Reaching Out
I don’t know you but I love you. And because I love you, I’m going to be 100% straight with you. I’ve looked up a couple of those teachers you follow and some of the teachers they hang around with. You’re being deceived by the false prosperity health & wealth gospel. It’s not the true gospel of the Bible.
You’re being deceived by the false prosperity health & wealth gospel. It’s not the true gospel of the Bible.
I beg you…do some research. I’d be happy to help point to some sound biblical resources to help you grow in your Christian discernment. For starters, if nothing else, look up the movie American Gospel on Vimeo and soon on Amazon. It talks about it guys like Todd White (whom your man affirms) and the dangers of prosperity gospel. Also, look up the testimony of Benny Hinn’s own nephew, Costi Hinn.
[vimeo 153172697 w=640 h=360]American Gospel – Trailer 1 from Transition Studios on Vimeo.
I have nothing to gain by telling you all this. Please, please…pray and ask God to show you if I am a total crackpot or if what I am telling you is true. If I am wrong, the Holy Spirit will guide you, right? But if what I am telling you is true, the Holy Spirit will show you that too.
The Rejection
Tragically, I have never once gotten someone who was open minded enough to want to even take the time to consider that what I saying might even have a .00001% of being true. Either they get immediately offended and end the conversation, or they reply with a polite-but-short reply that they do not want to hear anymore about it, like,
I really appreciate your concern, Anthony, but I have seen the Spirit’s work and know it to be true because it has changed my life. Blessings…
The Open Letter Reply
And so, because they shut down the conversation rather than be like the Bereans to search whether things things were so (Acts 17:11). All I can do is use the opportunity to post my reply a public blog post, to openly warn them and anyone else the Lord might, in his kindness, direct to this obscure corner of the Internet…
That’s exactly my point—you are putting what you experience over what is sound doctrine. You are giving precedence and weight to signs and wonders and inner tinglings, wrongly concluding that they are evidence of truth. As a believer, you should know better than that because not one group of believers in the New Testament did that. The Bereans were credited with going back and verifying everything with Scripture (Acts 17:11).
Angel of Light
You also know that Satan masks himself as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14), and can give power to men to do great signs. Remember Pharaoh’s magicians in Genesis, Simon the Magician in Acts 8, Elymas the Magician in Acts 13, the girl with the spirit of divination in Acts 16:16, village witch doctors and shaman around the world even today? Just because you see or experience these things does not prove they are the Holy Spirit at work.
Don’t Take My Word for It
And just by a plain reading of the entire New Testament (which I assume, if you profess to be a Christian, you have done at least one time through), we see that after the early church in Acts where signs and wonders were given by God to some to give early credibility to the message they preached. Reread Acts—the signs and wonders and experiences are never the main focus of any passage, but the preaching of Christ crucified and risen, and the need for all men to repent and believe the gospel is.
signs and wonders and experiences are never the main focus of any passage, but the preaching of Christ crucified and risen, and the need for all men to repent and believe the gospel is.
The Mutual Testimony of Scripture & Church History
Also, haven’t you ever wondered why there is no mention of signs and wonders emphasized in the rest of the New Testament writings? Or even over the last 2,000 years of Church history? No one who simply reads the NT would ever arrive at the conclusion that signs and wonders were as important as you and your teachers are claiming. Even when Paul talks about tongues, he only talks about it to the Corinthian church, very briefly, gives very clear rules about them and how they are to be done in an “orderly manner”—rules which all pentecostal/charismatic/prosperity churches today ignore, a clear indicator that they are not real.
Use Your Bible and Your Brain
I’m not trying to be some weird internet guy who harasses you. I’m pleading with you: Use your Bible and use your brain.
Be discerning…
- …like Jesus said (Matt 24:4, “See that no one leads you astray…”)
- …like Paul said, (Col 2:6—“See to it”)
- …like James said (James 1:16, “Do not be deceived”)
Be discerning so that you can instead give priority to the One who is to have it: Jesus.
I’m not trying to be some weird internet guy who harasses you. I’m pleading with you: Use your Bible and use your brain.
Evidence Outside of Scripture
If signs and wonders and healings and all this stuff you believe were really of God, why doesn’t God raise up men to pastor churches on every corner, in every city? Why do the guys you follow hold their events in arenas and churches and make the sick and the lame come to them instead of doing what Jesus did and those guys go to where the sick and the lame are? Why are they not spending every ounce of energy they have visiting every hospital and nursing home in the world 24/7/365? Where are the scientific credible reports of healings? Why are the healings only ever of diseases no one can see? Isn’t anything I’m saying causing reasonable doubt in your mind?
Isn’t anything I’m saying causing reasonable doubt in your mind?
My “Hidden” Agenda
I don’t want you to go to my church. I don’t want you to follow “my guys.” My only agenda is to see Jesus given his rightful place at the center of your theology and your ministry. To see him exalted and glorified in your life and your influence over others.
You seem like a decent guy and you obviously want to help other people in their spiritual lives. Well, then you owe it to God and to yourself to investigate what I’m saying. If nothing else, you are setting yourself up as a teacher, which means you will face stricter judgment before God for your doctrine and what you preach to others as truth (James 3:1). Don’t you fear God enough that that thought makes you tremble and make you want to have your doctrinal ducks in a row as much as you can?
Like I said at the beginning, I don’t know you but I love you, and I plead with you again…If you love Jesus as much as you say you do, and you trust the Holy Spirit to speak to you and lead you into truth, then you owe it to God and to yourself to lay these things before him and ask him to show if they are true or not.
Search the Scriptures.
Do your research.
Get free.
Thanks to Justin Peters and the folks at American Gospel for the point about “healings” always being unverifiable inside the body ailments. Excellent point!
Great post! I know that you’re addressing prosperity theology in general, but I’ve been pondering the healing aspect of it a lot in the last couple of weeks. I came across several articles regarding the faith healing of Congressman Upshaw in the early 1950s and it’s interesting to consider (http://en.believethesign.com/index.php?title=Congressman_Upshaw). But, I think that a lot of my processing on this issue relates back to my birth defect. I had to come to a point where I accepted it as God’s will for me, believing that He chose this life for me because it is how He will be most glorified. So, if He chose my defect, it seems to me that it is unlikely that He will “heal” it. It would be a miracle should He determine that it should be so, but I believe that the miracle He intended it to be is the work that He has done in my heart because of it. That work would not have happened had my hand been “restored” in my childhood (as the rude pastor’s wife suggested it would be when I was a toddler if only my parents had faith enough).
Amen! Thank you for reading but thank you even more for sharing your story–which did just glorify God because I rejoiced to see your Christian maturity in how you chose to see the matter. Blessings Christine!