Why does this teaching matter?
Sproul confronts the prosperity gospel's fundamental error: reducing God to a servant of human desires. The Word of Faith movement treats Scripture as incantations and faith as a 'force' to manipulate God. But the God of the Bible is sovereign, holy, and utterly free — He does not answer to human demands or exist to fulfill our wishes.
What did RC Sproul teach?
"God is not a celestial bellhop on call to satisfy our every whim. The Bible is not a book of spells to conjure up a God who will do our bidding."
Speaker: RC Sproul
Source: The Holiness of God (1985)
What does Scripture confirm?
Job 41:11
"Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is Mine."
— NKJV
God owes nothing to anyone. Everything already belongs to Him. The idea of manipulating God through 'faith formulas' or 'seed sowing' is the ultimate presumption against the Sovereign of the universe.
Isaiah 55:8-9
"'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.'"
— NKJV
God's purposes transcend human understanding. He is not obligated to fulfill our desires or match our expectations. Treating Him as a bellhop assumes His purposes should align with ours — Scripture teaches the opposite.
Romans 9:20
"But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me like this?'"
— NKJV
Paul rebukes the audacity of a creature questioning or directing the Creator. Demanding that God serve our whims inverts the proper relationship between Potter and clay.