Some Christian Preachers are not Christian
I was driving my wife nuts again by rapidly flipping through the TV channels when I stopped on the Christian TV channel on our Time Warner cable service. There I heard the pastor tell a huge audience that each one of us is a prince or princess, a child of the king. God wants you to have this great life of health, wealth, prosperity, and fun, happy living. How? If you will just live right and pray, unlock the doors of heaven by faith and claim the promises of God, then this good life is yours. This is a very popular message. It is empowering and encouraging. There is, however, one major problem with it. Throughout the history of the Christian church false teachers have been around giving a new and different spin on the gospel of Christ. They read the same Bible that we all have; however, they have a knack of seeing what they want to see rather than what it clearly says. We have probably heard that if you pick and choose verses here and there and take things out of context you can make the Bible say most anything you want. Unfortunately many Christians are not discerning and do not know the Bible well enough to know they are listening to someone who claims to be a Christian preacher yet is not teaching biblical truth. The major problem with what the TV pastor was saying is that it is not true. It is not Christian. It is a false gospel that worships a false god of prosperity, comfort, and pleasure. Many of these preachers love to talk about the power of faith and how we need to be positive and speak into existence the positive things we want. This is the basic concept of the book ³The Secret² and it¹s ³law of attraction,² clothed in shabby Christian rags. They love to talk about the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, biblical giants like Gideon, Samson, David and the prophets. ³By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword² (Hebrews 11:33-34). That is the kind of faith and results I¹d like to have. And God does give that kind of victory sometimes. What is interesting to me is these teachers most always stop reading Hebrews 11 at this point, however the writer continues with these words: ³But others were tortured, Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword² (Hebrews 11:35-37). I don¹t find many wanting to sign up for that kind of a life of faith. The faith teachers might say they were not truly good people, or they just needed to have more faith, but not the Bible. The author of Hebrews says, ³They were too good for this world.All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.² These were great, godly people who were full of faith yet they did not receive in this life all God has promised. They will receive their rewards in the life to come. Jesus tells us we will suffer. We live in an evil and unjust world. There are no simple answers or formulas. God is working on an eternal plan, so rest in him, knowing he will never leave you or abandon you, even when you walk through hard times.
