I, like John Piper, hate the prosperity gospel. But, I wonder if your reaction to it is dependant on the audience that views it… I guess when I flick on GodTV, TBN etc. (a rare event) and see a bit of TD Jakes, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, Todd Bentley, Creflo Dollar or maybe the Copelands…* my general reaction is indifference, I know the teaching is wrong, but part of me thinks, so what, if stupid Americans want to waste their money on a prayer hankerchief (true story) then who am I to stop them!

What makes me hate it more is when you hear people speak from personal experience from the developing world of how via crusades and GodTV, prosperity preachers will extract money from the poorest of the poor - and what if you don’t get financial blessings or you’re not healed - that’s right, you didn’t have enough faith! This exploitation of the world’s poorest people makes me actively hate it, but shouldn’t I have felt this strongly anyway? Hatred that God’s word is twisted? Hatred that people get rich on the name of Jesus? Hated that the faith of many is crushed by the false promises of wolves?

I don’t know if you watch ‘Mock the Week’… anyway one of the rounds on the show is called “Things you wouldn’t hear at…” So here is my list… “Promises of God you wouldn’t hear from a prosperity preacher“… if you like a ‘poverty gospel’, name and claim these promises of God for yourself!

1. Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Tim 3:12)
2. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away (Job 1:21)
3. [God's] power is made perfect in [your] weakness (1 Cor 12:9)
4. There is no one who does good, not even one! (Rom 3:12)
5. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. (James 1:2)

Paul has some good quotes on this:

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. (2 Cor 11:30)

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. (Phil 3:10)

Let’s name and claim these truths - let us boast only in our weakness and in Christ crucified that He may get all the glory!

* On a side note, I found two books by one of the prosperity preachers named above on my church bookstall. None of my church leaders had heard of this preacher, so were unaware of the heresy contained there in. If you’re a church leader make sure you read up on who’s teaching what - go to Wesley Owen, chances are 50% of the books in the best sellers will be prosperity preaching!

The other night me and my dad sat down and watched the God channel together. Not something we usually do for obvious reasons, but we did so with a specific intention; to see, understand and analyse the theology and methodology of Todd Bentley. This is big news - Bentley has been running large ‘revival’ meetings for several months now in Lakeland, Florida. He is currently in Los Angeles, and had been due to be at at ‘outpouring’ event in Birmingham (UK) in the middle of September (although this has been postponed/cancelled).

This is definitely a global event. People from all around the world are heading to Florida to receive an ‘impartation’ - now I don’t really know how to explain this, but the idea seems to be that you go, receive some of the Spirit, some ‘revival fire’ and then take it back with you so that the revival spreads and God can work around the world. Here’s what Mark Stibbe from St. Andrew’s Church Chorleywood says:

Since coming back from the Lakeland revival in Florida on Tuesday 13th May, we have seen the fire of God’s Holy Spirit fall on the staff, the leaders and the people of St Andrews [Chorleywood]. Sunday May 18th was particularly exciting as hundreds of people came forward to receive an impartation of the Holy Spirit for evangelism with signs and wonders.

There’s also something happening near me… the Sussex Healing Outpouring, and the Brighton & Hove outpouring. I suspect there’ll be something similar happening near you too!

If you’re in to Todd Bentley then let me ask some questions that have been prompted by listening to him preach? If you’re not, then they will reveal some of my perceived issues with his teaching…

What is Sin? - Is Sin something that you do that you need to repent of, or is it demonic, is Sin caused by the power, the dominion of the Devil? I think it’s a bit of both, but if you place your emphasis on the latter, you won’t be convicted, you won’t acknowledge your responsibility and you won’t come to repent.

How is Sin defeated? - The power and hold of Sin is according to Bentley defeated by a supernatural work of the Spirit, it’s something we have faith for and pray for. Now while it is true that there is an on going battle between Spirit and flesh, the fact is that the penalty, power and hold of Sin was defeated once for all time at the Cross - an emphasis on the battle now diminishes the centrality of the Cross.

Who is at work - God or man? - Bentley seems to call on the congregations to pray, have faith, give yourself, stir up feelings and emotions, to strive for faith. This is all very man-centred and actually religious. While they talk about faith, it’s not as a gift from God, but as something that you do, something that you put your mind to. God’s work in salvation from beginning to end is diminished as the focus is put on man and his faith… which will force God to act.

Is Bentley promising prosperity? - At first I didn’t think Bentley was preaching a prosperity gospel, I thought it was just healings, miracles etc. But here’s where the prosperity comes in - we have faith, we pray to be released from the dominion of sin, likewise we pray against the ‘dominion’ of financial difficulty, sickness, relationship breakdown - once we defeat the devil’s power over us we will have prosperity! This is more subtle than most prosperity preachers, but it is still false promises, a false gospel.

What is the central message in Lakeland? - Healings, Miracles, defeat of Sin/demons, power evangelism, impartation etc. This seems to go against two main themes - firstly the Gospel, which is Christ crucified, atonement for sins by the shedding of his blood - Sin, Jesus Crucified, and repentance and faith are not prominent, the main message here. Secondly, while I agree that revivals will be marked by some or all of the events in Lakeland, the overwhelming defining feature of revival will be repentance, humility and genuine conversions.

