“Don’t Let Money Make You Mad”
A reader criticizes our posting of Joseph Prince, presuming we’re envious of his financial success as a false gospel entertainer. By the grace of God, being as Joseph Prince is the last thing any of His saints would ever want, even if they should “gain the whole world.” But the writer, being a child of darkness, reflects her own preoccupation with mammon and finds reason to condemn us for rejecting her god.
We received this note in response to Joseph Prince of This World:
Are you mad that you’re poor and haven’t let blessings flow into your life? I by no means have a ton of money, but I get provided for every day. Our Heavenly Father wants us to REST in His love and provision. If it’s good for me and from God, I want it, and don’t want to limit my God in blessing me. Please don’t tell me Joseph Prince is evil, that’s so far out and far from truth. How can a ministry that completely revolves around Jesus Christ be so? Jesus centered. Bible truths. Don’t be mad. Relax into God’s love and watch blessings flow. It’s exciting. Don’t be a false teacher, yourself. And don’t let money make you mad. It’s just money and God doesn’t really work in big or small. He provides. He is not in poverty. He loves and blesses. So Joseph Prince dresses funky. The guy has a fashion passion. He’s very alive. He’s very funny. He delights in the world but is not OF the world. It’s ok to be happy, blessed, creative, charismatic, positive and did I mention blessed. He spreads the love. I’ve never given him a dollar and know exactly what he’s all about. He does not charge for his ministry. He takes donations like any other because it takes money to pay bills, and a ministry so strong has big bills. I wanna hug the guy because he helps me feel so loved and cared for by JESUS. Yep, looking to JESUS. Not money. Or J.P. JESUS.
God bless you. I pray your heart opens to the many blessings the Lord wants to give you.
Paul’s reply:
Hi Karabeth,
It sounds like you have a money problem. Why else wouldn’t you support a ministry that has blessed you so much?
“For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle the ox treading out grain,’ and, ‘The laborer is worthy of his reward’” (1 Timothy 5:18 MKJV).
Remember, you don’t need to have much of this world’s goods to be a cheerful giver:
Luke 21:1-4 EMTV
(1) And looking up, He saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury,
(2) and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites.
(3) And He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all.
(4) For all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood which she had.”
But you, a tare, wouldn’t know about giving by faith, the act of a child of God. You are only acquainted with your own righteousness, not God’s.
Obviously you know nothing of us, Karabeth, except by conjecture that’s wrong. You also speak confidently as if you know so much of Joseph Prince and Jesus Christ, but you judge them after the flesh, after the appearance. Consider Jesus Christ and Joseph Prince using the Lord’s criteria in The True Marks of a Cult and, after you’re finished, tell us how Prince can be right, when that makes Christ so wrong. Let everyone, including yourself, see who and what you really worship.
Karabeth’s response:
Wow, you’re right. I don’t know much about you. I just ran into your web-site while surfing for some answers to questions I had on the Bible. But I gotta say, every piece of my being tells me you’re strange and to stay away. So, in answer to your question, I haven’t gave anything to Joseph Prince’s ministry because I haven’t felt moved to, and he encourages people to tithe at their home church. When I feel moved, I will. But no, I absolutely do not have money problems. God hooks me up each and every day. I have everything I need and desire and so does my family. I rest in knowing I don’t have to worry about provision. REST. That’s God’s gift to me.
Good luck and stuff. But I really gotta end this conversation, as in, don’t reply.
God bless you.
Paul’s reply:
“For we are to God a sweet savor of Christ, in those being saved, and in those being lost; to the one we are the savor of death to death, and to the other we are the savor of life to life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as many [Joseph Prince], hawking the Word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God” (2 Corinthians 2:15-17 MKJV).
I wouldn’t want to be your ox, Karabeth, waiting for you to be moved to feed me. Indeed, the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. As I said, you’re a tare, and tares do what they want, when they want.
God sends rain on the unjust as well as the just. Your present provision is no sign of His favor.
Your money problem isn’t that you presently lack funds or provision, but that funds and provision are more important to you than the Truth, the Lord Jesus Christ. You’re a lover of mammon, the things of this world.
That’s why you declared in all ignorance that we’re covetous, jealous of Prince’s success in physical things. You’re the one serving yourself and the things of this world. Now that you admit you didn’t know what you’re talking about, you walk away like the woman in Proverbs:
“Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eats, and wipes her mouth, and says, ‘I have done no evil’” (Proverbs 30:20 MKJV).
“Good luck and stuff”? That’s the language of a sarcastic, worldly person, not a humble child of God. The sheep’s clothing comes off, and we see the devil underneath.
Joseph Prince of This World
Hear and see how this strutting rooster strips you of your money and the Gospel of its power.
The Suffering of the Saints
A false gospel has overtaken the earth like cancer, teaching people that God wouldn’t have them suffer in any way, but would see to it that they are rich in the physical things and comforts of this world. These are “men whose minds have been corrupted and deprived of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness.” The apostle says, “Withdraw from such” (1 Timothy 6:5 MKJV). Come and hear the true and profitable way of Christ.