Welcome to a year of reading Richard Sibbes together! The reading plan for the entire year can be accessed here. I encourage you to stick with us, allow yourself time to read, and soak in the riches of this gifted and prolific Puritan preacher. You will be edified and encouraged.
If you have trouble with how Sibbes used words, check out the Lexicons of Early Modern English for definitions from the period.
Summary/Engagement
“It’s God’s will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty.”
“God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us.”
~ Joel Osteen.
What do you think Osteen’s affections are fixed on? The problem with the prosperity gospel is that God is not the ends, he’s the means. God is the ATM machine that you punch the right code in to get cash. Never mind the gift of his son and the mercy offered us in his life, death, and resurrection. Why bother with the offer of eternal life with God, reconciliation with him, and the blessing of his presence. No, let’s just trample all over that on our way to the buffet table where we can gorge and then demand more from our slot machine deity.
Any gospel that does not have at its center the finished work of Jesus Christ for the glory of God is a false gospel. Osteen preaches a false gospel of material wealth, health, and comfort. This is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Compare his desire for favor and wealth and comfort with Sibbes’ warnings not to be enthralled with anything but Christ.
“He that is little in his own eyes will not be troubled to be little in the eyes of others.”
“Frame peace by freeing our hearts from too much fear, and riches by freeing our hearts from covetous desires. Frame a sufficiency out of contentedness.”
Application / Further Discussion
The central issue of the prosperity gospel is a heart of misplaced affections. It desires the things of the world; comfort, health, money, prestige. The desires are for worldly things and not God himself. If the desire of your heart is not chiefly for Jesus Christ, you are not saved. If God is merely the means by which you get paid, you are not saved. If Jesus is a label you wear and a magic formula you invoke to get what you want, you are not saved.
The things of this world are not necessarily evil. Many things are morally neutral. It is fine to be prosperous, to be healthy, to have a level of comfort. However, when those things supersede God himself they become idols. What are your affections focused on? The things of this world are tools to use or distractions to avoid. They make horrible gods that lead you to hell.
“If the soul itself be out of tune, outward things will do no more good than a fair shoe to a gouty foot.”
Is your soul tuned to God? If not, all of these things are about as useful as a 500 dollar shoe on a foot with gout that hurts so bad you can’t wear it. Useless. This life is not about acquisition, comfort, and greed. God knows that wealth can be a poison to our heart. Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all that he had, give it away, and follow him. (Matt. 19:16-22) He said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven (Matt 19:23) Not because money is evil, but because our hearts are evil.
“The life of a Christian should be a meditation how to unloose his affections from inferior things.”
Our desires for God are weak. Our hearts pull us in every direction for things we think are important, but compared to God they are inferior. Pray for God to change your heart to love him more. Pray for your desire for God to be increased, and your worldly desires to be decreased. Meditate on how to cut your affections loose for inferior things. Anything that is not God is inferior.
Don’t settle for being easily pleased. God is far too magnificent and wondrous to be reduced to the rule of your butler or cash machine. Take your broken heart to him and pray that he changes it.
I leave you with Sovereign Grace’s “All I Have Is Christ.” Is Christ all you have?
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Last week, we finished chapters 1-6 of The Soul’s Conflict.
Next week, we’ll read chapters 14-20 of The Soul’s Conflict.
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