…and I’m not even going to touch on the stuff you see in the YouTube videos about Todd healing people by kicking them in the face, about visitations from an Angel called Emma, and about Todd manifesting a demon… I don’t have any response, but my instinct is to simply say that it’s wrong and messed up!

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Some verses for consideration:

1 Peter 2:1-3   -   There will be false teachers in the church. I’m not saying Todd Bentley is an anti-christ, but he is teaching things that are false!

Colossians 2:18   -   This sounds worryingly like Todd Bentley, “goes into great detail about what he has seen”… worship of angels?

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One thing that has surprised me about this is the lack of senior leaders in the church speaking with some authority about what is happening - so it ends up that half-informed bloggers (like me - and appologies that I have nothing to reference, this is simply my thoughts on watching God TV) are the only voice in the debate. However, John Piper did blog yesterday with some thoughts shared from Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine - he asks some probing questions of Bentley and the ‘revival’. Two key thoughts came across:

• Discernment was lacking and discouraged
• Revival is marked and tested by its doctrine

In recent news, Todd Bentley has separated from his wife which is a tragedy. I fear this is the start of the collapsing of this revival movement which will inevitably result in a fallout of confusion. PRAY, for Todd and his wife, and pray for discernment and true revival. Go and read John Piper, and this guy Lee Grady…

A few conferences have been happening recently, check out the audio…

Dwell New York -   Driscoll, Keller, Mahaney, Stetzer

New Attitude 2008 - Harris, Piper, Dever, Mohler, Mahaney

Basics 2008 -   Begg, Bridges, Getty, Bauchman, Challies

Together 4 the Gospel -   Piper, Duncan, MacArthur, Dever, Mohler, Anyabwile, Sproul, Mahaney

…and next week is Resolved 2008 with Piper, MacArthur, Mahaney and others!

Currently going up online are a series of video interviews between Adrian Warnock, and Don Carson, John Piper and presumably Terry Virgo. You can see them on the Youtube UCCFMedia page. Here’s my favourite little bit, last part of Piper, there’s a question in here that I submitted to Adrian, all about longevity in ministry…

The 2008 Together for the Gospel conference is just coming to a close in Louisville, Kentucky. There doesn’t seem to be a particular theme this year, except just the gospel I guess… Ligon Duncan, Thabiti Anyabwile, John MacArthur, Mark Dever, RC Sproul, Albert Mohler, John Piper and CJ Mahaney… pretty impressive line up!

You can download the talks here, along with those from T4G 2006.

For some blog reports… Bish managed to get a free trip to go, and Challies is there too.

If you don’t know what Together 4 the Gospel is then have a look at this…

I think this was probably the highlight of New Word Alive for me. Partly because I’m a bit of a preacher groupie, actually it’s more than that, Piper’s preaching through its freeness at DesiringGod.org has really helped me during my time at Uni, really shaped my view of God, and although I haven’t read much of his writings, Don’t Waste Your Life was great! So getting to see him preach live (yes we were sad and made it to nearly the front row) was just great, he is a great communicator, passionate and dynamic, visibly in love with Jesus and deeply influenced, to the core by a massive view of God in His sovereignty . More importantly, it was the highlight because of the topic and passage.

Piper spoke from Romans 8 (in two parts) under the title ‘Treasuring Christ and a call to suffer’, it really needed 3 messages as he spent 30 minutes of the 2nd giving qualifications and expansions on the 1st, my solution is let him preach for as long as he likes! I didn’t take any notes, I just wanted to listen (you can find some notes on Adrian Warnock and Tim Chester’s blog).

Three big points on the first night were; first, suffering is universal, everyone suffers (except God and non-fallen angels), second that suffering is historical, it had a beginning and will come to an end, and third that all suffering is judicial, God’s judgement on a rebellious world. For the non-Christian that suffering is the foretaste of eternal condemnation, for the Christian there is now no condemnation, so all suffering is purifying.

The second message was the why and how of the first message, it’s aim was to try and be practical response to the theological grounding of the first, in reality he still had much theological grounding that he wanted to give - which is good, you need a robust theology of suffering to be able to in God’s grace, stand through the storm. The big point here was Ephesians 1:5-6 - “He predestined us… to the praise of his glory” - Piper passionately explained that this groaning world exists to give glory to God, and ultimately this is displayed through Christ on the cross, the suffering of which we will sing FOREVER!

Piper concluded with a quote from ‘Shining Like Stars‘, which is sourced from Howard Guinness (in the book Sacrifice. A call to faithful suffering, and obedient service…

Where are the young men and women of this generation who will hold their lives cheap and be faithful even unto death? Where are those who will lose their lives for Christ’s sake – flinging them away for love of Him? Where are those who will live dangerously, and be reckless in His service?

Part 1, Part 2

Here’s what I’ve been waiting for… the Q&A sessions from The Resurgence ‘Text and Context’ conference are now online. There’s two hour sessions, one with Matt Chandler and John Piper, and the other just with Mark Driscoll, well worth listening to.

