To Encourage You

1 Thessalonians 3:4 “For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know.”

One of the marks of a false teacher is what he or she does not say.  Turn on your TV to any of the many so-called “Christian” teachers that are on the airwaves today, and what will you hear?  From so many of them there is a steady diet of how wonderful your life will be if you will just do this or that one thing, and speak “words of faith” – often followed by encouragement to prove that “faith” by sending money to their ministry. How many do you hear that say anything remotely like what the great Apostle Paul preached to the early church? Notice in the verses above how it says that he kept telling them (i.e., this was a central theme of his message) that they would suffer affliction.  And then he reminds them that just as he had told them, those afflictions had indeed come to pass. The evidence was all around them. It was the reality in which them lived. 

What a contrast to what we hear today – that health, wealth, and all other forms of prosperity are just around the next bend for every believer that listens to that teacher.  It’s a false message for gullible people.  In reality, it’s a message that plays on the desires of every non-Christian in this world. Who doesn’t want health, wealth, and prosperity, regardless of what otherwise one might believe?  Who doesn’t want a life of ease with no burdens?  No wonder so many pour their money into such ministries, regardless of the fact that these ministries offer false promises that its teachers can’t deliver on. 

The gospel message is an eternal message.  While it is true that there are tremendous eternal blessings in store for each and every believer in heaven, the truth is that just as Jesus suffered greatly as He took the message of life to a world that hated God, so the world and the god of this world will come against those that share the message of the gospel today and live by its truth.  As my daughter so wisely reminded me once, the Bible, particularly the New Testament, is a message written, for the most part, from persecuted Christians to persecuted Christians.  The truth is that “the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14).  Is it any wonder that many reject the Truth, then, and run after false teachers that promise the opposite of what Jesus said?   

So, what are you listening to? Who are you following?  If it’s the message that the Christian life is all about health, wealth, and prosperity, be careful, for that’s not the message that the apostles preached, nor the Lord of the apostles, Christ Himself.