Discernment Part 22 Denominations 3        The Word of Faith Movement         3-17-2002

The Charismatic Movement

People think of a lot of different things when they hear the word “charismatic.”  But the technical definition of a charismatic is very simple: a person who believes the miraculous gifts – especially the gift of tongues, are still part of the norm of church life.

If you believe the gift of tongues is still in operation, by definition you are charismatic.

The other option is to be a secessionist (you believe those gifts ceased).

There are charismatics who are doctrinally sound and whose theology is impeccable.  Gordon Fee is a charismatic, and he is one of the greatest Bible scholars of our day.  He is held in high regard by everybody.

So you can be charismatic and hold to sound doctrine.  Those are not the charismatics I’m talking about this morning.

There is a subset of the Charismatic movement called the Word of Faith movement.  These are the people who promote the “health & wealth” gospel, and many of them are outside the bounds of the essentials of the Gospel.  
  
There is an alarming number of heresies that have arisen from the charismatic movement.  Why?  Why do such a high percentage of the heresies in the Christian church today originate in the word of faith movement?

3 Reasons:

They emphasize experience
They are doctrinal hedonists.  The hedonist says, “If it feels good, do it.”  Their slogan is, “If it sounds good, preach it.”

They believe that God speaks to us through our subjective feelings.  So if they are preaching and suddenly a thought pops into their head, very often it is assumed it is from God.

So it’s no wonder that there is a constant stream of bizarre errors that come out of the mouths of men like that.

Plus, they have no accountability.  If I stand in the pulpit and tell you something is taught in Scripture, you can all look right in your Bible and see if I’m telling you something that is true.  But if someone claims to be speaking divine revelation that God is feeding him subjectively, there is no way anyone can check to make sure he is interpreting it correctly.

They reject discernment
Paul Crouch: "We can't have faith teaching, you can't have confession stuff.  Who cares?  Who cares?  Let Jesus sort all that out at the judgment seat of Christ.  We'll find out who was right and wrong doctrinally.  Let Jesus sort out all the doctrinal do-do." 

Very often that is their approach to discernment.  Let anyone teach anything without calling anyone a heretic.  Who cares if the person is right or wrong?  Who cares?  Who cares if millions of people are led astray?

They undervalue providence

I see this as a serious problem with many charismatics.  They minimize the wonderful doctrine of providence.  

Providence is when God does things in the normal way.  Miracles are when God does something in a very unusual way.

If I really need to get somewhere on time, and the Lord orchestrates things such that I hit all green lights, no slow traffic, etc. and arrive on time, that’s providence.

If my body is just instantly transported from my house to the place I need to be, that’s a miracle.  

Both miracles and providence require divine power.  Both are equally the work of God.  Both are wonderful displays of God’s kindness and power.  And He deserves just as much praise for one as for the other.

Miracles are not any better than providence.  They just have a specific purpose – to provide a basis for believing a messenger is from God.

Providence is totally invisible.  You would have no way of knowing God was even doing something if you didn’t already know from Scripture.  

The lights turned green just because it was time for them to turn.  There wasn’t a traffic jam, because no one crashed, and the volume wasn’t too high that day.

How God can orchestrate all that without overturning people’s free will, or altering the laws of physics is amazing.  To me that’s even more amazing that miracles.

But unless you know and believe Scripture, there is no way to know it’s God’s doing.  

So when I am in a hurry and pray for a parking space up front, I don’t ask the God miraculously levitate my car up in the air, or create a new space out of thin air.  I ask for Him to simply providentially arrange for an open spot by seeing to it that someone else leaves just before I get there.

There is no divine messenger that needs to be confirmed, and so a miracle would be unnecessary.  

God’s providence is one of the most precious of all doctrines to me.  And it seems to be one of the most underappreciated – especially by many charismatics.  

For some reason, unless God does a miracle, they aren’t impressed.  If you tell them, “I prayed for a parking spot, and there one way.” they will just yawn.  But if you report some supernatural thing – even if it has no apparent meaning or purpose, they will get all excited.

They tend to be bored with the Bible, but get real exercised over someone speaking a prophecy.  

And the last thing they want is for God to lead them through life by providence.  When they pray for guidance regarding a decision about a job, the last thing they want is to just have to trust that God will see to it that if they make use of wisdom principles, He will see to it they end up in the right place.

