In my last post, I mentioned that Rev. Mike Caparrelli, pastor of Sacred Exchange Fellowship in East Greenwich RI, an old student of mine, recently gave a rousing example of what it looks like to preach biblical faith with all the same vigor and vim of those self-aggrandizing peacocks who strut about proclaiming what I deem a heretical vision of faith—Word Faith Teachers.
Word Faith teachers tell you that God HAS promised you a rose garden, that perfect health, and wealth aplenty is yours for the having if only you can muster the faith to take it, that it is always God’s intention for you to achieve all your heart’s desires in the here and now. If you are not living this Eden in America (or Canada, Kenya, Timbuktu, etc) it is because you are lacking in faith, because you don’t take God at His word (no matter how out of context said “word” might be, no matter how inconsistent said interpretation of said word might be with the rest of God’s sacred texts). To even question their interpretation is enough doubt to rob you of God’s perfect blessing.
There were two key moments in this sermon where Rev. Caparrelli keyed in on the subtle yet radically impacting difference between this vision of faith and a biblical vision of faith. His message was on transforming faith, he never bothered to denounce Word Faith anything per se, but the distinction stood out just the same.
The first was in his quote from Oswald Chambers: “There are some things only learned in a fiery furnace.” When Word faith teachers convince people that all suffering is from the Devil or the result of their own weak faith, they rob these believers of the rewards to be had by standing in faith and obedience during trials of suffering, rewards that would never be possible were God to deliver them from these trials ahead of time.
Even when, perhaps especially when, our suffering is the result of our foolishness (not our lack of faith) these experiences bring a level of training and discipline to our lives that is impossible to gain in other, less torturous, ways.
The second key moment in this sermon where Rev. Caparrelli incidentally keyed in on the subtle yet radically impacting difference between a Word Faith Teachers’ vision of faith and a biblical vision of faith was in his reference to the words spoken by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as they stood before Nebuchadnezzar.
In Daniel 3:16-18 it reads, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.’”
God is able to deliver us. It is often God’s purpose to deliver us. Sometimes he has to deliver us from our own stupidity, our own ignorance, our own selfishness. These deliverances often come through trials, through suffering, through discipline.
Sometimes it is God’s intention to miraculously deliver us from evil, from the purposes of the wicked, from the pains both big and small that creation hurls at all her children. These too are lessons for our faith. Our God is able. (Exodus 29:46) God sometimes acts that others might look on, “that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.” (1 Samuel 17:46) Thus, YHWH accomplishes His ends among the lost saying, “They shall know that I am YHWH.” (Exodus 14:4)
Sometimes, as “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew…
[Not in wavering faith, but in the full conviction of faith that they served a God whose Holy, unchangeable, omniscient wisdom, means that He might have purposes and plans beyond the comprehension of foolish, short-sighted, emotionally needy and selfish men.]
…God, in spite of His capacity to save, and because of his sovereign purposes, might choose not to save from temporal troubles, so that some—so that you—might be an instrument in His hand to accomplish ends that we cannot begin to comprehend.
Biblical faith is not a means to accomplishing our purposes in this world. Biblical faith is the means by which we fully become His instruments. Biblical faith thrives in the tension between Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s “Our God is able to save” and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s “But if not,” finding a contented, obedient and trusting heart in either scenario.
