There is a saying I came across in school, which is “bad news travels faster than good news” and I always wondered why. Then over time as I acquainted myself with the Word of God, I learnt that mankind was by nature wicked from the fall of Adam and bad news only traveled all the more hastily because that’s what people enjoyed. We live in a world where idle gossip is hot, slander/libeling is entertaining and newspapers seem to cater to a sadist readership. In such a world as this, the only thing that catalyzes the Good News of the Gospel is God-the-Holy Spirit (Jn 16:8), who convicts people as sinners that they may die to their righteousness of self and live for the Lord (Jn 12:24-26).
Ezek 36
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Ps 37:4
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Mat 6
31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Where the prosperity gospel flies of the tangent, is that it fails to understand that the fulfillment God offers us in Christ comes from putting Jesus before ourselves (Mat 6:33) because in the course of salvation God gives us an obedient heart [on which is written His Law] (Ezek 36:26), which delights in the Lord and seeks His pleasure in everything we do (Psalm 37:4). Does God want you to have your own yacht or a private jet or a multi-crore mansion? Well, you should ask yourself this… will that new/obedient heart which God gives the believer to enjoy Him forever, be delighted with a self-serving lifestyle? Also, if you believe receiving the faith of the apostles is all about your being empowered by your own will, then why is it you believe that it suddenly becomes God’s will to give your own yacht, private jet and mansion? This is no Gospel, this is hypocrisy, the prosperity gospel is pure hypocrisy. Salvation is by the will of God and those whom He calls to Himself are heirs of something much bigger… something that’s spiritually appraised (1Cor 2:14) …for those whom God calls to Himself in Jesus Christ are heirs of God Himself (Rom 8:17) because He chose us from the foundation of the world to be His Own (Eph 1:4). In the Gospel, we see the Son of God gave Himself as a ransom to purchase a people for God, paid in His blood (Rev 5:9), through which we are reconciled to God (Rom 5:17) and restored to the image of God in which were made (Rom 8:29).
Mat 24
24 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time.
26 “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
From the fall, man is a god to himself, serving chiefly his own interests and the reason the unbeliever hates the Gospel is for the same reason he hates truth, because it does not serve his interest, instead the Gospel makes evident the righteous interests of God, but man’s heart is set on himself and though he is aware that he will do well in serving the righteous interests of God, man is unable to do so because he is has no power over his heart from which stems his appetite and love for sin. The Bible therefore calls the natural man, who is dead in his sin, a spiritual carcass (Mat 24:28), which false preachers aka vultures live off by deceitfully feeding their congregation of fallen souls with self-serving lies under the banner of preaching the Gospel. It is interesting to note that among all the disciples, Jesus entrusted the money bag to Judas Iscariot, who was a thief but the disciples weren’t too bothered because they had Jesus & He was worth more to them than any money and more than themselves. All these disciples were martyred, the only disciple who survived was John because he didn’t die after being boiled in oil. This selfless faith remains undesirable by those who fill the halls of prosperity Gospel preachers, instead these spiritual tramps are looking to be reassured of their self-worth under the banner of the Gospel.
Hosea 4:6 (the case of the unbeliever)
6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.
1Peter 2:9 (the case of the believer)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
The reason why prosperity gospel preachers have and maintain a high number of people in their congregation is because their members are too lazy to rid themselves of their ignorance of God. They will spend loads of money on higher education and invest a whole of effort into a cushy lifestyle but they will want a Bible given to them for free and even when it is given to them for free, they have no interest in ridding themselves of their ignorance of God. In the height of their success these people are among those who have gained the whole world and lost their souls in the process (Mat 16:26) & they cannot help that empty feeling because in their fallen state they don’t have a heart that seeks the Lord, all their heart seeks after is themselves and so the Holy Bible comes across as the most uninteresting book to them in the whole world because it serves neither their selfish interest nor their sinful appetites. Having said this, I must add that I fully believe every a person must have an education and a job after that, the point am trying to make is that if you are going to go about an education and a job without the Knowledge of God as revealed in scripture, your life is going to be empty. Take a look at the goods produced in countries whose culture has been shaped by the Gospel, their goods are sought the world over because their goods have earned themselves a reputation for quality, which did not come about from its people running after money.
1Timothy 6:10
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
Matthew 6:24
“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. You cannot serve God and money.
To conclude, I would like say that there is nothing wrong with money in itself, it is all about how you put it to use. Nothing in this world serves a man’s selfish interest like money and this is what God cautions us about concerning money. Money promotes self-idolatry like no other because it makes a person feel omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent (by buying people off) and unless a person is predestined to glorify God’s justice, God will not hand one over to their love for money because it would rob God of the worship He deserves and in doing so, be the very ruin of those who serve their vested interest with money but for those whom God wills to save, there is no sin too big for the Almighty Triune God to turn the sinner around from… remember Jesus turned Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10/Mat 13:44) around from his love for money.
Making known the Defeated Dragon 