MacArthur on the Modern Church « Churchmouse Campanologist

MacArthur on the Modern Church « Churchmouse Campanologist

The Church Campanologist gives us insights from the Rev. Mr. John MacArthur. Mr. MacArthur offers an experienced perspective about the impoverished deity that has shaped American evangelicalism and the Protestant mainline. RA believes the term the "weightless god" needs expatiation and application. Thankfully, the classical Book of Common Prayer, 1662, and its daily use for Morning and Evening Prayer along with chanted Psalms (using those from St. Paul's Cathedral, London) and all associated Bible readings, have shielded the practitioners from this "weightless and worthless god of therapeutic irrelevance."

RA recommends this as a doctrinal, praiseworthy and pious approach that it safe. Furthermore, we recommend reading and studying the Bible to see the mistakes that religious teachers are making.

As the Rev. Dr. Cornelius Van Til always reminded us, summarily, that all heresies and apostasies began and ended with the doctrine of God.

Psalm 52, TBN, and Applications

‎1 Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually.

PV: Why Benny Hinn and Kenny Copeland the refusal to "open the ministry books on finances," the money of God, thou wicked "tyrants?" Why, O TBN oppressors, do you rob from widows, poor and infirm? Why, O Tyrants, dost thou preach a false gospel? Why, O Tyrants, are there no structures of accountability, visibility, restraint and counsel?

2 The tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.

PV: Why, O Lying Benny, did you say last weekend, "I never saw a saint go begging..." and then proceed to beg for an hour for $2 million dollars, "working deceitfully," thou lying tongue? And, Tyrant, Lying Benny, that's just for starters with your deceitful tongue, deceiving the simple, weak, and ignorant masses.

3 Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah.

PV: Here's the answer to the above questions, in verse 3. You love lying.

4 Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue.

5 God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah.

PV: We seek Hinn and TBN to be "uprooted" from the soil of any of Christ's Churches. "Rooted out of the land of the living." Let their ministries and names perish. Let them be footnotes in history. Let there be a divinely-ordained shake-up. If not, "let the blind lead the blind" (Mt.15) and let them eat the fruits of their self-deception.

6 The righteous also shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him:

PV: When we see more and more success at their destruction, we "shall laugh at him." (them)
Yes, we shall "laugh" at them, these lying, deceiving, self-appointed and tyrannical blights.

7 Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.

PV: Why old Kenny Copeland did you brag that if all supporters stopped sending donations, you were self-sufficient? Why did you brag that you were "in the billionaire-flow?" And why the tax-exempt status? And why the anti-God doctrine (this is the worst offense), as one who "strengthened himself in wickedness." Wretched, odious, Arminian, Pelagian snake.

8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.

PV. Amen and amen.

9I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.

PV: Amen and amen. Let us heartily rejoice in the strength of thy salvation, O LORD (Ps.95). "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life" (Ps.23:6). Why, O TBN-tyrants, why boastest thou of thyselves, thou lying spirits? Unlike you liars at TBN, including the vast enablers of this wickedness, we shall seek truth in the inward parts as per Psalm 51.6: "Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom."

PASTOR PAULA RESPONDS TO FALSE AND MISLEADING ARTICLE | www.paulawhite.org

PASTOR PAULA RESPONDS TO FALSE AND MISLEADING ARTICLE | www.paulawhite.org

Pentecostalist loon Paula White defends herself on allegations of inappropriate romantic behaviours with fellow Pentecostalist loon Benny Hinn. My bet is on this...and you heard it here for the first time. (Read Hinn's response very closely.) Once Hinn's divorce is final, these two will get married. (Pentecostalist loon Paula White is already twice-divorced.) This will lead to a larger ministerial effort and income for both. Hinn's divorce "settlement" will get ugly since he's a millionaire many times over. Pentecostalist loons, the lot of them. TBN, the Total Bonehead Network, fathered by another loon, Paul Crouch Sr., himself involved in an homosexual lawsuit that settled out of court, will give Hinn and White a pass as they always do, e.g. Arthur Blessitt. Loons, the lot of them.

“A Colossal Fraud” by John MacArthur « Reformed Bibliophile

“A Colossal Fraud” by John MacArthur « Reformed Bibliophile

A Colossal Fraud”

John MacArthur

Former NASDAQ chairman Bernie Madoff ran a ponzi-scheme swindle for nearly 20 years, and he bilked an estimated $18 billion from Wall-Street investors. When the scam finally came to light it unleashed a shockwave of outrage around the world. It was the largest and most far-reaching investment fraud ever.