They want a direct communication from God about specifically what to do.

They literally crave miracles, because they have been taught that when there are no miracles, God is not active.

This craving for the miraculous makes them susceptible to all kinds of error.  

They can be led astray by their own feelings.  They want to see a miracle so bad that their minds can invent them.  Your subconscious mind is very powerful.  I believe most of those people who bark in the spirit or pass out from being slain by the spirit, etc. really can’t help what is happening to them.

They can be led astray by magicians (a good magician can do things that you and I can’t even begin to explain).

And they can be led astray by satanic supernatural activity. 

Combine that desperate craving for miracles with an over-emphasis on experience and a refusal to use discernment, and you have the recipe for almost unlimited deception.  

And that’s exactly what we see with most of the famous Word of Faith teachers.

The leaders I have in mind are people like Kenith Hagen, Keneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Paul Crouch, Charles Capps, Morris Cerullo, Marilyn Hickey, Joyce Meyers, Fred Price, Robert Tilton, John Avanzini, Oral Roberts, Paul Cho, etc.

Generally speaking, they have a very low view of God, and a very high view of themselves.  And they have a very low view of Scripture, and a very high view of their own prophecies.  And they have a very low view of providence, and a high view of their miracles.  

And the result is a perversion of the Gospel.

Let me give you some examples (most of these quotes are documented in Christianity in Crisis by Hank Hanegraaff.) 

A Low View of God
Copeland said God is "very uncanny in the way He's very much like you and me." 

Jerry Savelle: "God's big, but He's not a monster. the distance between God's thumb and little finger is 9 inches. The distance between my thumb and finger is not quite 9 inches, so I know He is bigger than me, thank God.  Amen?  But he's not some great big old thing...I don't serve the Glob."

Copeland informs us that God is "not some creature that stands 28 feet tall.  That's not the kind of creature He is...He's a being that stands somewhere between 6'1'' and 6'2'' and weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple hundred pounds, little better, has a span of nine inches across." 

(Amazing – he calls God a “creature.”  A creature is a created thing.)

Copeland's point is that if God is only 6' tall, and He had the faith to create the universe, just think what we could do!

Copeland: “After Adam’s fall in the Garden, God needed an avenue back into the earth…Since man was the key figure in the Fall, man had to be the key figure in the redemption, so God approached a man named Abram.  He reenacted with Abram what Satan had done with Adam, God offered Abram a proposition and Abram bought it.”
God said to Abram, “I’m making a proposition to you, You can tell me to buzz off if you don’t like it.”

Hinn: God told Abram He “could not touch this earth till a man gave it back to Him.”

Price: “Now this is a shocker!  But God has to be given permission to work in this earth realm on behalf of man…Yes!  You are in control!  So, if man had control, who no longer has it?  God…When God gave Adam dominion, that meant God no longer had dominion.  So, God cannot do anything in this earth unless we let Him.  And the way we let Him of give Him permission is through prayer.”  (I wonder, who gave God permission to create the universe or send the flood?)

Price: “How can you glorify God in your body when it doesn’t function right?  How can you glorify God?  How can He get glory when your body doesn’t even work?…What makes you think the Holy Ghost wants to live inside a body where He can’t see out through the windows and He can’t hear with the ears?  What makes you think the Holy spirit wants to live inside of a physical body where the limbs and the organs and the cells do not function right?…The only eyes that He has that are in the earth realm are the eyes that are in the body.  If He can’t see out of them then God’s gonna be limited…”

A Low view of Christ

Hinn: From Good Morning Holy Spirit  "Had the Holy Spirit not been with Jesus, He would have sinned.  “Can you imagine Christ headed for the grave, knowing He would remain there forever, if the Holy Ghost would change His mind about raising Him from the dead?"

Copeland: "Don't be disturbed when people accuse you of thinking you're God.  They crucified me for claiming that I was God.  But I didn't claim I was God...
..."He's got to be a man.  He's got to be all man.  He cannot be a God and come storming in here with attributes and dignities that are uncommon to man.  He can't do that.  It's not legal."

They teach Jesus was a god (just like all men), then he lost his divinity when he took Satan's nature, and regained it when he was born again.

