Every Sunday, thousands of the deluded fill church auditoriums. On other days, thousands fill coliseums night after night. At assorted hours, millions buy books, all with a common refrain. In each case, whether in church auditoriums, coliseums, or Books A Million, it's the same thing:: they're craving more money and the excesses of success. Another thing they have in common is that they believe that Christianity in general and biblical principles specifically will fulfill their dreams.
But, as the title of this essay suggests, they're the deluded. They're the willfully ignorant. They're miles away from mindset of the noble Bereans. (cf. Acts 17:10-11) Deluders disseminate the delusion to the deluded by saying, "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."
In other words, they proclaim, "If you truly believe it, you can write your own ticket with God; all you have to do is name it and claim it." "It" refers to a raise in salary, a new car, and a new home along with a promotion. One of those who preaches to the deluded puts it this way, "My Father is not in the used car business." (That sounds like a real applause grabber as well as blasphemy.)
But unlike the noble Bereans, the willfully ignorant don't "search the Scriptures to see if those things are true." Instead, they pay their money for the books, the CDs, and their stadium tickets to hear the same old same old version of name it and claim it. The deluders never steer the deluded to the qualifier of John 16:23: "Truly, truly I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you." To ask in Jesus' name is to ask according to His character and will.
Neither does the deluder let them roam over to I John 5:14:"This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." Therefore mansions and BMWs are not to be assumed as answers to a prayer in which one names it and claims it. To say it in a theological way, the deluder never lets the deluded use what's called, the analogy of Scripture, that is, Scripture interprets Scripture.
The deluded need to read two clincher verses that put the deluders in embarrassed retreat. The first is a text about foxes and ornithology: "And Jesus *said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” The deluded should read the verse and conclude: "If it's God's will that every Christian be rich, Jesus wasn't a very good example of it." (Jack Kuhatschek)
Then there's an entire paragraph that should make the name it and claim it crowd blush with shame at what they've done to delude the willingly deludable: Paul wrote,"Up to this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed and roughly treated and homeless; 12 and we labor, working with our own hands; when we are verbally abused, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we reply as friends; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now." (I Cor. 4:11-13) Paul was a long way from most people's idea of success.
We might add the 13th step* to the health and wealth gallows where Paul writes about his critics: "Are they servants of Christ? . . .I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. 24 Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent adrift at sea. 26 I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; 27 I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. (II Cor. 11:23-28) Paul wasn't an example of someone's floating through life on a Beauty Rest Mattress.
Those Scriptures are there for the deluded to see, yet they buy the books, attend the services, fill the stadiums, and they, the deluded with itching ears, love to have it so.
______________________________________________________________________
* If you look closely at old photos of public hangings, you will often count 13 steps to the gallows.