I was a bit disappointed they didn’t put on something similar with Carson and Piper at New Word Alive, but alas…

So, after about a nine hour trip we finally made it back from Pwllheli and the anticipated excitement was not disappointed! The site we were staying on isn’t as good as Skeggy, but in contrast to the Lincolnshire coast we had some sun, you could describe the scenery as beautiful and having Snowdon in the background is a plus.

First night we kicked off with Terry Virgo speaking on God’s Grace from Romans 5. It was a great start to the week to be reminded of our status before God based on his Grace mediated through Christ’s work on the cross. At the same time some of us felt he didn’t really give a balanced picture, yes we are under grace, but what about disciple, how does sanctification work? Terry Virgo did mention these things but had no time to explain - a shame. Nevertheless it was great to glory at God’s lavish grace.

Don Carson spoke in the morning Bible readings from 1 John, and the next two evenings formed a two-part message from John Piper - Treasuring Christ and a call to suffer… these two features deserve separate posts.

What else was there to do… Chronological Bible overview with Jason Clarke, a guide to understanding, interpreting and applying the whole Bible (using Daniel) with Vaughan Roberts, Trinity with Mike Reeves (mind blowing as ever), Humanity and Creation, 3 studies with Mike Ovey… Giving a Bible talk with Richard Coekin, Good News to the poor with Tim Chester… and loads of other practical seminars with great speakers like; Graham Daniels, Mark Ashton, Wallace Benn, Dave Bish, Andrew Sach, Jim Paul, Melvin Tinker, Jon Hobbs, John Benton, Roger Carswell… and loads more!

And if that’s too much for you then there’s go karts, crazy golf, swimming, peddlos, and a nice beach to walk on. In fact that usually is too much, I went to the main meetings and Mike Reeves on the Triune God… that’s more than enough! The rest of the time it’s good to just chillax, enjoy people’s company, think about what we’re learning, and to enjoy the beauty of Wales (and Sarah), more thoughts to come…

Next week is the Resurgence conference, Text and Context - Driscoll, Piper, Mahaney etc. hopefully there’ll be some audio to discuss then… but for now here’s MD on preparing to preach…

What does the scripture say?

What does the scripture mean?

How or why do we resist the word?

How does it apply to our mission - personal and corporate application?

I know it’s sin to dislike “joyful Christians”, but sometimes it’s hard not to, particularly when occasionally you do meet the ‘Ned Flanders’ type who is constantly rejoicing, always joyful - maybe I’m too English and reserved, maybe I should be seeking some experience to give some joy, maybe I’m just a grumpy old man, maybe I’m typical, maybe I’m in need of some more sanctifying…?

Sometimes I really dislike John Piper also… “God is most glorified in you, when you are most satisfied in him”… he makes joy, and satisfaction in God sound easy and normal. Really? Maybe it’s just me but I find it hard to be joyful a lot of the time… life is stressful, sometimes I wonder if God is gonna answer my prayers, sometimes sin just gets in the way, sometimes sin seems more attractive than God,

On a side note there’s some interesting discussions about JP’s theology and the subject of Christian Hedonism in the blogworld, Ed Goode has given some thoughts with a few other references here.

However, before I slate Piper too much, he does also write books to flesh out his ’slogans’, they kindof explain and defend his ‘brand’ of Christian Hedonism. I just read this little book ‘When the Darkness will not lift’, which as I understand is pretty much the last chapter of a slightly bigger book ‘When I don’t desire God’. It’s thinking about the topics of depression and suffering and how we can find joy in the midst of these.

Piper clearly and concisely takes us through a variety of what I guess you’d call ’stumbling blocks’ to joy. Depression, suffering, sin - Piper takes these and honestly and helpfully shows us the issues, gives us some encouragement from scripture and helps us to see that joy is attainable because it rests not on our feelings but on the grace of God ministered through Christ. Although Piper can be blunt as well, in one chapter he says “Do your duty”, basically just get on with life… not quite that blunt, but he’s right isn’t he, apathy and idleness is a place for sin and temptation, whereas getting on with life, getting on with serving and worshipping God (even when we don’t feel like we want to, when we don’t feel joyful) is how we can fight for joy - and in that to pray that God would give us joy.

This is a small book, and JP recommends obviously his bigger version as well as some big old books for further reading such as; Lloyd-Jones - Spiritual Depression, John Owen - Overcoming Sin and Temptation, Richard Sibbes - Bruised Reed, Richard Baxter - The Cure of Melancholy, and some others…

Interestingly the end of this book includes the story of William Cowper, who was deeply encouraged by the ministry of John Newton who shared his life and the grace he had found in Christ with him. Right up until his death Cowper was troubled by depression and attempts at suicide, but authored many hymns testifying to the grace of God.

You fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

from ‘God moves in a mysterious way’

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
and there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.
Wash all my sins away, wash all my sins away;
and there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.

from ‘There is a fountain filled with blood’

I say it’s interesting that the book concluded with this testimony because not long before I saw his story here…