Copeland describes Jesus as an "emancipated, poured out, little, wormy spirit"

A high view of Satan

Charles Capps: “when Adam bowed his knee to Satan, he shut God out.  God found Himself on the outside looking in.  His man, Adam, had lost his authority.  Satan…had become the god of the world system…Satan had gained ascendancy in the earth by gaining Adam’s authority, and God waas left on the outside.  God couldn’t come here in His divine power and wipe them out.  He had to move in an area where it would be ruled legal by the Supreme Court of the Universe.”  (From Capps’ book Authority in Three Worlds)

Copeland: “God’s on the outside looking in.  He doesn’t have any legal entrée into the earth.  The thing don’t belong to Him.  You see how sassy the Devil was in the presence of God int eh book of Job?  God said, Where have you been?  Wasn’t any of God’s business.  He didn’t even have to answer if he didn’t want to…God didn’t argue with him a bit!  You see, this is the position that God’s been in…”
 
Copeland: "Satan conquered Jesus on the cross" 

They are duelists.  When there is more fear than faith Satan = more powerfull than God.  
That's why they are so worried about Satan all the time.

I tuned in to hear Benny Hinn one time and he was teaching about why we are to pray in tongues: "If you pray in English the Devil can understand you and can work against your prayer.  But if you pray in tongues, no man can understand you - not even the Devil himself!"

A Mystical View of Faith

Capps: "Some think that God made the earth out of nothing, but he didn't.  He made it out of something.  The substance God used was faith...He used His words as a carrier of that faith."         

One of the essentials is that your are saved by faith alone.  But if you think faith is a force that creates new reality, and you believe in salvation by that kind of false faith, then you don’t really believe in salvation by faith.

It’s not enough to use the word “faith,” you must have true faith.

Denial of the atonement on the cross

Price:  "Do you think that the punishment for our sin was to die on a cross?  If that were the case, the 2 thieves could have paid your price.  No, the punishment was to go to hell itself and to serve time in hell separated from God."
Hagin: "Spiritual death means having Satan's nature...Jesus tasted spiritual death for every man."

Fred Price  'Somewhere between the time he was nailed to the cross and when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane - somewhere in there -he dies spiritually.  Personally, I believe it was while He was in the Garden."

This explains why he considers Jesus' prayer "stupid"

II Co.5:21 says, "Jesus became sin" means he was the sin offering.  (Mytonomy of the subject - other examples: Ex.29:14, 30:10, Lv.4:3, 6:25, Nm.8:8, Ps.40:6, and many more.  Each translates "sin offering" but "offering" isn't there.)  They say it means Jesus actually became the essence of sin.

Copeland: "The righteousness of God was made to be sin.  He accepted the sin nature of Satan in His own spirit...And the Lord said, "...it was a sign of Satan that was hanging on the cross."  He said, "I accepted, in my own spirit, spiritual death; and the light was turned off."
Benny Hinn once claimed the Holy Spirit personally told him this:
“Ladies and gentlemen, the serpent is a symbol of Satan.  Jesus Christ knew the only way He would stop Satan is by becoming one in nature with him.  You say, “What did you say?  What blasphemy is this?”  No, you hear this!  He did not take my sin; He became my sin.  Sin is the nature of hell.  Sin is what made Satan…It was sin that made Satan.  Jesus said, “I’ll be sin! …I won’t just take part in it, I’ll be the totality of it!”   When Jesus became sin, sir, He took it from A to Z…Think about this…He became one with the nature of Satan…”

How does he get to be God again?  

Hagin: "Jesus was the 1st person ever to be born again."

Capps: "Jesus was born again in the pit of hell.  The church was started when Jesus was born again in the gates of hell."

Copeland: “The Spirit of God spoke to me and He said, ‘Son, realize this.  Now follow me in this and don’t let your tradition trip you up.’  He said, ‘Think this way-a twice-born man whipped Satan in his own domain.’  And I threw my Bible down…like that.  I said, ‘What?’  He said, ;’A born-again man defeated Satan…He said, ‘You are the very image, the very copy of that one.’  I said, ‘Goodness gracious sakes alive!’  …’I said ‘Well now you don’t mean, you couldn’t dare mean, that I could have done the same thing?’  He said, ‘Oh yeah, you could’ve done the same thing, ‘cause you’re are born-again man too.”

Kenneth Copeland could have redeemed us from our sins.

This is the kind of thing that happens when you elevate your own subjective thoughts to the level of God’s Word.

