Check this out: The Prosperity Problem.
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Believer bitter over 'prosperity' preachings
- Thread starter TCGreek
- Start date
I have a friend who has devoted his ministry to speaking the truth about many of these ministries. (This is a task I usually am not suppotive of since too many "truth speakers" spend more time talking with the redeemed than reaching the lost...anyhood) My friend suffers from a particularly bad case of MS which has left him in a wheelchar since early childhood. Early in his teens he began attending some Pentecostal camp meetings and one night a fellow got up, pointed to my friend, and said he would be healed that very night. Well it didn't happen.
I also know a poor widow who gave thousands of dollars to one of these fellow's ministries, money she needed, because she was expecting a blessing. She died in near poverty.
Funny, you hear these guys talk and then you hear about people like Rick Warren who give away everything they make to help others, you read about lives of people like Mother Theresa, you listen to a man like Rev. Graham who took a reasonable salary, you realize that most every other Christian in the world isn't "prosperous" and you see the lie that is the prosperity gospel.
The loadstone around these people's necks will be very heavy.
I also know a poor widow who gave thousands of dollars to one of these fellow's ministries, money she needed, because she was expecting a blessing. She died in near poverty.
Funny, you hear these guys talk and then you hear about people like Rick Warren who give away everything they make to help others, you read about lives of people like Mother Theresa, you listen to a man like Rev. Graham who took a reasonable salary, you realize that most every other Christian in the world isn't "prosperous" and you see the lie that is the prosperity gospel.
The loadstone around these people's necks will be very heavy.
I'm glad to see Creflo Dollar on the list. Is that his real name? He came through here and put several Churches on that path. He made the comment that it's ok if a person doesn't prosper and leaves his church because it free's up a pew for another potential tither.
I don't blame the preachers as much as I blame the so called christians for having itchy ears.
I wish the good Sen. well but I agree with the mind field comment. This will be a tough nut to crack and will probably end up hurting all Churches except those targeted. They have lawyers and we don't.
This was a good statement to see from Joyce Meyer...
I don't blame the preachers as much as I blame the so called christians for having itchy ears.
I wish the good Sen. well but I agree with the mind field comment. This will be a tough nut to crack and will probably end up hurting all Churches except those targeted. They have lawyers and we don't.
This was a good statement to see from Joyce Meyer...
1 Timothy 6:8 says"And having food and raiment let us be therewith content."
Sounds like a different Gospel than the one these people are teaching.
6:10 says "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
Sounds like a different Gospel than the one these people are teaching.
6:10 says "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
Sopranette
New Member
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than it is for a rich man to enter through the gates of heaven. I read that somewhere.
love,
Sopranette
love,
Sopranette
mcdirector
Active Member
I've got to think that many might be bitter if they thought that a gospel based on money might have a pay-off.
It's rather like the lottery though - the chances aren't good. I wonder if people who buy lottery tickets feel the same way when the pay-off doesn't come? Of course the lottery front-men aren't quite the salesmen that Benny Hinn et.al. are either, are they?
It's rather like the lottery though - the chances aren't good. I wonder if people who buy lottery tickets feel the same way when the pay-off doesn't come? Of course the lottery front-men aren't quite the salesmen that Benny Hinn et.al. are either, are they?
Check Piper an Mark Driscoll on the subject.
John Piper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukcV-xtU3hc
Mar Driscoll http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IuiUOapK1w
John Piper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukcV-xtU3hc
Mar Driscoll http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IuiUOapK1w
TCGreek said:
Can't we send Arnold Schwarzenneger back in time to take him out so all this won't happen? :laugh:
In my many days off over the holidays, I had the misfortune of watching one of the "name-it-and-claim-it" preachers. Funny how they want us to think that the "blessing" promised to Abraham was tons o cash and NOT Jesus Christ.
Creflo and the Infamous Mr. Hinn and all the others make me physically ill.
Jkdbuck76 said:
Brother,
1. For these preachers, money is the order of the day---making promises to the unsuspecting and deceiving them by their smooth speech.
2. To be honest, I read about these kind of people somewhere in Scripture (Rom 16:17, 18; Phil 3:18, 19; 2 Pet 2:1-4; Jude 11-13).
Right.
I feel sorry for people who send their money to a charity, maybe thinking that they're going to feed kids in Mexico or buy bible for Iraqi children....only to find out the charity was a fraud.
However, I have NO pity for those who send their money to Creflo/Paula/Oral/Benny expecting a monetary payoff.
It is one thing to be duped and then ripped off thinking that you were doing something for the Lord with your money. It is another thing to give money expecting a financial payoff, then getting ripped off.
I feel sorry for people who send their money to a charity, maybe thinking that they're going to feed kids in Mexico or buy bible for Iraqi children....only to find out the charity was a fraud.
However, I have NO pity for those who send their money to Creflo/Paula/Oral/Benny expecting a monetary payoff.
It is one thing to be duped and then ripped off thinking that you were doing something for the Lord with your money. It is another thing to give money expecting a financial payoff, then getting ripped off.
I would have felt the same way a lot of you do about the people who are sending money to these hucksters, except for something I saw myself many years ago.
We were trying to help a young couple whose two older children were being taken away from them and the two younger ones under threat if the young couple did not start keeping something less than a pig stye for a home.
As I was helping the young woman learn to keep things clean, she talked to me. She was sending in mondy to Benny Hinn every week -- just a little, but, for them, that was a lot. I asked her why? She told me she wanted to make God happy and she understood from Hinn that if God was happy with her, she would not be so poor.
It took me a little time to explain to her what was going on. She was terrified of making God mad.
There are a lot of people like that out there. They have TV sets, but no computers. They don't see what is being said here or anywhere about these men and women who are stealing from them. They don't have clothes they feel comfortable going to church in (no matter what anyone says about them being welcome in church anyway). Their church is the TV set and they believe what they are told.
They are uneducated and sweet. Some can barely read.
It is these people Hinn et al are preying on. The least of these, Christ's brethren. Those who hurt them are going to have a very, very heavy price to pay.
Maybe there are some more middle class folk who are giving money to these people. I'm not aware of any myself. But I have become aware of those in rank poverty who want to please God and are told that the way to do it is to give money to this or that televangelist. They are being told that if they do this, God will be happy, and then they will be able to not be poor anymore.
We were trying to help a young couple whose two older children were being taken away from them and the two younger ones under threat if the young couple did not start keeping something less than a pig stye for a home.
As I was helping the young woman learn to keep things clean, she talked to me. She was sending in mondy to Benny Hinn every week -- just a little, but, for them, that was a lot. I asked her why? She told me she wanted to make God happy and she understood from Hinn that if God was happy with her, she would not be so poor.
It took me a little time to explain to her what was going on. She was terrified of making God mad.
There are a lot of people like that out there. They have TV sets, but no computers. They don't see what is being said here or anywhere about these men and women who are stealing from them. They don't have clothes they feel comfortable going to church in (no matter what anyone says about them being welcome in church anyway). Their church is the TV set and they believe what they are told.
They are uneducated and sweet. Some can barely read.
It is these people Hinn et al are preying on. The least of these, Christ's brethren. Those who hurt them are going to have a very, very heavy price to pay.
Maybe there are some more middle class folk who are giving money to these people. I'm not aware of any myself. But I have become aware of those in rank poverty who want to please God and are told that the way to do it is to give money to this or that televangelist. They are being told that if they do this, God will be happy, and then they will be able to not be poor anymore.