We need to look past the famous names.
We need to lay aside which of these are our favorite speakers.
Instead, we need to realize that this is much bigger than Kenneth Copeland or Joyce Meyer, Charismatics and non-Charismatics, and who is on TV and who isn't. God isn't dealing only with leaders in this. These six are suffering the brunt of what God is dealing with the entire Body of Christ about.
Please note that in this article, from this point on, I do not address any of these ministers by name. I write only of the overall picture of Charismatic and Word of Faith leaders.
When Does God Correct Leaders? There are at least two turning points, or two points of no return, at which God will step in and judge leaders.
One is revealed in the story of the sons of Eli in the Old Testament. Eli was a priest and his sons, who inherited their priestly positions from their father, were corrupt to the core. Eli did not put a stop to their sin. God dealt with Eli for years about the matter. Then it reached a critical turning point at which the Lord stepped in. The turning point was described as:
"Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD: for men abhorred the offering of the LORD."--I Samuel 2:17.
When it reached the point where believers hated giving offerings, and despised coming to the Lord to worship, God put a stop to the situation. He corrected it. He chastized them. Shortly thereafter, Eli died and his sons were killed.
Another turning point is shown to us in the life of King David. He suffered the chastisement of the Lord when events reached a similar turning point. He had lusted after Bathsheba, committed adultery with her and she became pregnant. David had her husband killed so they could be together. God revealed the matter to Nathan the prophet. Nathan rebuked David, and the king repented. God forgave him, but a critical point had been reached from which there was no going back:
"Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die."--II Sam. 12:14.
Ruining your own reputation is your business. But when leaders damage the reputation of the Lord, severe consequences follow. When leaders err either to the point that believers hate giving offerings to God, or to where the enemies of the Lord have great occasion to blaspheme, God will step in and correct the matter.
My Brethren, we haven't just reached one of these points of no return, we have reached BOTH of them.
Are our Charismatic and Word of Faith leaders corrupt?
In the sense of absolutely stealing from people, I would say no. But they have greatly erred in three areas: extreme teachings, loss of a sense of propriety, and the rich giving to the rich. But the blame is not entirely theirs. As some leaders have led us astray, we have supported and applauded them.
Preaching Extreme Teachings
The first area of error that has driven believers away from God and given the wicked great opportunity to blaspheme is the extreme financial teachings that have taken us over.
Turn on nearly any Christian TV program and all you hear is money, money, money. Want a healing? Send me your money. Want a financial breakthrough? Send me your money. Whatever you want, send me your money. The anointing on my ministry is so great that if you sow into my bank account, God will give you anything you ask for.
Nonsense.
The unending telethons, weep-a-thons, scream-a-thons, the promise-them-anything-but-get-their-money-athons, are a stench in the nostrils of God and of honest men.
Yes, you can quote me on that.
God does want us to prosper. But financial prosperity does not come simply by sending an "anointed" minister a big check. Giving is only a part of what is necessary to prosper financially under the blessing of God. The same Bible that says, "Give and it shall be given unto you," also says, "Go to the ant thou sluggard and consider her ways," thus praising diligence and hard work.
Prosperity comes as a result of making wise decisions, saving, living on a budget, working hard, preparing for unexpected expenses, intelligent use of debt, and giving to God--probably in that order. I've seen prosperity come to far more hard-working sinners, than to offering-giving saints. Why? Because many sinners will work hard, save, and sacrifice much to get ahead and prosper. Too many of our leaders offer believers a get-rich-quick-scheme: "You can have it all! You can have it now! Just give to my ministry!"
I've seen countless poor people, single parents on tight budgets, and seniors on fixed incomes, begin to hate the offerings of God. Why? Because they are constantly told that unless you give, and give much to God, the Lord won't help you. So the very people the Lord loves, the very ones He desires to help--the poor, widows, the elderly--give up on God because they can't scrape together the amount of money they are told they need to give in order to receive His help.
Go into any secular environment among unsaved people, and mention TV ministries and church. They will roll their eyes and say, "all they want is your money!" Now, the wicked have always said that. But when many church services and nearly all Christian TV programs consist of preachers endlessly hounding people for money, as Nathan warned King David, this continuously gives "great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme."
God will eventually put a stop to that. For us "eventually" has arrived.
Loss of a Sense of Propriety A conversation I had with an elderly church secretary years ago demonstrates the second area in which we and our leaders have erred. This woman had been a church secretary in a Protestant church for over 50 years with most of those years spent serving the same church. She told me quite a story.
She said, "Our young priest was in the hospital recovering from surgery recently. A visitor from our Church brought him a bottle of wine and a Playboy magazine. The next Sunday the priest told us he had thoroughly enjoyed both of them."
And she laughed uproariously.
I stood there stunned.
I didn't know who to be more horrified by; the man who would bring a minister alcohol and pornography, the "minister" who would accept them and boast about it later, or the church secretary that had the audacity to believe this was funny.
Some lines in ministry should never be crossed.
Never.
How could she and her whole church laugh at this? Because she and they had lost all sense of propriety.
And so have we.
Many of our national Charismatic leaders think nothing of urging the poor to give them their last dollar, while housing themselves in a condo in Trump Tower. I have been sickened as I've watched some of our leaders preach about how their wives "are great shoppers." Great shoppers? How can they flaunt their wealth in front of the poor like that? How can they brag about wild shopping sprees in front of single moms who don't know how they'll buy their children shoes or school clothes?
