Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Subtle Prosperity Gospel | The Writings | Psalm 44

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Are you sure you're not believing the prosperity gospel? Not even a little? It's easy to look to God and expect good things because of your faith, but is that how God works? In today's episode, Keith shares the truth about success and suffering according to Psalm 44. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 44

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I have a confession to make. I often believe in the prosperity gospel. I know that I shouldn't, but I do. No, I'm not talking about God providing private jets and fancy cars and mansions to those who believe. The prosperity gospel I believe in is a little more subtle.

I don't believe that following Jesus will make me a millionaire, but sometimes if I'm being really honest, I believe that following Jesus should lead to a good and prosperous life. I believe that following Jesus should mean that I have a job that I want, or I have a marriage that I want, or that my kids will be healthy and they'll also want to follow Jesus. I often believe that if I'm faithful to him, he will give me what I think I want in this life. And it makes sense that he should, right? I mean, I'm not asking for a fancy car. I'm asking for a good family. I'm not asking for a big house, just a healthy marriage. I'm not asking for a perfect body, just a healthy one. Shouldn't a faithful Christian experience the good things in life? Well, imagine two

different people with two very different stories. First, take Mark. He's a 45-year-old megachurch pastor who makes a million dollars a year. He gets to go on any vacation he wants and drives the nicest car in his neighborhood. He grew up in poverty, but because of his faithfulness to God, he believes that God blessed him and gifted him with financial prosperity. Now take Lisa. Lisa is also 45 years old. She's a mom who loves Jesus and has followed him faithfully her entire life. Recently, though, Lisa is beginning to consider walking away from her faith. All four of her kids have stopped attending church. They don't seem interested in their faith at all. Lisa is discouraged and angry at God. She feels like she's been cheated. She's been faithful to God her whole life, and this is how he repays her?

Those might sound like very different people with very different expectations about life, but the uncomfortable truth is that both Mark and Lisa believe in a prosperity gospel. They both believe that faithfulness to God should lead to a prosperous good life in this world. Though they have different expectations about how they should prosper, the same belief is found in both of them. See, when we think of the prosperity gospel, we usually think of filthy rich bastards. But what if we're guilty of the same sort of faith? thinking. Kate Bowler is a New York Times best-selling author, and she's a professor of American

Religion and History at Duke. She writes a lot about success and suffering and how humans think about each. Due to her interest in success in religion, she has spent a lot of time studying the prosperity gospel movement in America, and what she's found during her research is that most people attending a church that teaches the prosperity gospel aren't that interested in gaining wealth. They don't really want big cars and fancy houses. They just want reassurance. This is what Bowler writes. Some people want Bentley's, but more wanted relief from the wounds of their past and pain of their present. People wanted salvation from bleak medical diagnoses. They wanted to see God rescue their broken teenagers or their misfiring marriages. They wanted

an iota of power over the things that ripped their lives apart at the seams. What they wanted was reassurance, that if they prayed and believed and lived righteously, they would be rewarded with some measure of comfort. Did you catch that? If they prayed and believed and lived righteously, they would be rewarded with some measure of comfort. Is that you? Do you fall prey to the belief that following God faithfully means that you'll avoid suffering? That you'll live an easy and comfortable life. I know it's true of me more than I'd like to admit. So what does the Bible say about the prosperity gospel? Well, fortunately for us, this is not a new problem. In fact, Psalm 44 is a perfect example of human beings wrestling with the fact that faithful followers of God will experience suffering.

We'll just focus on the second half of Psalm 44 today. But just to give you a brief overview, in the first eight verses, the psalmist begins by recognizing that God has provided for Israel in the past. The psalmist looks back to when God delivered his people from Egypt and led them into the promised land. He recognizes that it was God who chose them. It was God who rescued them. It was God who fought their battles for them. But all that leads to his main issue, you with God. We pick up in verse 9. But now you have rejected and humbled us. You no longer go out with our armies. You made us retreat before the enemy and our adversaries have plundered us. You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations. You sold your people for a pittance,

gaining nothing from their sale. It's important to remember that the Psalms are a collection of prayers and poems that would have been sung by Israelites in exile. These are people who have been ripped away from the promised land. They've seen the temple destroyed, foreign armies raid their homes and villages, and what the psalmist correctly recognizes is that just as God was responsible for their prosperity, he's also responsible for their suffering. Yes, it was foreign nations that raided their homes. But he says that it was God who devoured them. It was God who sold his people. God no longer fights for them. See, while it's uncomfortable for us to think about, the first step toward resisting the teaching of the prosperity gospel is recognizing that God is in control during the good and the bad times in your life.

