prosperity gospel does not apply.
3. They overlook the New Testament emphasis on adversity rather than
prosperity as the chief mark of the followers of the Suffering Servant.
John Stott
The Letters of John, 1998, Eerdmans, p. 223.
We
must keep in mind that Jesus' path to glory was marked by pain before pleasure,
sorrow before joy, humiliation before glorification, persecution before exaltation,
death before resurrection, earthly hatred before heavenly worship. To
remember those truths about our Lord's earthly life will protect us from the
foolish and ungodly promises of the so-called health and wealth gospel, which
vitiates His command to take up our crosses as He took up His.
John MacArthur
2
Timothy, Moody, 1995, p. 56.
We
are His servants, not He ours. He has called us to live lives of loving service
and worship, not godlike supremacy. He blesses us, but not always materially. In
no way can we “write our own ticket” and expect Him to follow our script – nor
should any real believer even desire such a scenario. The life of the Christian
is a life spent in pursuit of God's will – not a strategy to get Him to go
along with ours. No one who rejects that fundamental truth can genuinely live
unto God's glory.
John MacArthur
Charismatic Chaos, Zondervan, © John MacArthur, 1992, p. 353, www.zondervan.com.