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Almost all the popular teaching on "Prosperity" today is a morass of metaphysical-type "laws and principles" and twisting of Scriptures. The account of Jesus' meeting with the rich young ruler and the so-called "heavenly bank account" are two of the most notable examples of distortion. The man came to Jesus and asked him,

Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions. And Jesus looked round about, and saith to his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! (Mark 10:17-23)

Notice that Jesus did not quote the tenth commandment in His list to the young man-"thou shalt not covet." What is plainly and simply a sober warning about covetousness and the power of material things over a man (a frequent theme of Jesus) is twisted and perverted by the most prominent "prosperity" teachers so as to become unrecognizable. Consider this interpretation which supposedly came by the revelation of the Holy Spirit:

This is one of the most misunderstood incidents in the whole Bible. We have read this in the light of the world's traditional system, thinking that God wanted to break that young man, but this is not so...Before you begin meditation in the Word, you must commit yourself to the absolute truth of John 10:10...Whenever I read something that seems contradictory to this, I immediately stop and straighten my thinking. The truth is hidden in some way and I rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal it to me...As I read...all these have I observed FROM MY YOUTH, the Lord spoke to me and said, "See, this is why he was rich."...The young man was evidently walking on this part of the Covenant [the power to get wealth, Deuteronomy 8:18]...Then the story continues with, "Jesus...said unto him. One thing thou lackest..."What he lacked was a working revelation of the Covenant...He presented himself as knowing the Word, and Jesus tested his knowledge by saying, "...go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me..." [The young man] walked off sadly because he had great possessions. Jesus could have stopped him right then and explained what He meant, but if He had, the man would have obeyed in the natural and not by faith...If the man had really known the Covenant, he would have...remembered Proverbs 19:17..."He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and that which he hath given will he pay him again." This was the biggest financial deal that young man had ever been offered, but he walked away from it because he didn't know God's system of finance...Jesus said, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!...The next verse says, "And the disciples were astonished at his words." We have just taken it for granted that Jesus and His disciples didn't have anything. But the Bible describes Peter, James, and John as professional fishermen. They owned more than one boat and had household servants!...Jesus was not poor in His ministry. He had a treasurer! Turn your religious head off and read the Word of God as if it were your newspaper...Do you realize the significance of His words, "Come...follow me?" These are the same words Jesus spoke to every man He commissioned as an apostle. When I saw this the Lord said, "Wouldn't this man have been the logical replacement for Judas?"...This young ruler was an excellent businessman; he was honest and he operated the Covenant since his youth. He was perfect for the job, but he turned his back on this tremendous opportunity to follow Jesus. [Mark 10:25-30]-IN THIS LIFE! He intended to give the rich young ruler a hundred times what he had!

And so, after all, we finally have the true "revelation"-the rich young ruler's main problem was "ignorance of the Covenant" and not covetousness! He was an "excellent and honest businessman" who missed the financial deal of a life-time and apostleship as Judas' replacement because he "didn't know the Word" or "God's system of finance!" Jesus wasn't really asking him to dramatically alter his priorities and follow Him in self-denial and sacrifice, He was offering him a hundredfold return! Jesus and the disciples were really a group of prosperous businessmen who had tapped into "God's system of finance" and were out motivating others to become wealthy! Friends, if you think this is sound Scriptural exposition, you haven't heard any in a long time.

If Jesus and the disciples were really wealthy, why did they eat grain with their hands as they walked along in the field, and why did Jesus say, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has no place to lay his head?"

Again, this is from the most prominent exponent of "prosperity." Jesus said, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth...but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do no break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:19-21). What is obviously (in the light of Jesus' last sentence in this passage) a clear and simple admonition about having your priorities on spiritual, not material things, is again mutilated beyond recognition:

[Jesus] was saying, "If you will let heaven be your treasury and supply, then regardless of what happens on earth, you will have a bank that is not subject to theft or ruin."...[1 Timothy 6:17-19] Paul tells us to "lay up in store for ourselves" in our heavenly bank account by being "ready to distribute" and "willing to communicate." Then when we need it, we have it on deposit in heaven!...By giving, heaven declares certain portions as mine. No force on earth then is able to keep it from coming to me when I call for it! Heaven's record says so, and earth dares not refuse...the Lord said, "This rust and corruption is inflation and depression...When money is on earth, it is vulnerable to Satan and to the world's system of finance. If I gave you one thousand dollars today, in nine months' time it probably wouldn't be worth more than seven hundred fifty dollars...Make your deposits with Me according to the rate of exchange which My Word guarantees and operate under My system of finance instead of the world's system..."

