Sermons from Galatians 2: False Teachers of The WoF

False Teachers of The WoF

preached 5/3/09

(Gal. 1:9- “As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.”)

Last week we began with Paul speaking to the Galatian church about how false teachers had crept into the church there and had polluted the Gospel message with error. The false teachers and preachers had infiltrated from within and disguised as Christian teachers and preachers had added “improvements” to the gospel message making it not the gospel at all but heresy (grossly false doctrine). Today I want us to look at one of the fastest growing cults within the church. This false movement is called the “Word-Faith Movement” or “Word of Faith Movement” (hereafter will be WoF). You might know some of the names of the false teachers I name today but most importantly we will expose the lies they espouse as gospel.

I. Cultic/Occultic Origins(2 Tim. 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”) - You may not be familiar with the name Word-Faith or Word of Faith movement but you might have heard of some of it’s teachers/preachers: Kenneth & Gloria Copeland, Robert Tilton, Creflo Dollar, John Avanzini, Eddie Long, Marilyn Hickey, T.D. Jakes, Juanita Bynum, Fred Price, Rod Parsley, John Hagee, Joyce Meyer, Jesse Duplantis, Jerry Savelle, Paul Crouch (TBN), Charles Capps, Leroy Thompson, Benny Hinn, Paula White, Joel Osteen, Pat Robinson, R.W. Schambach, Myles Munroe.

The WoF movement did not start overnight, but began in the early 1900’s with a man named E.W. Kenyon. Kenyon was greatly influenced by New Thought founder Phineas Quimby (his false teachings are the basis for the cult called Christian Science started by Mary Baker Eddy; early New Age beliefs). E.W. Kenyon went to Emerson College of Oratory in Boston which was a breeding ground at the time for the newly emerging New Thought cult. New Thought claimed to have discovered laws of faith, advancing a Christianized version of their occult teaching.

With these cultic/occultic teachings Kenyon would mix and blend it in with orthodox Christian doctrine to create the false, peculiar beliefs that became the WoF. So we see then cultic/occultic roots of WoF and now let’s look who brought into the present. The man who was most influential in spreading this heresy into the 20th and 21st century is Kenneth Hagin. And his disciples and devotees affectionately call him “Dad” Hagin. “Dad” Hagin died in 2003 but the heresy of the WoF keeps rolling on even stronger today. But what do you ask is the false teachings of the WoF.

II. WoF False Doctrines - (1 Tim 4:1- “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils”)- 1. Faith in Faith- The primarily false teaching of the WoF’ers is that a Christian by their faith can make God do anything. In the WoF they put their faith in their ‘faith’. To them faith is a force that we use to make God heal us and keep us healthy or make God make us rich and get us all that we desire. WoF say faith is the stuff God made the earth, the universe, and even humans according to the WoF false teachers. They twist the scripture in Heb. 11:1 (in the KJV)- “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for…”; this proves to them that faith is a substance that allows God to be a slave for you, to make him create the world that you want and desire, to be healthy, wealthy, and master of your own life. The WoF heresy is nothing more than Christianized humanism that we are in control because God is not and that only saved man can allow God to work in the world and we activate God by the law and force of faith but we will get to more of that later. The truth of Hebrew 1:1 is that the archaic terms of the KJV is not very understandable to us, so the better translation of ‘substance’ here is the word ‘assurance’ (NASB). True faith is the assurance that the promises of God never fail, it is human beings trusting in a God they cannot see, to do things that He has promised. To the WoF teachers faith is the substance that we get what we desire, even God has to have faith because faith is the source of God’s power. And this leads us to our next WoF false teaching, positive confession.

