It seems to be a common sport to bash televangelists and other ministries for their teachings of Prosperity, Word of Faith or Healing. Often the battle cry is that they are only after your money. What is concerning, is the open hostility some have for these ministries. There are various secular entities that are only after your money, but they seem to draw far less rage and many, no rage at all, among the same people who are ready to crucify these ministers. What is the difference?
Some might say the reason for the hostility is “Holy Anger”. Remember Jesus drove out those evil merchants at the temple. There have been many different battles over why Jesus did this. Some say that they were cheating people selling them quality animals to sacrifices, but once paid would swap them for sickly and worthless animals. Some conclude that it was due to selling of tools to worship God. If your belief is the latter then you should never buy another Christian song or purchase a Bible anywhere, this would be the same thing wouldn’t it?
We need to remember these Scriptures:
Gal 5:22-23 ~ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
2Ti 2:24-26 ~ And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
I know it is easy to fall into the trap of condemning people or being critical of different ministries. Even writing this post, I felt conviction of some of the things I have felt and said in the past and had to repent. That is the point, we do not continue to do wrong when I see that it is wrong, but repent and change!
False doctrines, are you sure?
One of my first lessons after being Born Again was that I would grow and my views on some doctrines would change. How can we hope to know everything in the beginning when often we do not even know what is contained in the entire Bible. When I was a new believer, I thought the Lord would return at the end of what is known as the “Tribulation” because of what I had heard earlier from others and a few passages I read. Later His return seemed to moved to the middle, and after learning more of Daniel and Ezekiel and some more New Testament passages, I believe His return will be in the beginning. Am I willing to bet my eternal life upon it? No way, there is too many passages that can go in all ways.
There is the first point, many doctrines have Scripture going in different directions and when we study we find the more-than-likely view, but this has to be tempered by the nature of God and the content of the topic. There are few things we can be completely dogmatic about, to the extent we will bet our eternal salvation upon them. One such doctrine is Salvation and the fact Jesus shall return. These are core to our belief, but other doctrines we need to use the full council of God’s Word. Of course, this is not to be driven by our feelings or even perhaps by our experiences, but by God’s Word alone.
The most common attacks on doctrine for Televangelists seem to be in the doctrines of Prosperity, Word of Faith and Healing. Why these three? Perhaps because so few of typical Christians have a clue as to what the Word of God says on the subjects and when hearing the lofty claims being made, try them out themselves and fail not know the full council of God’s Word. Their experience then turns into disbelief and often bitterness thereby opening the door for Evil to walk all over them. Many times, once the disbelief and bitterness has taken root, people tend to make fun of or slam those doctrines and ministers. In the process our we not slamming the Word of God? That is, if they use Scripture to make the point, are we not fighting against the Word? We need to be VERY careful!
Word of Faith:
This doctrine really includes Prosperity and Healing, as it is the doctrine of obtaining from God. I know people who will slam this doctrine while at the same time embrace it. We have seen some ministers in the past who went off the map, promoting people can claim anything and as long as they believe it, they will receive it. Yes, they had people claiming for all kinds of things as if God was some kind of personal genie you could bring out at will to give you every frivolous desire of your flesh. When the people did not receive because they were asking amiss, doubts or perhaps they had sin in their life, they went into disbelief and followed that with bitterness toward those ministries.
So, for a quickie on Word of Faith, the Scriptures say clearly in many places that if you have faith and doubt not you will received. For example, here are a few of them:
Joh 14:12-14 ~ Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
Joh 16:23-24 ~ And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
Mark 11:22-24 ~ And Jesus answering saith unto them, have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoevery he saith. Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
So, people would grab these Scriptures and pray for expensive luxury car or multimillion dollar home, perhaps millions in cash and some even that they would hit the lottery. While they had part of the truth they did not know or some did not wish to acknowledge what they already knew, there are conditions. We have the full power of creation at our finger tips, but how is it wielded and why? Imagine if everyone was out moving mountains because they wanted a different view? Yes, that would be silly and God will not put up with it.
