on the walk

The promises of Christ are wonderful. In fact they are so wonderful that I often fall short of fully comprehending his great promises for my good. But nevertheless they are not always what I wished he would promise.

For instance Jesus makes this promise in Matthew 10:18-20,

On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Now that is an amazing promise, but it isn’t exactly the promise I would have asked for. I might have preferred this promise, “Don’t worry, they won’t arrest you” or maybe, “Don’t worry about what to say, just pass out fliers.”

Because Jesus promises aren’t always the promises that we would have hoped for there is plenty of room for books that pretend to be faithful to scripture to instead offer all kinds of false promises and this tendency is one of the best ways to spot heresy.

My general rule of thumb is this, if they make a promise that didn’t come true for the Apostle Paul then they are lying. (You can check out his life by reading Acts - Philemon.) Since I don’t have time to retell his whole life in this post, I will give you a few examples.

Here are a few things that Paul did not always have

1. Health
2. Financial Prosperity (or even basic needs some days)
3. Wife
4. Freedom from Persecution
5. Freedom from sin
6. Peace in his relationships
7. Peaceful death
8. Appreciation for his ministry
9. Acceptance by other church leaders
10. I could go on….

So if any book or radio preacher promises any of those things they are lying. If someone promises that by sending them $100 God will bless you with $1000, they are lying. If someone promises that by living a certain way or praying a certain way you can live a life free from pain and suffering they are lying. If someone writes a book and promises that God wants you to have a happy comfortable financially prosperous life, then you should just say to them, “How do you know. God did not want that for Paul and most of the other people in the Bible. What makes you think God wants that for me.”

If some book or preacher quotes scripture as if those texts are making promises for you that weren’t promises for Paul then they have some explaining to do. Don’t tell me Paul just didn’t pray hard enough.

on the walk

-Ethan

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