All this is light years away from "Give us this day our daily bread." It sounds like Charles Fillmore's (of Unity fame) rendition of the twenty-third Psalm:

The Lord is my banker; my credit is good. He maketh me to lie down in the consciousness of omnipotent abundance. He giveth me the key to His strong-box. He restoreth my faith in His riches, He guideth me in the paths of prosperity for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the very shadow of debt, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy silver and Thy gold, they secure me. Thou preparest a way for me in the presence of the collector; Thou fillest my wallet with plenty; my measure runneth over. Surely, goodness and plenty will follow me all the days of my life; And I shall do business in the name of the Lord forever.

Pastor friend, Christian friend, you have sense enough to know this kind of prosperity teaching is not only foolish but harmful, and I am asking you to take a stand on the real Word of God against it. Let's turn our eyes back to the "true riches" of Jesus Christ.

Pastor Leon Stump

"So strongly is the breeze blowing for revival that scarcely anyone appears to have the discernment or the courage to turn around and lean into the wind...I believe that the imperative need of the day is not simply revival, but a radical reformation that will go to the root of our moral and spiritual maladies and deal with causes rather than with consequences, with the disease rather than with symptoms. It is my considered opinion that under the present circumstances we do not want revival at all. A widespread revival of the kind of Christianity we know today in America might prove to be a moral tragedy from which we would not recover in a hundred years"

--A.W. Tozer

I had been speaking in a town in the west of England, on the subject of the responsibility of Christians for the salvation of people's souls. The gentleman with whom I was staying had winced a bit under the truth, and instead of taking it to heart in love, and having it enable him to better serve God, he said, "I thought you were rather hard on us this morning." I said, "Did you? I should be very sorry to be on anyone than the Lord Jesus Christ would be." He said, "You can push things to extremes you know. You were talking about seeking souls, and making sacrifices. Now you know that we build the chapels and churches and pay the ministers-and if the people won't get saved, we can't help it!" I said, "It is very heartless and ungrateful of the people, I agree, but my dear sir, you would not reason this way in a serious physical matter. Suppose a plague were to break out in London, and the Board of Health appropriated all the hospitals and public buildings for the treatment of the disease. And suppose they were to issue proclamations saying that anyone who came to these buildings would be treated free of charge-and best of all, that the treatment was guaranteed to cure them. Now what if the people were so blind to their own well-being, so indifferent and uncaring, that they refused to come, and consequently the plague increased and thousands were dying. What would you say? 'Well, the Board of Health had done all they could, and if the people will not go to be healed, they deserve to perish-let them alone!' What? Let the whole land be depopulated? No! if the people will not come to them. They must go to the people, and make sure that everyone had the necessary treatment to be saved from the plague."...

It is a bad sign for the Christianity of this day that it provokes so little opposition. If there were no other evidence of it being wrong, I could tell from just that. When the church and the world can jog comfortably along together, you can be sure that is something wrong. The world has not compromised-its spirit is exactly the same as it ever was. If Christians were equally as faithful to the Lord, separated from the world, and living so that their lives were a reproof to all ungodliness, the world would hate them as much as it ever did. It is the church that has compromised, not the world. You say, "You're implying that we should be getting into endless conflict with the world!" Yes-"I came not to bring peace on the earth, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34).

--Catherine Booth "The Mother of the Salvation Army"

GET BACK TO VANILLA

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. --2 Timothy 4:24

"After their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers." In other words they will seek out teachers who will tell them what they want to hear.

The time that Paul talked about has come. We hear a lot of talk about the wonderful teaching revival we are supposed to have had in recent years. There certainly has been a lot of teaching, but the vast majority of it has not been sound doctrine. It has been a conglomeration of metaphysics, old "New Thought," and discarded psychological theories mingled with enough Scripture text to sound Biblical enough to deceive the shallow Evangelical mind. It is worthy to note that the only great teaching revival prophesied in the Word of God for the end time would be of the "itching ear" variety.

In the third chapter of II Timothy , Paul prophesied "that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud...having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof..." (verses1-6). Whatever form that sin and ungodliness take in the world around us, that is the form in which it will be found in the church also unless definite measures are taken to keep it out. Studies show that the divorce rate, for instance, is about the same in the church today as in the world. If these sins listed in II Timothy 3 are the ones that would prevail in the end time (and who can seriously doubt that this is not the last days?), we should have been busy taking specific measures to keep these particular sins out of the church by preaching what the Word of God says about these things and how they are cured. But so far from doing that, the absolutely unbelievable reality is that we have taught these top four things on Paul's list as Christian doctrine today.

"Lovers of their own selves"-Dr. Robert Schuller (the most popular TV preacher in the nation according to the ratings) has built his entire ministry on the assumption that instead of loving ourselves too much, the main problem with modern man is that he loves himself too little! That the way to love God is to love yourself. Many, many full gospel preachers (not to mention all the evangelical ones) feed on these books and pass this foolishness on to the itching ears of their congregations.

