Prosperity Gospel

I've finally...finally finished the commentary on Revelation this morning that I've been trying to get through for months and months. Not trying because it's hard to read, just trying to battle against my own selfishness and self-centredness of not finding the time to do it. But it has been brilliant and I realy recommend it, it's called The Final Word by Steve Wilmshurst, published by the evangelical press, one of the wlwyn commentary series.





Instead of focussing all the time on the 'end times' and HOW Jesus will return, it focuses on how Revelation is like an overview of the Bible, it ties up all the loose ends and more than anything, it is relevant now, even if Jesus doesn't return in our lifetimes, Revelation is not an irrelevant book to us because it teaches us about battling against the world around us, about how it will get harder and harder in this world to live for Christ, but how He is with us and encourages us to go on living in Him.



Here is an excerpt from the final chapter:

"To sum up

This world is a tough place for a believer to live. How do we do it? There are churches that you can go to where they will tell you that if you only have enough faith, you will never have to suffer illness or pain; that if you only claim it confidently enough, you will have wealth instead of poverty; that God's will for you is that this life should essentially be a bed of roses - though they might not put it that way. But throughout this book, written to tell believers how to live when the world is against us, we find not one trace of that kind of teaching. It is a lie. The message of this glorious book is this: 'Yes, you will have trouble here, lots of it. You will suffer as the Lamb's people, becauseyou are his people. But in the end, Jesus wins and his people are safe forever; and what he has prepared for us is beyond our imagination. Meanwhile, be faithful.'"

That's a good summary of his teaching from Revelation, and just reminded me of an amazing video on youtube I found a while back, it's a bit controversial in Christian circles I think because people can't agree on whether something he says is swearing or not, but putting that aside, what is it that he's ACTUALLY saying. The human heart is so sinful and wants to pick up on things to distract us fromt he message, its so much easier to criticise a speaker I think, than to pick out the really good points and applications from a message, but watch it and I hope it will move you like it did, and does me every time I watch it.