- Would God reveal such teachings to His people for their welfare?
- Are these formulas or words found in the Bible?
- Are they based on trusting God or upon a presumption?
- Are they reflecting the life and teachings of Jesus?
- Do they make sense, or are they irrational?
- Are they wise or foolish -- or could they be dangerous?
E. W. Kenyon
". . . When God imparts to us His nature, there comes with it all the attributes of God Himself. They are undeveloped but they are there lying latent in our human spirits."Kenneth Hagin
"Give what you can't afford.""God wants His children to . . . wear the best clothing. He wants them to drive the best cars, and He wants them to have the best of everything . . . just claim what you need."
"Too few people today know that they can write their own ticket with God."
Kenneth Copeland
"As a born again believer, you have the same spiritual capacity Jesus has.""Believers are not to be led by logic. We are not even to be led by good sense . . . . The ministry of Jesus was never governed by logic or reason."
Charles Capps
"He [God] said, [to Capps] . . . I am not the one causing your problems. You are under an attack of the evil one and I can't do anything about it. You have bound me by the negative words of your mouth.""We have said, 'Oh, it looks like the wicked prosper.' Well, we said they were, that is one reason they are prospering."
"In fact, I am convinced the only thing you can't have here on earth is the glorified body. You can have the kingdom [of heaven] and the benefits of it right here on earth."
Robert Tilton
"[re: John 15:7] Jesus didn't put any limits on this . . . . You are wall-to-wall Jesus . . . the miraculous should be commonplace in every church . . . He [Jesus] was talking about demanding your rights and having restored back to you what the devil stole from man in the fall!"Paul Yonggi Cho
Dr. Cho is one of the less extreme Positive Confession teachers. He claims God spoke to him and revealed His teachings about the "law" of faith involving "incubating our subconscious through visions, visualization (mental imaging directed toward a specific goal), and dreams. . . . Physical reality may be altered in accordance with the visualized desires. By picturing what we desire inwardly in our subconscious mind, we somehow enter an/or manipulate "the fourth dimension" in order to actually permit God to produce miracles for us in the physical realm. . . . Your word actually goes out and creates [reality]. Cho believes that genuine pagan miracles are part of the potential of the human spirit . . . . Visualization is held to be the secret of victorious praying. It is our mental power to alter the fourth dimension which produces effective ministry here on the earth.But did God ever teach these things in the Bible? Does God require of us a certain state of consciousness -- or simple trust in Him? Do we have power over creation or does God? Is visualization really the "deeper language" of the Holy Spirit?
Cho has recently and correctly rebuked the American Faith teachers for excesses and imbalance. But in his book Salvation, Health and Prosperity he teaches that apart from knowing the truths of the threefold blessings of salvation, of health, and of prosperity, we cannot properly understand the Bible . . . . He also teaches, "if Jesus is with us now, the same things which He did 2000 years ago should appear daily in our lives. By this we can judge whether Jesus' sayings are true or not: if these things are not happening among us, the promises of Jesus have become empty words to us."
Logical Consequences May Follow this Belief System
Without the slightest hesitation we may say the health and wealth gospel of Positive Confession is a blight upon the church. It is a perverted gospel of cheap grace which reverses biblical values, produces fear and spiritual bondage or intimidation, holds out false promises, leads to false guilt and despair, in some people, produces apostasy and in others results in personal tragedy.For example, like Christian Scientists and Jehovah Witnesses, some Christian parents accepting the faith teachings have let their own children die by withholding from them life-saving medication. They have done this under the mistaken assumption that, in spite of evidence to the contrary, their child was divinely healed. Thus, to continue to give them medication would supposedly be a "lack of faith" in their divine healing. Does anyone need to be told that teachings that cause the deaths of others are not godly, no matter how godly they sound?
The problems and destruction already wrought by these teachings is considerable, yet thousands of churches and millions of Christians continue to support these "ministries," while godly ministries suffer for lack of support. Why would some Christians continue to supply the very funds without which these ministries could not exist? Put simply, because they are promised what they want to believe. "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths" (2 Timothy 4:3,4).
Are You Attending "The Church of the Itching Ear"?
If you attend "The Church of the Itching Ear", with all of its false teachings, are you going to heaven?
3 comments:
Wow! I had no idea that all these people were teaching a false Scripture. I stumbled upon your blog when I was doing research for a paper on pentecostal teachings. What a wealth of information you have provided. Thanks to you and your certified reference materials, I have been able to rethink my position on pentecostalism and I am now looking for a true bible believing and preaching church in my home town. We do have a couple of victory churches in our area and they seem to be mesmerizing all our the kids in the neighbourhoods with the crap that they are teaching. Good for you.
There are so many things that are wrong with this positive confession theology, especially when you have to come up to the front of the church and confess everything that you've ever done before the congregation. I always thought that the only person you had to confess to was God but when we unwittingly got involved with one of these faith movement churches, we had no idea of what positive confession was. It turned out to be humiliating and we were told that in order to be accepted we had to sign a covenant with the church to ensure that we would not backslide into sin. Included in that covenant document was a list of MUST DOs and DON'Ts. We so wanted to be accepted that we went in blindly to this agreement to support the church and then in turn, they would support us. Well they did -- right into bankruptcy and by using emotional blackmail, caused my wife to attempt to take her own life. Fortunately we found a real saviour in our doctor who realized what we were involved with and helped us unintangle ourselves from this abuse. Make no mistake -- it is abuse -- of the worst kind. These pastor-charlatans are nothing more than demons in disguise who eat up their followers and when there is nothing left of them, spit them out and move on to the next bunch of easily led people.
Thank you for giving me a place to vent. We thank God that we are out of this mess and starting over (in our 40s) with nothing. But we are now healthy and on our way back to sanity.
I think my family is attending one of these itching ear churches based on this article. Everything that their leader says to them, they do. They have lost all common sense about life when it comes to this guy. He tells them that he needs a new car and the church comes up with enough money for a new Mercedes. In the meantime, their family car needs winter tires and they cannot afford to put them on. I am sending them the link to this article. Maybe it will make them see some sense since I can't.
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