"Lovers of money"-the so-called prosperity message has taken the charismatic movement by storm in recent years. I mean, if you do not preach prosperity, you're just not with "what God is doing today."

Instead of preaching old-fashioned denial of self, our crucifixion with Christ to the things of the world, and warning people about covetousness, we have been preaching things that will promote a positive self-image and how to get rich!

"Boasters, proud"-instead of exhibiting old-fashioned humility, preachers strut around on stage and brag about their faith and ministries! We are told we must above all things get rid of our so-called "worm complex" and being humble is often equated with being ignorant.

In other words, nearly everything we have been teaching or heard taught has been playing right into the hands of the prominent sins of our day. I wouldn't call that a great teaching revival-I would call it apostasy. I would call it as the Word of God calls it, "after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears."

What is the "sound doctrine" Paul refers to in verse three of our text? He tells us in verse two-it is reproving, rebuking, and exhorting. You see, that's what people can't stand for today. As long as you can just "share the gospel" or pass out information, they will take what they want out of it and leave what they don't like. But if you minister like Paul did, like a general warring against strongholds, imaginations, and thoughts and attitudes of disobedience against Christ in the people's minds (read II Corinthians 10:2-6) folks can't handle it-you "put them under too much pressure." Or as Paul said, "They will not endure it."

In the following book, Titus, Paul tells us what things he includes in "sound doctrine" in chapter two, verse one, through chapter three, verse nine. It is just plain, good instructions in right living. But instead of just plain, good, "vanilla" Bible, today we think that we have to preach or hear some novel "revelation" of Scriptures, something "the Holy Ghost showed me about this verse as I was meditating and praying in tongues." We are told again and again that you can't just accept the Word of God like it is written, you have to "get the revelation of it in your spirit." But Jesus and James said you just need to hear it and do it (Matthew 7:24-27; James 1:22-27). Paul said that his letters had no double meaning (Ephesians 3:3-4; II Corinthians 1:13). The idea that you have to get the revelation of it in your spirit and the real truth of the Word lies beneath the surface of the Word has led us into untold twisting of Scripture and outright error.

The charismatic movement today in particular is adrift on a theology-less and unsound doctrinal sea. Whatever sounds good, no matter where it came from or what its roots are (in total ignorance and disregard of church history and ancient heresies), is gladly welcomed as truth if someone says "it works." It embarrasses me that those who often preach the soundest doctrine today, men like Charles Swindoll, Charles Stanley, and Billy Graham, are non-charismatics while Spirit-filled men preach mental visualization, physically establishing the kingdom of God on earth, overcoming physical death, "Christian psychology," healing of memories in childhood and even the womb, "generation" curse, get rich through God, laws that govern the spiritual and physical realms, and using the "force of faith." We are often urged to "forget our doctrinal differences (as if doctrine were not so important) and come together in unity.

No doubt you have been to one of these ice cream stores that have thirty-one flavors to choose from. It reminds me of the charismatic movement today. Now, when it comes to ice cream, variety and innovation may be all right, but in theology it is disastrous. These ice cream places come up with a new flavor every month.

Current teachings remind me of some ice cream flavors-"tuti-fruiti" and "banana nut"-and they have put us on a "rocky road." But I am through with "tuti-fruiti" and "banana nut" and I'm gong back to vanilla. No frills. No fancy revelations. No twisting to fit some "prophet's" viewpoint. Nothing you wouldn't get if you just read your Bible prayerfully.

Actually my analogy is not very valid because tuti-fruiti or banana nut ice cream will not hurt you very much, but current perversions of the Word definitely will.

Nevertheless, I'm saying that I am going to get back to the vanilla Bible and I urge you to do the same.

I Timothy 6:5

(KJV) Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.

(Jordan) This is the kind of running off at the mouth that men do when their mind is festered and they've robbed the truth of all meaning. They're counting on getting well off on religion.

(Living Bible) These arguers-their minds warped by sin-don't know how to tell the truth; to them the Good News is just a means of making money. Keep away from them.

(Way) ...who imagine that religion is a means of getting wealth.

(Byington) ...who suppose piety to be an economic resource.

(Berkley) ...who think of godliness in terms of acquisition.

(New English) ...They think religion should yield dividends.

(Deaf) ...Thy think serving God is a way to get rich.

(Bruce) ...who regard religion as a means of material profit.

"The faith means the whole body of revealed truth, and to contend for all of God's truth necessitates some negative teaching...Any error, or any truth-and-error mixture, calls for definite exposure and repudiation. To condone such is to unfaithful to God and His Word, and treacherous to imperiled souls for whom Christ died."

--H.A. Ironside

Leon Stump, Pastor of Victory Christian Center

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