But the evil of Madoff’s embezzlement pales by comparison to an even more diabolical fraud being carried out in the name of Christ under the bright lights of television cameras on religious networks worldwide every single day. Faith healers and prosperity preachers promise miracles in return for money, conning their viewers out of more than a billion dollars annually. They have operated this racket on television for more than five decades. Worst of all, they do it with the tacit acceptance of most of the Christian community.

Someone needs to say this plainly: The faith healers and health-and-wealth preachers who dominate religious television are shameless frauds. Their message is not the true gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing spiritual or miraculous about their on-stage chicanery. It is all a devious ruse designed to take advantage of desperate people. They are not godly ministers but greedy impostors who corrupt the Word of God for money’s sake. They are not real pastors who shepherd the flock of God but hirelings whose only design is to fleece the sheep. Their love of money is glaringly obvious in what they say as well as how they live. They claim to possess great spiritual power, but in reality they are rank materialists and enemies of everything holy.

There is no reason anyone should be deceived by this age-old con, and there is certainly no justification for treating the hucksters as if they were authentic ministers of the gospel. Religious charlatans who make merchandise of false promises have been around since the apostolic era. They pretend to be messengers of Christ, but they are interlopers and impostors. The apostles condemned them with the harshest possible language. Paul called them “men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain” (1 Timothy 6:5). Peter called them false prophets with “heart[s] trained in greed” (2 Peter 2:14). He warned that “in their greed they will exploit you with false words” (v. 3). He exposed them as scoundrels and dismissed them as “stains and blemishes” on the church (v. 13).

Those biblical descriptions certainly fit the greed-driven cult of prosperity preachers and faith healers who unfortunately, thanks to television, have become the best-known face of Christianity worldwide. The scam they operate ought to be a bigger scandal than any Wall Street ponzi scheme or big-time securities fraud. After all, those who are most susceptible to the faith-healers’ swindle are not well-to-do investors but some of society’s most vulnerable people—including multitudes who are already destitute, disconsolate, disabled, elderly, sick, suffering, or dying. The faith-healer gets lavishly rich while the victims become poorer and more desperate.

But the worst part of the scandal is that it’s not really a scandal at all in the eyes of most evangelical Christians. Those who should be most earnest in defense of the truth have taken a shockingly tolerant attitude toward the prosperity preachers’ blatant misrepresentation of the gospel and their wanton exploitation of needy people. “But we don’t want to judge,” they say. Thus Christians fail to exercise righteous judgment (John 7:24). They refuse to be discerning at all.

How many manifestos and written declarations of solidarity have evangelicals issued condemning abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and other social evils? It’s fine, and fairly easy, to oppose wickedness and injustice in secular society, but where is the corresponding moral outrage against these religious mountebanks who openly, brashly pervert the gospel for profit 24 hours a day, seven days a week on international television?

Advocates of abortion and euthanasia don’t usually try to pass their message off as biblical. The people who say we need to redefine marriage haven’t portrayed themselves as an arm of the church. But the prosperity preachers deceive people in Jesus’ name, claiming to speak for God—while stealing both the souls and the sustenance of hurting people. That is a far greater abomination than any of the social evils Christians typically protest. After all, what the prosperity preachers do is not only a sin against poor, sick, and vulnerable people; it also blasphemes God, corrupts the gospel, and profanes the reputation of Christ before a watching world. It not only tears at the fabric of our society; it also befouls the purity of the visible church and abates the influence of the true gospel. It is surely among the grossest of all the evils currently rampant in our culture.

In the weeks to come, we’re going to be looking at the preposterous claims and false teachings of some of religious television’s best-known figures. We’ll analyze why a disproportionate number of celebrity faith-healers and prosperity preachers have succumbed to serious immorality. And we’ll see what Scripture says about how Bible-believing Christians ought to respond. I hope this series will challenge you to take a more active stand against the phony miracles and false teachings that are being peddled in the name of Christ.

D.R. McConnell’s “A Different Gospel, 4-13: TBN, Kenyon and Hagin

1. D.R. McConnell’s “A Different Gospel” (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995). Chapter One, “The True Faith of the Modern Movement: Relationship between Kenneth Hagin and E.W. Kenyon,” 4-13.

2. E.W. Kenyon (1867-1948) was the true founder of the “Word Faith Movement,” a TBN-specialty and close cousin of Third Wave Pentecostalism and other charismatic movements. McConnell is at pains to demonstrate that Kenneth Hagin, Sr., was indebted to Kenyon, purloining and plagiarizing extensively from Kenyon’s writings. This has been widely reported and documented. This literary and intellectual theft appears to be demonstrated clearly by McConnell, as well as the phony, deceiving, and lying claims by Hagin, Sr., that he received his notions by “revelation” (while busily copying Kenyon’s writings almost verbatim at points). It is precisely why peer-reviewed writings are essential. This is what is done in academia, PhD dissertations and book publications. Yahoos are stopped at the outset. However, given the anti-academia and anti-intellectualism in Pentecostalism, there were no checks. Hagin ran off with Kenyon's ideas. Plagarism is suicidal for scholars, but not for Hagin's ilk.