Now, are the teachings in Error? Not completely, most of them just need to add the conditions. There is nothing impossible for God but there are some things He will not do. If His word says that He will do something and you fulfill the requirements for the promise, then the promise is yours and God will absolutely do it. God says He watches over His Word to perform it. He is not a respecter of persons, if you qualify and your reasons qualify and you have the Word for the promise, it is yours. It is by your faith without doubts and your knowledge of God’s will on the promise that delivers it to you. The scriptural reference to the promise insures you have God’s will as long as you know all of Scripture regarding the topic.
You can call it what you like, “Name it and Claim it” or “Word of Faith”, it all comes down to finding what God has to say about a promise, praying in faith for the promise and standing in faith without doubts claiming the promise. It is a simple truth in the Bible that has been abused a bit, but it is none the less that, the truth.
Still not sure? How do you think you became Born Again in the first place? If we did not have the promise telling us that He does save and He had not given us the faith to believe Him for the promise, no one would be saved. It is by grace that you are saved through faith and that not of your own, but it is a gift from God.
There is power in what you say. If you are not aware of that, then you need to study more as it is from the beginning to the end of The Scriptures, you are to watch what you say. People can say a lot of things that open the door to the enemy even though they walk the right path. Look at what happened to the children of Israel when they murmured. We should proclaim the goodness of God with our mouths and not the works of the enemy.
Sure, you can say your are a pickle every day of your life and it does not make you a pickle. You will never believe you are a pickle and there is no demon of picklism out there waiting to be empowered by your words. But when you continually confess sickness, weakness, lack of faith, hopelessness, anger, poverty, then you are opening doors not only to your but your family if you are not careful!
Healing:
There have been a number of frauds out there over the century promoting healing and cleaning people out with false teachings. Typically though, they feed on those that do not know the Word of God and they twist it to the point that you have to “send in” for something such as healing cloths, healing oils and what not. Given the full council of God’s Word, you would be able to see that healing is for every Christian and is part of the New Covenant. Yes, our body will be redeemed later so that it cannot ever by harmed and know no pain, but God provides us healing now so that we do not have to die of sickness or disease. When God says our life has come to an end, He will simply stop our heart or breath and we go home. It is not God’s will for any believer to die a torturous death.
Disease and sickness is from our system being perverted either by what we do to our bodies or what the enemy does to it. Some of this perversion of our cells happen even before birth as we are in a fallen world and things are corrupt. That does mean we have to live that way through out our lives, God is our healer, He has provided us healing. Remember, He lives IN all of us who are Born Again, all the power of creation resides in us and the only requirement is faith without doubts.
Often people think some are not meant to be healed, I mean, look at Paul’s thorn. It seems that often Paul is used as proof that God does not bless some people or that He DESIRES that some be sick to teach them lessons. First and foremost, if you believe this way, how do you expect to ever receive from God. If it is God’s will for people to be sick, then why do you fight against it? God loves you, He wants you healed more than you want to be healed. Look to Jesus and you will see how much He values you. BTW, Paul’s thorn has nothing to do with sickness and there is biblical proof for the reasonable mind.
Others think that God takes different methods to heal people. You know, that some times you go through surgeries and have them cut out this or that, or make you barely exist while burying you in debts. What does the Bible say the sick are to do, it is clear?
Jas 5:14 ~ Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
How clear do you need it? A note here though, who are the “Elders” and what is required of them?
There are many healing passages in the Bible but one of my favorites is in Psalms:
Psa 103:1-5 ~ Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.
So, why are some not healed? Simply, it is faith, doubts or sin, I know of no other possibilities. If we have no unrepentant sin in our lives, if we do not have any unforgiveness (again sin) in our heart, and if we have faith without doubts (usually the biggest stumbling block), then we will be healed. If you go to the elders and have them pray over your anointing you with oil and do not appear healed, then it is up to you to study and draw close to God as you need to remove doubts and develop more trust in Him. The issue is not with God but with Us! It is all about relationship, if you have an intimate relationship with someone you will know if you can trust them and if they are trustworthy, nothing can break that trust or cause doubts. Same goes with God, if your relationship is strong, you will have no doubts.