2. Positive Confession- This is the WoF belief that we have what we confess because words are the containers of faith. For example, if we speak positive confessions of healing and quote bible verses (even taken out of context) then the force of faith is activated and healing and health will eventually be manifested to you but you must keep on positively confessing in order to stay healed or if your broke it will make you rich if you use the same formula of faith: confess or speak it, believe it, and receive it because God is obligated to do so because we use faith and confession. Because the WoF God used the same formula when He made the universe because to them He spoke (and visualized) it in the beginning when He said, “Let there be…” and of course He had to believe it would happen because it came into existence, for every faith-filled word that He spoke. But there is a drawback to confession because if there is a positive confession there must be a negative confession. Positive confession works off of faith and it attracts God’s power to work on the our behalf to make us rich and well, while negative confession is fear that attracts the Devil to allow him to make us sick and poor. They say our words are so powerful that we attract sickness like cancer and even death if we just accidentally utter a negative confession like “My head is killing me” when we have a headache because it could cause us to die of a brain tumor or a brain hemorrhage. The WoF teacher has the answer to reverse the curse by only having us utter positive things even though our bodies may tell us we’re sick, we are to ignore and deny the symptoms and confess we’re fine, we’re well, we’re healed, and free of pain and to quote over and over “by His stripes we are healed” or twist some other scripture with the word ‘healing’ in it to suit our need of confession. (Side note: If you ignore symptoms of being sick and deny them it won’t make you well no matter how much you confess you are healed, symptoms are God’s built in warning system that something is wrong and needs attention.) Contrary to the beliefs of the WoF movement sickness and poverty is not the individual’s results of each person’s sin. It is a part of this cursed and fallen creation we are born into without choice. It is not sinful to be sick or poor (which is what they teach; K.Copeland: "Poverty is an evil spirit"; J. Hagee: "Poverty is caused by sin and disobeying the Word of God."). They need to be informed that it is sinful to be spiritually sick and spiritually poor believing the heretical teachings of the WoF movement and living selfishly (Rev 3:16,17- “So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked”) that is their spiritual state.

3. Little Gods: Man Promoted, God Demoted- A hallmark of any cult is to alter the truth about the Godhead and specifically undermine the person and work of Jesus Christ. The WoF does this as well, not only do they demote God but they promote man to a “little god” (they spell it with a little ‘g’). They promote the same lie as Satan hissed in the Garden, “You will be like God”. How do they get to the place to say that man is a “little god”? Well many of the WoF teachers believe that when God created man in His image and likeness that He made a “little god”. Their flawed reasoning to think this let me quote Joyce Meyer, “If you as human being have a baby, you call it human kind. If cattle have another cattle, they call it cattle-kind. I mean what’s God supposed to call us? Doesn’t the Bible say we’re created in His image? Now, you understand, I’m not saying you are a God with a capital ‘G’” (“Joyce Meyer-Little Gods” a video on YouTube). We are left with no doubt about what she is saying and the rest of the WoF teachers all mirror the same belief like Kenneth Copeland ("You don't have a god in you, you are one!"; "The Force of Love", Audiotape, 1987), Creflo Dollar ("You're not a sinner saved by grace, your sons and daughters of the Most High God. You are gods!"; “Changing Your World", April 17, 2002), and there are too many to quote but say and believe the same thing, they are gods. They believe when God made man (the “little gods”) that He gave man dominion over the earth and their belief about dominion was that man was a god over this world. But when the Devil deceived Adam and Eve well that defaulted man’s title over earth and gave it to Satan who became god of this world. God then was locked out from doing anything on earth and in the affairs of mankind. And God’s avenue back into this earth was through man and He found it in Abraham. The WoF teach that because Abraham and other people of faith gave God permission to act on the earth. They teach that their poor WoF God finally had access to earth and man finally had access to God. How twisted the WoF teachings are, man is deified and God is humanized and the devil is on an equal playing field with God and man is in control and allows God to work. How that false, evil belief is shattered by this verse about the sovereignty of God (Dan 4:35 - All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven And among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand Or say to Him, "What have You done?"). God is in control and we aren’t, thank God.

4. Spiritual Death of Jesus- How could any God-fearing, saved Christian man or woman believe that there is any other redemption or salvation other than the suffering and death of Christ on the cross. Well, the WoF false teachers do it again. According to them, Jesus paid for our sins not on the cross but in the very pit of hell itself they falsely claim Christ had to die spiritually and burn in hell to save us. I will quote one of the popular WoF teachers, “if you think that the punishment for our sin was to die on the cross? If that were the case, the two thieves could have paid your price.” (Fred Price; ‘Ever Increasing Faith Messenger, pg.120). This is believed and repeated by all the WoF teachers from Kenneth Copeland to Joel Osteen, from Joyce Meyers to Paula White, and Benny Hinn to T.D. Jakes. But Galatians 6:14 gladly says this, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”. We can boast only in the suffering, shed blood, and death of Christ on the cross for the forgiveness of sins and nothing else.