You're struggling and your struggles. They're not an accident. Well, okay, but surely there was a good reason for the suffering, right? God was just punishing people because of their sins, but if they'd been more faithful, none of this bad stuff would have happened. When we pick up in verse 17, all of this came upon us, God, though we had not forgotten you. We had not been false to your covenant. Our hearts had not turned back. Our feet had not strayed from your path. But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals. You covered us with deep darkness. See, the psalmist here is not claiming that none of the Israelites had sin. What they're saying is that the people of Israel had not violated the covenant that they'd made with God in Deuteronomy. They hadn't forgotten God or turned to other gods.

In their eyes, had they done those things, had they turned away from God, then that would have been worthy of exile, but the people have been faithful to the covenant that God had made with them, and yet, still, God brought destruction to their homeland. Why? If our suffering isn't a punishment for our sins, then why does it happen? Well, here's another uncomfortable truth. I can't always explain why suffering comes. I'd love to be able to tell you exactly why you're in the middle of a difficult time right now, but I can't. It's true that sometimes suffering can come into our life because of of our sin. For example, if I gossip about my friends, I shouldn't be shocked that they don't want to be around me. But sometimes suffering comes our way just because we live in a broken world. Cancer isn't the

result of your sin. The same goes for tornadoes or hurricanes. A lot of suffering comes in our life just because we live in a sin-cursed world. Here's what I do know. Psalm 44 is not the end of the story. The God who was being questioned in this Psalm would one day become a human. And when God became a man, he did not come down in majesty or live in wealth. He was born in poverty. His father likely died when he was young. He spent 30 years living a normal pedestrian life. When he began teaching, his family thought he was out of his mind. The religious institution he was raised in suddenly turned against him. Later in his life, his closest friends deserted him. he was unjustly accused and sentenced to a gruesome death on a cross.

The Bible doesn't offer us a perfect, clear-cut, doctrinal answer to why bad things happen. Instead, it offers us a person. To those who feel anxious and stressed, the Bible offers Jesus weeping and sweating tears of blood in the Garden of Gassimony. To those who have been hurt by religion, the Bible offers Jesus, constantly critiquing the religious leaders of his day. To those who are affected by racial injustice, the Bible offers us a picture of Jesus's throne with people of all tribes, tongues, and nations singing his praises. To those who struggle with physical ailments and disabilities, the Bible offers Jesus, the one who heals.

To those who are overcome by their guilt and shame, the Bible offers Jesus being publicly shamed on your behalf. To those who question God's goodness in the face of suffering, the Bible responds with God Himself suffering on a cross. Jesus is the greatest argument against the prosperity gospel. Jesus was the most faithful follower of his father in heaven. He was without sin, yet he died alone on a hard, wooden cross. If we're a follower of him, if we pledge our allegiance to a crucified king,

then we also accept the fact that on this side of his return, we also will be men and women who are acquainted with sorrow and grief. And Jesus knew that, which is why in the Gospel of John, Jesus tells his disciples, in this world, you will have trouble. And Jesus doesn't want to give us any false expectations. As a Christian, you will experience suffering. You will witness unexplainable tragedies. But Jesus said, take heart, for I have overcome the world.

Although we face death, our king has defeated death. Although we face suffering, our king will bring peace. See, because of Jesus, we mourn, but always with hope. We grieve, but with joy, because we know that the crucified king is also the resurrected king, and one day he will return to wipe every tear from our eyes. So today, don't fall for the lie of the prosperity gospel that promises success it cannot deliver. No, instead, believe in the true gospel that the suffering king has bore our pain and is bringing a kingdom of everlasting joy.