Prosperity:
This is one area that may have fallen into continual bashing. While healing is needed at times, many people want prosperity in their lives and if they do not see it, they can get the feeling that people are saying it is due to sin or something they lack or they would be prosperous. Other times, it is bitterness in them because they have tried and followed some of the teachings out there only to have sunken deeper in debt purchasing books, CDs, videos, etc without any improvement. When it is all over they blame the teaching or the minister.
There are a number of ministers that virtually flaunt wealth and often their messages are focused on wealth as they sell their teachings or ask for offerings. Do we throw the baby out with the bathwater? If the teaching lines up with the Word of God, then we should do more study.
The first question is does God want us to be prosperous?
Psa 35:27 ~ Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.
Pro 10:22 ~ The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.
Ecc 5:18-20 ~ Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion. Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God. For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart.
Deu 8:18 ~ But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
It is God who gives us power to get wealth. It is for us to use that power. There is a catch however, what do you call wealthy and what is the wealth used for?
Jas 4:2-3 ~ Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
If we want wealth to be wealthy, we only want for ourselves, then we are asking amiss. Often it can be hard to tell if you are asking amiss as we can be quite good and justifying desires that wrong. In that same line, if we ask without believing or with doubts that it is God’s will, we can be in the same boat. There are many passages in the Bible that refer to wealth and prosperity, but I find one interesting in Proverbs:
Pro 30:7-9 ~ Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.
I am not sure how much that one applies in today’s world with us having God living inside us, as the Spirit will guide us if we listen, but still the point that we should have a level at which we say “that is enough for me”. I think anything more than that opens doors to the enemy and a weakness in us.
Well, what about Paul again you might ask. Yes, he said he had done without and has lived with and without. In some spots it almost sounds as if he is trying to coerce others into giving to help those in Jerusalem. I go back to the Gospels though, when Jesus sent all the ministers, He sent them without anything and after their ministry, He asked them if they lacked anything and they said they did not. With the:
- Volume of Scripture showing clearly a blessing upon those that follow after righteousness
- The ministry of Jesus and those He sent out
- Quotes like “I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread”
- The fact that Poverty is claimed under the Curse
- We have the blessings of Abraham being grafted in
- We have all Spiritual Blessings in Jesus
The only rational conclusion is prosperity, like healing is there for those that take hold and possess it. Remember, the enemy will fight you at every turn to deny the Word of God. We need to study and know what God has to offer. All of us should be more like Peter, he was always ready to reach out for all that God had to offer, he was the only one who asked to walk on water, even though he was not sure, he still asked and he was the only one of them that did walk on water.
Just because we do not see God move in our lives with something, we must not pull into a shell and say something is wrong without clear study and a close walk with God.
All about the money?
Okay, in today’s world there are a number of ministries that seem sell a lot of things and there are others that continually beg for money. Are they all evil?
While I believe there are some ministries only after money and it is business and nothing more, we still need proceed carefully. I have seen videos of a man back in the 70's that he himself made of him fleecing the flock and being proud of it. On the platform he sounds like many other ministers but when he left, he was downright evil, rejoicing at how much money he tricked out of the people by lies and acting. I personally think this type of thing happens although it is not that common in the top ministries, but probably more so among the smaller ones that go from place to place. Even with that though, what is to be said?
Php 1:12-18 ~ But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel.
What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
If Christ is being preached and people are pointed to the Bible as truth, then what should we do? If you have proof that someone is false, in that they are intentionally deceiving people for the purpose of personal gain, then that should be exposed by turning to the leaders of the Church, but if you are moving completely on feelings, then you should be silent as you do not know the person's heart, you are placing yourself as Judge on them without knowing all the facts and that is a scary place to be found.
As an example, I have heard people say that certain TV evangelists are only out for money, they are just milking the people. First, do you know this for a fact, you have proof or is it just "gut feelings"? We have to understand that some ministries claim God has lead them to receive offerings. Are you sure they have not heard from God? What if your eternal life depending on your claims, are you sure they are only after money? I am not asking are you sure they “are after money”, but that they are “Only” after money. There is a difference.
