Part of the thrust of this blog is to prepare you to deal with the spiritual darkness and counterfeits that are looming today, the false Christs and the false prophets who seek to lead many people astray, even the very elect of God. There is an important issue that is not outside the church. It is a growing heresy that has been creeping into the church throughout North America.
This heresy is known as "prosperity theology". It is being taught by many people on television. It is the teaching that God always wants you healthy, wealthy and prosperous -- that the goal of the Christian life is financial prosperity and health, and if you are not healthy and prosperous, then you are a sinner or you lack faith or you haven't claimed these things by using the right formulas, the correct powers of the tongue.
Idolatry is not simply worshipping a stone image; idolatry is any concept of God that reduces Him to anything less than who He is. There is a false religion in our land, and it is called "prosperity theology".
Many Christians are being swept into this false religion by promises of financial prosperity, by claims that God always wants them healthy, wealthy and properous. This "gospel message" has become idolatry by reducing God to someone who is there to give us what we want. This gospel says, "ask not what you can do for God, but what He can do for you."
This message is a uniquely American charismatic humanism whose emphasis is on man's desire for wealth and his power to direct the actions of God. Yet preachers who claim to be following the carpenter from Nazareth, who didn't even have a permenant place to lay His head, offer vast material riches if viewers will only support their cause. It all sounds so wonderful: Be a Christian and get a bigger home, a boat, and a vacation in Hawaii. For all too many people, prosperity is becoming the goal of applied Christianity and the mark of true spirituality.
It is no longer, "You shall know them by their love" but "You shall know them by their material possessions." This teaching is creating a generation of Christians who believe that God and all His universe revolve around their own personal comfort and well-being. BUT IT ISN'T TRUE!!
(From "Fast Facts on False Teachings" by Ron Carlson & Ed Decker) Ron is recognized as one of the foremost lecturers on cults and Christian apologetics. Ed is the Director of Saints Alive In Jesus, a counter-cults ministry.
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