III. Things to Consider- This is just a small part of the false, cultic teachings of the WoF. It seems that I’m making this up and surely Christians don’t believe this fractured fairytale. They push these false teachings anywhere and through any outlet they can where they can make a buck and fleece the sheep. Irregardless if their false promises for healing kill someone because going to the doctor or taking medicine is sneered at for a “lack of faith” or if people have fallen on hard times or born into poverty their seen as sinful by these false brethren and tell those who have been deceived by them that if there sick or poor, it is because it’s their fault. These false teachers will have a fearful end. The Apostle Paul pronounced upon them anathema, destruction, false teachers will face the wrath of God and will receive their reward at the Great White Throne Judgment.

Remember Jesus’ warning, Matt. 24:4, “Take heed that no one deceives you.” Stay true to the truth of God’s word and false teachers will easily be seen.

Sermons from Galatians- part1: Another Gospel?

Another Gospel?

(Galatians 1:6-9)

04/26/09

   We are going to begin a study of the book of Galatians.  Paul wrote this letter to the church of Galatia and this is the local church Paul started and discipled.  This church had the privilege of having the greatest teacher of the church, besides Christ, to learn the fundamental and foundational teachings of Christianity.  But from these few verses we read that false teachers had crept in and began to teach “another gospel”.  Today, we will see from these verses: Paul’s wonder, Paul’s wisdom, and Paul’s warning about the deception and false teachers in Galatia.

I.  Paul’s Wonder of Their Deception (v. 6- I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel) - The believer’s at Galatia were taught by the Apostle Paul himself.  He lead many of the believers there to Christ, discipled, and preached the foundational truths of doctrine to them directly and yet there had been false teachers gain a foothold in this local body that had led them into gross error and deceived them into believing they were teaching another gospel.  

A. These people were believers- they were Christians, according to passages to them by Paul in chapter 3 and 4 describing their coming to faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and Paul calling them Christian brothers (brethren) in this book and yet they had become seriously confused and led into deception.  They knew Christ and had heard the true message of the gospel and were led into this error.  The amazement of Paul was that they were deserting the truth of the gospel that led them to Christ, actually deserting like soldiers desert their fellow soldiers, their general, and their allegiances to their Supreme Commander and country.  The KJV says that they were removing themselves from the gospel truth and the grace that they were called to in Christ.  Not that they were deserting the gospel of Paul but the gospel of Christ and the very One (Jesus) that had called them into grace.  Understand they didn’t lose their salvation in Christ but they had lost their fellowship with Christ because they had put this false gospel before Christ.    

B. The False Gospel Infection- What exactly the false gospel that caused their defection was that of the Judaizers.  They were false teachers that had become part of that local body after Paul had left to go on to build other bodies of believers (churches) in different countries.  

   The Judaizers taught that for the Gentile believers in Christ had to become physically and ritually like the Jews to continue being Christians by being circumcised and keep the dietary laws, religious days and festivals, and Sabbaths.  You’ve got to understand they taught that Christ died and rose again from the dead for their sins but they taught you must do all the Jewish religious laws and regulations in order to stay saved.  They did not deny Christ as Messiah or death for our sins on the cross.  If they had denied the work and person of Christ they would not had been accepted by the Galatian church.  The way they introduced error into this church was to “improve” on the gospel of Christ by adding religious ceremonies, requirements, rituals, and standards of the Old Covenant (side note: the WoF also supposedly “improves” on the Gospel and doctrine).  

   When you add anything to the grace of God, even the Old Covenant Law, then you destroy grace.  It did not matter that even though they added the Law to grace, then grace ceased being grace (NASB Rom. 11:6- But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace).  You see the only gospel of Christ is grace, (“God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone”).  Eph. 2:8-10a says it best, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  For we are His workmanship…”; the work of salvation is not through the power, abilities, or merits of man in any way but only through the grace and mercy of God through what Christ has done for us.  We as mankind cannot individually or corporately by what we are or what we do attain salvation for ourselves or even sustain the salvation that Christ provides for us.  It is all by God’s grace we are saved and are kept saved unto glorification.  It is a foolish idea to believe that such a gracious salvation can be kept by any human effort on our part by religious ritual or ceremony.  It says in Romans 5:2 that only in Jesus, “we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand”, it is only on this grace we stand in salvation and by and through nothing else.  

   Because the Judaizers promoted works with grace then it put the focus of salvation off of the Cross of Christ and onto the works of flesh.  When this is taught then people are putting faith into their works instead of Christ.  Then instead of them preaching the grace through faith in Christ the emphasis is then on the human works to save thus having not only false teachers in a church but a body of false believers.  