Some do fall into the money trap. I have heard ministers say they promised God they would never beg for money. Then a few months or years down the road they would have their assistants start asking for money and then eventually, they start down that path themselves until the message about needing money takes more and more time. What has happened? Were they false from the beginning?
Often ministers fall into this trap by either other ministers telling them it is God's will or they fall on hard times and instead of shrinking the ministry the find out how much can be brought in by simply making a request. That is a slippery slope since they are putting trust in themselves and not in God. But there are few that I think would handle this with control and not fall into the trap, if they do not have good consul around them to warning them when they start to fall. Can you imagine if you had a large multimillion dollar ministry, the funds dried up and you were looking at a financial collapse, how tempting it would be if all it would take is a few words to the people and you would have more than enough to pay for everything? Think of how easily it would be in your mind to justify that! Remember ministers are still just like every one of us, they make mistakes just the same.
What next?
Okay, so you know a ministry that have fallen in a money trap or one with invalid doctrine. If you know this is intentional and you have proof, then you need to take it to your spiritual leaders and see where to go from there. I do not believe it is God’s will for you to just spew this out whenever you have a chance to slam against everyone who has a ministry on TV. There are many things that can be done for false ministries, but often maybe all that is required is for the Church leaders to warn their congregation against that ministry and pray for them. If however it is a blanket attack against TV Evangelists, then I do not believe it is from God. Since the creation of TV, God has used the media to reach people through ministers ministering the Word. Millions of people have come into the Kingdom of God by the use of media.
Just because we might not like or agree with a certain doctrine, it does not mean we throw away that ministry. As an example, I am a young earth creationist and do not find any Scriptural proof of a prior world nor billions or millions of years in creation. There are many ministries that teach an old earth, long creation, but while I have strong feelings against this do I throw out their ministry as evil. There are some that I have doubts about because of their violent attacks on young earth creationists along with how they twist volumes of Scripture, but it is hard to judge as we cannot tell the intent of their hearts. Now however, if someone says evolution is the the true creation, then I consider their ministers completely false. The reason for the difference is simply that you cannot believe in the God shown in the Bible while denying the Creation account and saying that Mankind evolved. This is complete heresy and must be rejected.
What do we do if you have found a fault in a ministry but we have no proof or it is just a doctrinal issue, are we free to bash them now? NO! Is it Christ like to bash others in the work? Some might say, “Well look at how Jesus talked to the religious leaders”. What were the “religious leaders” doing or did Jesus claim there were doing? Often it was simply because they exalted themselves as judge over people, showing themselves as more “Holy” than others and at times because they attacked His ministry as being false and not of God. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
For those continually bashing Christian TV and Televangelists, let me ask you a couple of question,
- How long have you fasted and prayed for those ministries before you bashed them in front of others?
- Have you removed all beams out of your eyes first so you can see clearly to make yourself judge over them?
- How many souls have they bought into the Kingdom and how many have your brought in?
We need to examine our intentions and see if they are pure before God. While all ministries we have seen on TV or off are not perfect and we can find fault with them all, it does not mean we need to attack them mercilessly for ever fault we find, it should be viewed as a reminder to pray for them. Do you believe in the power of prayer? If so, then use it! We do not have time to waste judging everyone for not living up to the true measuring stick, which is Jesus, but we are all called to help.
Conclusion
If you happen to be a person that is given to bashing Televangelist or the doctrines of Prosperity, Word of Faith or Healing, I ask you to look prayerfully inside to see if there is not a root of anger or bitterness. The Bible is full of Scriptures telling us that God is Good and He is Good to His People. But we need to be open to Him in order to obtain His Goodness. God does not force anything on us.
Pick up the Bible (not a reference one with all the commentaries and all that stuff, just the basic Bible) and read it from cover to cover, study! Do not go to outside studies, focus on the Bible alone. Be sure to read the four Gospels over and over and over. Seek out the nature of God and see that God is Good and He only wants Good for you and hate has no place in His Goodness.
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