Some spirit came and told Copeland this heresy, and Copeland throws down his Bible and believes it!
	OCCULTISM
- Astral-projecting 

Kenneth Hagin claims to have traveled out of his body during one of his sermons to watch a couple commit acts of immorality. 

- Visualization  

One of the most essential tenets of the word of faith belief is that you speak reality into existence.  

Marilyn Hickey says you can get more money by speaking to your wallet and saying out loud, “You big, think billfold full of money…You’re just jammed full of money.”
And the idea isn’t that that will somehow motivate you to go earn more money.  They believe the words themselves actually create a new reality in the same way God spoke the creation into existence.

Capps says that when you say ”That just tickled me to death.”  or “I'm dying to see that.” you are "buddying up with death" and causing those things to happen.  They say that’s the opposite of faith.

Do they know it is part of the Occult?  Yes!  Copeland said the Devil stole it from them.

Benny Hinn, during one of his appearances on PTL said this:
“I had a witch tell me this…She said, “You know that we are taught in witchcraft how to kill birds with words and how to kill people with our mouth…She can actually cause sickness that could very well kill…She said, ‘With words, I used to kill birds.  I used to kill birds.’  She said she would speak to a bird and the bird would drip dead…I said, ‘Dear God, I didn’t know the Devil has such power.’  And the Lord spike tome, and He said, ‘The Devil can dill with words, then you with your words can bring life.’  And it just come and clicked inside of me, brother…And we Christians don’t realize the power in our mouths.”

Benny Hinn frequently goes to Kathren Kulmen's grave to get the anointing which leaks from her bones.

	CHARECTER
False teachers are generally so deceptive and clever about hiding their heresies, that the Lord has given us another method of spotting them – character.  If a religious leader has an unholy life, assume he’s a false teacher.

False teachers almost without exception are dominated by two sins: greed and pride (and very often sexual immorality as well).  Read just about any passage in the NT about false teachers, and these sins will be mentioned.

- greed

These men have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. (I Ti.6:5)

An interviewer for Time magazine asked Copeland if he tithes to get and he answered, "Yes, yes, yes! A thousand times yes!  I want to get healed, I want to get well, I want to get money, I want to get prosperous!"

Oral Roberts said if people didn't send him $8,000,000 God would kill him.

Robert Tilton: "Being poor is a sin."

Inspired by Dave Del Dotto's real estate info-mercials, Tilton developed his "Success-n-life" info-mercial.  

The message is simple: God wants you to be rich, but first you must demonstrate faith.  To prove faith you must make a vow.  Typical vows begin at $1000, but the sky is the limit.  All vows are to be sent care of Robert Tilton.  The result?  Tilton made $65 million a year! 

Freddy Price, referring to his own riches, says, "The Bible says that he has left us an example.  That's why I drive a Rolls Royce-I'm following Jesus' steps."  

They are constantly teaching the “100 fold principle” – send us a gift, and God will give you 100 times that amount back. (Why don't they follow it?  They could just give away all their millions, God will give them 100 times that amount back, and they wouldn’t have to do the telethons)

II Pe.2 - In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up... and  they are experts in greed.

John Avanzini teaches that the reason many are poor is because they don't trust Avanzini enough to give him a financial statement 

Crouch: "You can be saved yourself, by planting seed in this fertile soil called TBN."

Avanzini Insists Jesus had a nice, big house, and says "A greater than a lottery has come.  His name is Jesus!"  

Is that the highest praise he - could think of?  Jesus is a super-lottery?  They are just like the false teachers in Paul's day who teach things they ought not to teach - and that for the sake of dishonest gain. (Tit.1:10)

How do they get around passages like Job 1:21 (The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away)?  Charles Capps says Job simply "wasn't under the anointing" when he said that and the statement is "a lie"!  

Hinn:  "You know what?  We've said this a million times and it's not even scriptural - all because of Job: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord."  I have news for you: that's not Bible, that's not Bible.  The Lord giveth and never taketh away."
  
What about the statement from God that Job never sinned by charging God with wrongdoing?  How can they say God's statements are untrue?  

Copeland says God was making a positive confession. (This makes God a self-deluded, wishful thinking liar)
Also - why didn't it come to pass?  Did God lack faith?

