prosperity – Berean Baptist Church

ASSEMBLY VS. CHURCH

Berean Baptist on January 27, 2020

Of the seven churches in Revelation, the church at Laodicea has become nearly synonymous with Christ-less Christianity. Professor Michael Horton of the Westminster Theological Seminary wrote a book with this title, Christless Christianity. He questions whether America is fast arriving at the point where Christ is left out of the church and out of His own gospel.

One of the chapters in his book is titled, “How We Turn Good News into Good Advice.” In this chapter, he argues that reducing the good news of Jesus to good advice makes the gospel no better than any other method of life coaching. If all the gospel amounts to is a better way to feel good about ourselves, there are many competing philosophies that will be sworn by as better methods. If this is true, how do Christians rightly argue for the exclusivity of the gospel? The issue with this dilemma is that the modern church has replaced the person of the gospel with a plan of the gospel. Neither Christ nor His church is about a plan. Both are about the person of Jesus Christ. Without Him the plan has no more value than any other plan. Some rightly argue salvation is not a plan although we often term our presentations of it as the plan of salvation. Salvation is to have Christ. If He is not the center and focus, we will never have the salvation offered in Him.

This is the problem of the Laodicean church. Without Christ, it is a social organization. The word church means assembly. It comes from a common Greek word that means nothing more than people gathered in one place. However, our Bible translations render the word church when the translators are certain the assembly refers to people who are born-again, assembled to work for Christ, to obey His commission, and to glorify Him. In this sense, the Laodicean church is better termed the Laodicean assembly. Christ is not their focus.

As the time grows nearer to the coming of Christ, the Bible seems to indicate that more and churches will become usurpers of the term. They have been turned into assemblies. Though they carry Christ’s name, Christ can have no part of them because He is no part of them. If He stayed in those assemblies, He would only compete as another life coach with many other coaches and their paths to success. We already know Oprah wins that one hands down.

There are several indicators that you might be a member of an assembly rather than a church. Among these we might ask, is their gospel about your economic prosperity? It is not a church but an assembly for financial seminars. Is the preaching absent the Bible and people are not encouraged to carry, read, and study the scriptures? It is an assembly of rationalizers weighing the best methods of success.

Christianity is a person—Jesus Christ. His church is an expression of His redemptive work that only cares how our lives can best glorify Him. Sometimes the way is through sickness and poverty. Plug that into the assembly’s plan and see how much traction it gets. Until you are ready to make Christ central no matter how it affects you physically, financially, or in any other personal way, you must remain a member of the Laodicean assembly. You are not ready for membership in Christ’s church.

Pastor V. Mark Smith

Religious Thieves

Berean Baptist on December 3, 2018

The subject of the 8^th commandment is thievery which is a command broken in myriads of ways. I want to mention an important aspect of thievery that might have escaped your attention. This is religious thievery. False teachers are guilty of theft in a most serious way.

Theft is taking place as listeners attend many churches. Across our country and the world, there is an insidious lie told which says that God offers health, wealth, and prosperity to those who plant seeds of faith in the ministries of prosperity preachers. These seeds are dollar bills, of course, and the bigger the seeds the more the growth of prosperous trees that are large enough for the fowls of the air to lodge in. This false teaching encircles the globe so that good missionaries in many countries say it is the biggest hurdle they face in preaching the true gospel of Christ. In other words, the biggest threat to salvation is not Islam, Buddhism, animism, or other false religions. The worst is the perversion of Christianity.

In a sermon about ten years ago, John Piper who was then pastor of the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, made this statement: “I don’t know what you feel about the prosperity gospel—the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel—but I’ll tell you want I feel about it…hatred.” He went on to say, “It is not the gospel, and it’s being exported from this country to Africa and Asia, selling a bill of goods to the poorest of the poor: ‘Believe this message, and your pigs won’t die and your wife won’t have miscarriages, and you’ll have rings on your fingers and coats on your back.’ That’s coming out of America—the people that ought to be giving our money and our time and our lives, instead selling them a bunch of crap called ‘gospel.’”

Admittedly, Piper used strong language that I probably would not use from the pulpit, but his deep disgust for a false gospel is reflected in his disgusting description. The prosperity gospel is theft when it asks for money to fulfill a promise that will not come true because it is based in a lie. It dupes people into believing material goods are the gauge of good hope in Christ. It teaches people to seek satisfaction in this world’s offerings when God clearly says we must set our affections on things above.

Piper made another heart stopping riveting statement. He said, “I’ll tell you what makes Jesus look beautiful, it’s when you smash your car, and your little girl goes flying through the windshield, and lands dead on the street . . . and you say through the deepest possible pain, ‘God is enough.’”

When we preach this gospel, “God is enough, Jesus Christ is enough—He is all I need”—we do not steal from the people. We do not take—we give. We give the best possible gift they can receive. We give them hope that never fails to bring lasting peace. The worst thief is a religious thief. Souls are the commodity he takes from unsuspecting seekers. Souls seek the kingdom of God without realizing Satan has his thieves seeking them.

Praise God for those who preach truth! Let us stand with those who do, and let us stop the mouths of the thieves of the glorious gospel. Without apology, we will fight religious thievery!

Pastor V. Mark Smith