One thing which makes deception so dangerous is the fact that it is usually mixed with just enough truth to make it believable. This is so with the prosperity and the word of faith movements. In and of themselves, these are Biblical concepts as you can see here:
Deuteronomy 8:18: “And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”
Mark 11:22-26: So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt it in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
Just as the love of God is Biblical, and the seeker-sensitive churches distort it to promote a false brand of Christianity, so also there are those who take the Biblical elements of prosperity and the word of faith and pervert them into a manmade “Gospel” designed to draw crowds and make them rich. And just as there are things in some believers that make them prone to fall to ear-tickling messages, there are things in other believers which open them up to be easily influenced by the “health and wealth, name it and claim it, blab it and grab it” preachers.
A. Good Preachin’ Gone Bad
What we know as the Prosperity gospel began to form in the 1800’s, but prosperity theology became prominent in the 1950’s in America during the period of what were called the Healing Revivals (began in 1946) and the Latter Rain movement (began in 1948), respectively, especially during the former. Also, in the later 1800’s the ideas behind the word of faith movement began to form. Kenneth Hagin, Sr., recognized as the father of the Word of Faith movement, was strongly influenced by the writings of a man named E. W. Kenyon, one of those early proponents of Word of Faith teachings. Oral Roberts was one of the earlier of the more modern proponents of Prosperity teachings. These two distinct sets of teachings have enough in common that they seem to intertwine with one another.
As noted in the introduction to this blog, the concepts of prosperity and the word of faith are Biblical. Along with these teachings is the idea of divine healing, of believers having a right to it. It is true that God does heal. It is also true that He gives some Christians the spiritual gift of healing. It is not wrong to teach and to preach on these subjects, and those who advocated for it seem to have started with good motives. However, in the mix of televangelism, megachurches, and the rise of seeker-sensitive and purpose driven churches, there has been a tremendous temptation to yield to greed and superstar status. There are many desperate and hurting people whose needs God will meet legitimately, but when those ministers who have given in to the allure of fame and fortune get involved, when they see that they can capitalize on the hurts and the desperation of people out there and make millions of dollars, the inevitable result is a sellout to money, and the fleecing of the flock begins.
One of the other Scriptures some of these corrupted shepherds twist is this one:
Romans 4:17: …(as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him who he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;…
According to some of these name-it-and-claim-it folks, such as Kenneth Copeland, for example, as Christians we are “little Christs,” so our words have creative power. We can allegedly speak things into being. This, in turn, hearkens back to the Mark 11 Scripture in the introduction. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but we are not little Christs! While words do have power (Proverbs 18:21), we do not have the ability to speak something into being out of nothing. Only God can do that. If we had that kind of creative power with our words, these seminarian con artists would not have to manipulate their congregations all the time to give them more and more money; they could speak their own millions of dollars into existence! It is indeed tragic that the Word of God has been so twisted by these hirelings that they use it to exploit the vulnerabilities of their followers and make profits instead of letting God meet the needs of the hurting and the vulnerable.
If there is one more favorite concept exploited by preachers of this ilk, it is that of sowing and reaping. Properly preached, such Scriptures as this one can be beneficial to believers not just materially but spiritually as well:
Matthew 13:23: “But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
In the hands of those who wish to exploit their listeners (2 Peter 2:3), such verses are twisted in order to manipulate them. And let us not forget these healing Scriptures that those in the Prosperity and Word of Faith movements love to invoke, again twisting their meaning:
Isaiah 53:5: But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
1 Peter 2:24: …who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.
It is as if these types of preachers, these dream-sellers, are in some sort of contest to get rich, to see who has the most church members or the largest bank accounts. But this is the Word of God they are mishandling, and the results are not good.
B. The Game and Its Results
By manipulating or shaming their parishioners into giving money, these ministerial shysters become quite wealthy. They manage to convince the vulnerable and the gullible that if a certain financial seed is sown into their ministry, they will likewise be blessed by God with lots of money. The wallets and pocketbooks open and the offerings come pouring in, a veritable monsoon of money. These false teachers bilk their followers into thinking they can speak all kinds of blessings into existence. Such churchgoers are talked into thinking that anytime they don’t get healed it is because they don’t have enough faith. Never mind the fact that sometimes healing also gets tied to giving by these deceived preachers! As if this isn’t bad enough, when you see videos of these folks in action you wonder if they even have a conscience.
How about Kenneth Copeland claiming that Adam was cursed because he ate his tithe instead of giving it to God? That video might still be on YouTube. Or how about the video with Creflo Dollar saying that tithing might keep you out of hell? Yes, he said that. Or how about another video with Copeland and company laying their hands on a wheelchair-bound man, only to have the wheelchair fall over with the crippled man still in it, and Copeland walking off saying that the man is all right and that the power of God is all over him? What about men like Mike Murdock getting on TBN and promising all sorts of prosperity if you sow a financial seed of x amount of dollars into his ministry? I could go on and on, but by now you should get the point.
In various ministries of this kind, sometimes people who come for healings are screened when arriving at the service. Those with more obvious ailments such as missing arms or inability to walk usually get put off to the side or, if they are ministered to, the resulting botched job is played off as in the incident described above. Those with internal (less visible) ailments are seen and supposedly healed. Sometimes also certain folks are planted in the audience with hidden earpieces and the “healings” are essentially acted out or choreographed. People give sometimes to the detriment of their finances and never see a gain in their own personal wealth. That also causes loss of faith in God, yet none of this nonsense is God’s fault! Those preachers and other ministers who practice such deception may become too hardened in their hearts to be able to repent.
The net effect of all this deception and the lack of tangible results is a faith-killer for weak believers. Such antics give unbelievers further ammunition with which to blaspheme God and make fun of Christianity. Sometimes even stronger believers’ faith is shaken by these sorts of shenanigans. There are those among these preachers of Prosperity or Word of Faith who probably are not even called to ministry, while others have been ruined by the fame and fortune associated with such pastorates, becoming false teachers. The Bible has something to say about them:
2 Peter 2:1: But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.
Jude 1:12-13: These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
Some among the deceived may be vulnerable and desperate, but others are ignorant, especially of God’s Word because many do not read the Bible or, if they do, they read a watered-down version. We as Christians must know the Word of God for a number of reasons, including how to live righteously and how to tell if truth or lies are being preached (Acts 17:11; 2 Timothy 2:15; 1 John 2:20-21).We must also pray for God not to let us be deceived, and to pray both for those who are deceived and those doing the deceiving, that the false teachers might repent and that those led astray by them learn true doctrines and get on track.
There are more “holy” con artists out there than those who misuse the doctrines in the Word in order to push false teachings on Prosperity and the Word of Faith. In my next blog we will learn about a whole different breed of church mice: those into the New Apostolic Reformation and modern-day charismania.