3. Hagin the plagiarist, thief and liar is the acknowledged “granddaddy” of the WOF-movement and TBN. Copeland, Price, Osteen (Sr.) Capp and others claim this, as has Charisma magazine.

4. This theft is a sticking point (as it should be) with McConnell, who by the way is a friend of Pentecostalism. The claim to “revelation” by the Spirit is belied by Hagin’s literary theft. McConnell tells us: “As we shall see, Hagin claims to have received most of the Faith Gospel by divine revelation, visions, and revelation.”

5. In short, 1) Hagin is a liar, thief, braggart, and intellectual fraud and 2) The TBN-WOF movement is traceable to E.W. Kenyon, the “True Father of the Faith Movement.” It is there that the movement must be assessed. It is Kenyon, not Hagin Sr., who must be analyzed.

Dr. Michael Horton’s “Agony of Deceit," 11-20.

1. Some observations on Dr. Michael Horton’s “Agony of Deceit” (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1990), 11-20. As usual, Dr. Horton is always readable, accessible to the layman, and profitable.

2. An interesting lineup: Mike Horton, R.C. Sproul, Art Lindsey, Henry Krabbendam, Rod Rosenbladt, Robert Godfrey, C. Everett Koop, Quentin Schultze, John Dart, Ken Curtis, and Joel Nederhood.

3. 277 pages with three appendices. App. A: Ecumenical Creeds. Appendix B: Seven Rules for Testing Prophets. App. C: Ready Reference Guide. The latter appendix is a collection of the bizarre comments made by TV evangelists: Tilton, Copeland, Hagin, Paulk, Avanzini, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson. An update and expansion of Appendix C is essential. We would suggest a title like "The Outer Limits."

4. The book is dated. 1990 and much water has passed under the bridge. We note that TBN was still in development. Hinn was around, but not like today.

5. Curiously, Dr. Mike Horton, Professor at Westminster Seminary, California, references himself as a “Minister” of the “Reformed Episcopal Church,” a once-honorable Reformed and Anglican group but now defective, cowardly, compromised and compromising. That’s another story; I was educated by them and once served as a minister with them.

6. Horton tells us the book is not about success or numbers. Otherwise, one might become a Muslim, one of the fastest growing faith groups.

7. Mike notes that many may well have been helped, uplifted, and even converted under these ministries. God’s sovereign and electing grace operates in spite of the errors. Of course, we say the same thing about Romanists and others caught in false doctrines, like American Arminianism.

8. Mike notes that the book is not about charismatics and that even the authors themselves have differing views about them. He observes that many devotees of the Assemblies of God and Pentecostalist traditions will welcome the work. Mike is too accomodating here about these neo-Montanists and Frenzy-ites.

9. The book is about truth. “Truth does have consequences--eternal ones--and our prayers join yours for the struggle before us.”

10. Donald Campbell (retired Dallas Seminary Professor), Richard Halverson (former U.S. Senate Chaplain, now deceased), Harold Lindsell (former Fuller Seminary Professor), Jay Adams (Westminster Seminary) and David Breese (??) provide endorsements. Breese says that “twelve scholars have shown that much on television that passes for Christianity is a new Gnosticism, a revived pantheism. The authors of the book have recoiled from that and deplored the media message, and they have analyzed it. They have told us why and wherein it is heretical.”

11. With correctness, Mike disavows pride and arrogance. “Since God has shown pity on us, we can hardly fail to identify with fallen brothers and sisters…Being sinners ourselves, we are hardly qualified to point fingers of condemnation. Rather, it is about the rotted foundation under so many of the popular ministries: errant beliefs, distorted doctrine, and unsound convictions…”

12. True as it goes. We are born apostate, wicked, lawless and are ungovernable, proud and insolent creatures. God sovereignty regenerates His people, former enemies, aliens to His Majesty, giving them justifying faith and repentance unto life, adoption unto life, and imputes to wicked sinners the impeccable, availing, transcendent and efficacious merits and righteousness of Christ alone. Gratitude and obedience are the consequences. This paragraph won't sell on TBN, with Osteen, Hybels or Warren. In (11) above, Mike is spot-on. Nonetheless, as (10) affirms, we have our duties of love to speak the truth about Arminian Montanists, wolves in sheep-garb.

13. At the wall we are "Exposing the False Prophets—Reformation Christians Against TBN Discussions." Join us and invite your friends as we read, research, and "proactively confess" our Confessional faith. Facebook wall: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=308173344359&ref=ts