   When a church places an emphasis on baptism to save (Church of Christ, UPC, Church of Jesus Christ) or an evidence of an experience to save (speaking in tongues; UPC, Church of Jesus Christ), participation to receive a sacrament (ex. communion, Eucharist; like the RCC), or church on Sabbath proves true believers (SDA) then it is a false teaching because it is dependant on a work based salvation and not God’s grace. Remember anything added to God’s grace is not ever grace.  Just because it was a little error added to mostly truth don’t think it wasn’t deadly.  Even if you add a little drop of poison to a glass of pure water it is still deadly.

II. Paul’s Wisdom Concerning the Deception (v. 7- Which is not another; but there be some that trouble (disturb) you, and would pervert (distort) the gospel of Christ)- Is there another Gospel? To answer like the Apostle Paul the answer is an emphatic no.  Paul says it best there is no other gospel of salvation than what was preached to you concerning Christ.  That gospel message says that God alone saves through the person and work of Jesus Christ.  The message of works maintaining salvation destroys the powerful message of the true gospel message by falsely proclaiming to mankind the false belief that we can save ourselves.  And if it is by our works and efforts then Christ died for nothing (Gal. 2:21- for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain). 

   If it had been in our ability to keep the moral law and standards of God then the death of Christ would have been needless because not only did Christ die for our sins but also fulfilled the Law in our behalf (Rom. 8:2-4a, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us). The truth of scripture shows us that it is not by our efforts or strength but by the powerful work of salvation made possible for us solely through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:6- For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly).  

   The false teaching was troubling and disturbing to the church here in Galatia.  We see the word for trouble here meant a great disturbance and distress.  It was tearing this church apart and it was tearing families apart.  It was causing all of this because it perverted the true gospel message making it into something entirely opposite of what it really was.  Whenever the gospel message or any biblical doctrine perverted it will cause that church to become unsettled and destroy people, families, and maybe a once thriving congregation (Titus 1:10-11- For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain) and the main reasons usually are for power and monetary gain.  

   There are many supposed Christian ministries on TV and radio that fall under the title of false teachers.  Many who preach “another gospel” of health/wealth varieties (prosperity, WoF), positive confession, and experience centered groups (signs and blunders, I mean wonders) that supposedly are preaching a message that has been hidden or suppressed until God has revealed it to them.  I’m not going to be able to go into them this time but needless to say they preach a false gospel that is destroying churches and families and causing them to fall into unbelief.  But Paul wants to be aware of them and the wisdom he shares is that although they do not openly contradict the Bible and denounce Christ but these demonic teachers so subtly distort and undermine the word of God, that they gradually lead people into error.  Never compromise the truths of the Word of God irregardless of how Christian it sounds because false teachers have an excellent teacher of deception, Satan (2 Co. 11:13-14- For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light).  Deception is one of the greatest tools that Satan uses.

III. Paul’s Final Warnings (Gal. 1:8-9- But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.  As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed)- There are so many false teachers and ministries out there that use every avenues of media to push their false doctrines of devils.  There was a so-called Christian revival meeting in Florida recently by a young man named Todd Bentley saying that God was going to use him to bring a world-wide revival. In fact he said that an angel had come to him named “winds of change” and that God was going to usher in this great revival through him.  I listened to some of his messages and what I noticed was a great emphasis on himself, his visions, his words from God, and his supposed healings.  But another thing I noticed was a lack of biblical preaching, lack of reading from the Bible, false experiences, and an emphasis on a sideshow performance of faith healing.  It was all emotional, all experienced based (truth dependent on false experiences rather than Biblical truth), and little if any preaching from the Bible (Mt. 7:20 - Therefore by their fruits you will know them).  I knew he was a false teacher first from his false teaching and preaching (angels giving him messages, erroneous and retarded doctrines) and false allegations of great healings (no evidence of these healings provided or proved) and later it became evident from the life he lived in private that became very public (he left his wife for another younger woman that was one of his assistants and this happened during this false revival). Paul has not only warned the church at Galatia this time but even before of false teachers but this is the warning that he speaks twice that if anyone preaches anything other than the powerful truth of salvation alone through Jesus  let them accursed.  This word accursed in Greek is anathema which means that which is devoted to destruction.  So what Paul is saying is if they are so devoted to destroying the gospel message and destroying lives by their false teaching let them go to their destruction and feel the wrath of God.  Strong words but that is the false teachers’ end.  

We will explore the false teachers and teachings next time but let’s leave with this.  Keep in God’s word, study God’s word, and know His truth because through this it will keep you from the troubling of false teachers and error. 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”.