What is your view of the doctrine of "prosperity gospel"?
The "prosperity" doctrine, as presented by the "word of faith" proponents is, in this writer's view, a false doctrine. Further, a case can be easily made that the “name-it-and-claim-it ‘gospel’" that dominates the Christian TV and radio airways today is one of the top indicators that ours might well be the last generation that immediately precedes the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Although Jesus says in a number of places in Scripture that God's people, when they ask in His name, will be given by God the Father whatever they ask, this promise is very restrictive. Jesus, by saying the phrase "in my name," includes all the things He commands of His followers.
When we ask things "in Jesus' name," we must be totally within His Holy will for our lives. Nowhere in God's Word are Christians instructed to speak things they want into existence, with the promise that we can do the same miraculous things Jesus did when He walked the Earth.
Everything we ask in His Holy name must be designed with the prayerful desire to carry forth His Gospel -i.e., to take the salvation message of Calvary to the whole world. Ours, as Christians, must be an outward turning to bring the lost into Christ's fold, not an inward turning, to give ourselves whatever we desire. Jesus’ words tell us:
"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you" (John 15:16).
The Apostle Paul prophesied that the end-time generation will come upon the world scene, preaching, teaching, and greedily accepting doctrines other than the true Message found in God's Word.
"I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; 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 Tim. 4:1-4).
Paul speaks plainly that the child of God is to expect resistance and trouble while he lives and interacts in this world. Christians are not guaranteed anything and everything they personally claim by speaking a "word of faith." Paul says:
"But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry" (2 Tim. 4:5).
Followers of the "word of faith" prosperity message pour millions upon millions of dollars into that lustful, self-centered, self-serving message that comes from places other than from Heaven. At the same time, preachers and teachers of God's True Word--Christ Jesus, and Him crucified--more often than not have trouble finding the funding to carry forth Christ's Great Commission.
But God's Word does not and will not return to Him void. The final reckoning will be at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Then, He will show all where each Christian's treasure, thus, his heart, was during his time on Planet Earth.
"Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. 6:31-33).
"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts" (Jms. 4:3).
"Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days" (Jms 5:1-3).