How can they do this? They have lost all sense of propriety.
How can we sit there, listen to this, and applaud it? Because along with many of our leaders, we too have lost all sense of what is appropriate and what is not.
Believers have reached the point where they despise the offerings of the Lord when they see that those offerings go to fund an outrageously lavish lifestyle, and the wicked are given plenty of reason to blaspheme the Lord.
The Rich Giving to The Rich The last major area in which we and our leaders have erred is in the grotesque practice of accepting the rich giving to the rich. This is in direct disobedience to the clear commands of Jesus Christ.
"Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper,
call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor
thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. But when thou makest a feast,
call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:
And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."--Luke 14:12-14.
Jesus commanded that when you have substantial resources, don't direct them towards others of equal wealth or greater, because they have the ability to return the favor. Instead, the Lord commanded that when you have great resources, direct them towards those who have no ability to return the favor.
In 28 years of listening to prosperity preaching, I've never heard that scripture preached, and I certainly have never seen it practiced--particularly minister-to-minister. Allow me to give you an example of what is commonly done:
Healing Evangelsit A invites Prophet B to come speak at his convention. Shortly thereafter, Prophet B "gets a revelation" that Healing Evangelist A is to come appear on his TV program. Christ specifically told us that when we have resources to share, that we are not to invite "our rich neighbors." Yet you see this done in ministry all the time. One huge ministry "is led" to parnter with another huge ministry. Occasionally, I can see where this is advantageous. But brethren doing something occasionally is a far different matter than doing it all the time.
I sat down one time and looked back through 20 years of magazines I had received from a well-known Charismatic minister. I noted the ads in his magazine, and the meeting announcements. In 20 years of ads, I could not find one single instance in which this famous minister invited anyone to preach at his conventions other than another equally famous or wealthy minister. Not once.
Whether we like to admit it or not, there is a Charismatic and Word of Faith "ministry elite" that continuously preach in each other's meetings. They sell each other's books over their TV programs, and constantly promote each other's ministries. In fact, some of them even sit on each other's governing boards.
They describe this as ministering with others that are "on their level."
By "on their level," do they mean level of anointing, or level of wealth?
They give airplanes to each other. While it is true that only another large ministry could make adequate use of, and stand the expenses associated with, an airplane, why not sell the plane and pay off the mortgage on some small church? Why not send several exausted pastors with limited incomes, on nice vacations?
One recently gave another preacher a $2 million birthday gift. No, that isn't a typo. Two
million dollars.
"Well, God told me to!"
God told you to give millions of dollars to a fellow multi-millionaire? Then why did Jesus say "don't invite your rich neighbors?"
I have the same reaction to this $2 million gift that I had to the minister who was given a bottle of wine and a playboy magazine. I don't know who to be more horrified by, the giver who believed a $2 million birthday gift was appropriate, the receiver who felt entitled to a $2 million birthday gift, or the fellow ministers who did not rebuke this outrage.
One might argue that the $2 million gift wasn't inappropriate because it was given from one ministry to another ministry, and did not go into the receiver's personal bank account. That still leaves you with a multi-millionaire giving to the ministry of another multi-millionaire. Christ said, don't give to your rich neighbors. That includes your rich ministry neighbors.
Let me contrast this ugliness with something beautiful.
On this website we have
a recording of T.L. Osborn telling what he did when his beloved wife went to be with the Lord. To keep from being overwhelmed by the grief, he threw himself afresh into ministry. When the life insurance check arrived from his wife's passing, he took the entire amount and purchased Christian books and Bibles, flew to Russia and Eastern Europe and distributed them for free to thousands of people. Who knows how may souls will come into the Kingdom through the materials sown into lives through the proceeds of a life insurance check!
How much better it would have been, had that minister wanted to honor the birthday of another rich minister in substantial way, to sow it into the lives of people who had nothing. He could have said, "Brother So and So, in honor of your birthday, we took $2 million dollars and bought 20 homes with it. Then we divided those homes among the needy. Some went to single moms working minimum wage jobs. Some went to the poor. Others went to some elderly folks in our congregation." Or how much better to say, "we took the $2 million and distributed $200,000 worth of food in 10 inner cities and told them about Jesus Christ."
See the difference?
God sees the difference.
Public Intoxcation Christ warned us this could happen.
In the Parable of the Sower, the Lord said,
"And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful."--Mark 4:19
The Amplified Bible translates the phrase, "the deceitfulness of riches" as, "the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches."
There is nothing wrong with riches themselves. A million dollars in a bank account is going to do neither good or bad. It is just going to sit there until someone spends it or adds to it. But God has warned us that "pleasure, delight, false glamour, and deceitfulness" is easily associated with riches.
Money changes people.
Money changes some ministers.
Money, like alcohol, is intoxicating.
Many of our Word of Faith and Charismatic leaders have become intoxicated with the false glamour and deceitfulness of riches. (And we have followed them into the same intoxication). The vast amounts of money that have accumulated in their ministry and personal bank accounts has seduced them. They have lost all sense of propriety. And it has lead them into disobedience to Christ's clear command as they have lavished fabulous gifts and ministry invitations on each other. Their actions have lead us to the point where believers hate the offerings of God and the wicked blasphene the Lord.