Warning Sign #4: Fear of Curses

June 4, 2010 at 2:55 pm | Posted in When Good Preachers Go Bad | 3 Comments
Tags: 2 Samuel 9, Biblical curses, curses, generational curses, Jesus Christ, Lodebar, Mephibosheth, prosperity teaching, sin curse, TBN, Word Faith, Word Faith movement, Word of Faith, Word of Faith Movement

“I don’t know about you, but I for one ain’t a-gonna stay in Lodebar no more!” crows the frantic, sweaty, and haunted prosperity preacher. His reference, although you would be hard-pressed to tell it, is actually from the Bible – sort of:

Then king David sent, and fetched him out of the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, from Lodebar. Now when Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, was come unto David, he fell on his face, and did reverence. And David said, Mephibosheth. And he answered, Behold thy servant! And David said unto him, Fear not: for I will surely shew thee kindness for Jonathan thy father’s sake, and will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually.

II Samuel 9:5-7

One of the greatest fears of a prosperity preacher is that he will wind up in some obscure place of poverty, far away from the limelight, while others are feasting at the king’s table without him. Having watched a little too much TBN, he is desperate to get out of the sticks and into the inner circle of health, wealth, greed, and fame.

See, Mephibosheth, the lame son of King David’s late best friend, Jonathan, was dwelling in Lodebar, a place of “no pasture.” The prosperity preacher sees this as a “cursed” place. No one drives fancy vehicles or lives in mansions or performs at stadiums full of slavering fans at “Lodebar.” It is a place of anonymity. What the prosperity preacher fails to see is that Mephibosheth was brought to the palace of the king not because he discovered the mystical incantation which broke the “generational curse.” It was actually because David, the foreshadowing type of the greater Christ, took pity on Mephibosheth for the sake of his father, Jonathan, and decided to show him grace.

The curse we need to be most concerned about today is not the “curse” of poverty or of physical disability or of obscurity in this world. The real curse is the sin curse. The reversal of that curse comes only through the saving power of King Jesus, who seeks lost sinners, adopts them into His family, and will one day seat them at the table of His presence forever more!