Not only do they think God wants them rich - they feel the need to flaunt it (Everything on TBN is covered with gold, Price drives a Rolls Royce)

We learned in Col.3 that the most basic step to thinking like God wants us to think is to focus on the eternal instead of the temporal.  But these men do just the opposite.
Hinn: "Years ago they used to preach `O we are going to walk on streets of gold.'  I would say, `I don't need the gold up there.  I've got it down here.' 

What more effective message could there be to keep people from coming to Christ - to teach that earthly riches are better than heavenly riches!

- Pride  

They believe they are gods

Cerillo: "You're not looking at Morris Cerillo - you're looking at God.”  

Hagin: "The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth."

Copeland reads in Scripture "I AM" he says "Hallelujah, I AM too!".  and "You don't have a god in you, you are one."

Hagin: "Man was created on terms of equality with God, and he could stand in God's presence without any consciousness of inferiority... Man lived on terms equal with God."  

Earl Paulk: "Dogs have puppies and cats have kittens, so God has little gods."

Benny Hinn: "I face devils as the son of God...Quit your nonsense!  What else are you?...Are you His children?  You can't be human!  You can't!  You can't!  God didn't give birth to flesh...you said, "Well that's heresy."  No, that's your crazy brain saying that.
(Nothing irritates them like people who use their brains and expose their heresy)

The result of this false doctrine is pride

Tilton calls himself the most anointed prosperity pastor of television.

Hagin boasts that he has not "prayed one prayer in 45 years...without getting an answer.  I always got an answer-and the answer was always yes."

Hinn: "I am a little messiah walking on earth."

Paul Crouch claims to have "the most powerful voice in the history of the world."  I heard him say Satan attacks him more than anyone else in the world!

Oral Roberts: "God clearly told me he needs me here on earth.  And here's why - because of all the ministries, this ministry is the only one God has on earth that owns a medical school." 

Benny Hinn:  "My worldly desires are gone.  I no longer have any rebellion in me."

He tells the story of when he was having one of his customary chats with the Holy Spirit.  The chats were apparently so meaningful the Spirit of God begged Benny for "5 more minutes, just 5 more minutes.  The Holy Spirit longed for my fellowship."

II Pe.2:10-12 describes false teachers this way: Bold and arrogent, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings, yet even the angels, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings...
And Jude says they: 
reject authority and slander celestial beings.  But even the archangle Micheal, when disputing with the devil, did not dare bring a slanderous accusation against him. 

These false teachers just delight in calling Satan names.  I turned on TBN and for 10 minutes Paul Crouch and others railed against Satan and called him names.  One guy said, "The problem with the church today is we don't do enough talking to the devil." 

You can also tell a false teacher by how he responds to godly rebuke Tit 3:10-11
Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. 11You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. 

Copeland says anyone who criticizes his doctrine will be stricken with cancer and go to an early grave.  

Hagin says preachers who don't accept his teaching will drop dead in the pulpit.

Paul Crouch, gave this warning to critics: "Get out of God's way, or God's gonna shoot you if I don't."
He says those who criticize his doctrine "damned and on their way to hell; and I don't think there is any redemption for them."

Hinn: "Somebody's attacking me because of what I am teaching.  Let me tell you something brother: you watch it!... You know I've looked for one verse in the Bible; I just can't seem to find it.  One verse said that "If you don't like them, kill them."  I really wish I could find it!...You stink, frankly-that's the way I think about it!...Sometimes I wish God will give me a Holy Ghost machine gun; I'll blow your head off!  (said that during a TBN "Praise-o-thon!) 

"there are men in Southern California attacking me.  I will tell you under the anointing now, you'll reap it in your children unless you stop...and your children will suffer. You’ll pay and your children will."  

They all believe whatever they speak will come to pass.
 
Make no mistake - the only love these snakes have for you is the love a wolf has for a sheep or the love a thief has for a storeowner's cash drawer.

When their "guaranteed" faith formulas fail, and the poor retiree who has sent them all his retirement money and now has nothing to live on, and the 100 fold never comes, they always blame the suffering people – not enough faith.

Couples are accused of sin in the event of their baby’s death. 

False Prophecies 

I’m not going to give you a big list – they pump them out by the hundreds every day.  They even admit that half of them don’t come to pass.  They say 50% is pretty good, and that’s what the NT prophets did.

I could go on and on, but frankly there’s only so much of that a guy can stomach.  

These people have millions of listeners and readers.  This is not just a tiny fringe group.

This is what happens when you have well-intentioned people who will not exercise discernment.