Here’s a little background on my typical weekday. I work the overnight shift, from 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM, so I can be home to take care of my infant son. Because I made poor career decisions in my past this is the path I must tread but I do not regret being there with my son. What I usually do while caring for him and being his dad I have heresy television on in the background. You may wonder why I do this and the reason is I do it to practice and hone my discerning skills. Lately, I have been sending tweets about the ridiculous nonsense I see on these shows. I will spare you the tweets but here are some of the heretical topics I have watched just this week.
I was watching the Rod Parsley’s “Breakthrough” and he had one of his huckster friends on the show, Coy Barker. They were citing all types of verses about some type magical formula for a financial windfall. The kicker was that this windfall could be triggered by prophets, and guess who those prophets were? That’s right, Rod Parsley and Coy Barker. Just send a seed faith offering in some form that is related to the year 2017, like $20.17 or even better, $2017.00, and that money would bring a financial windfall of God’s blessing. The only people who experience a financial windfall in these shenanigans would be Parsley and Barker.
During the show, they aired an advertisement for a conference of heretics that would happen during the weekend before the Fourth of July. Steven Furtick and Realtalk Kim among others would be the featured speakers. Ok, so I will show the tweet I did send out on this one:
Next, we have the Copelands–Gloria and Kenneth. Kenneth was not there but they had George Pearsons as a special guest. He did not disappoint in as far as having more heresy to share in order to fleece the flock. Pearsons came up with this idea he called “tither’s rights”. I had never heard of it (maybe Chris Rosebrough has). Apparently, if a person is a tither they can claim financial blessings. You see, God has to do it because you are faithful with your tithe. Pearsons also said that God is a mathematician, you know, the tenfold, hundredfold, the “1,000 to 1” blessing, that kind of mathematics. And their proof text was the end of the Book of Job when Job was blessed with twice as much as he had before. Of course, they skipped the part where Job was rebuked for his self-righteousness, how Job humbled himself before God when he knew he should have been destroyed by God for sin, and how God reminded Job who He is and the He owes Job nothing. In fact, God appearing to rebuke Job was an honor and a privilege for Job.
Last was Sid Roth. He had a guest that was schilling a book about magical prayers that when prayed would provoke God to move in their lives, like get a better job, change a baby so the baby doesn’t have a birth defect when born, and even prevent loved ones from dying prematurely. The previous week Roth had a guest that said that the Lord’s prayer had magical powers. I have seen other guests that hawk magical prayers that provoke God to send angels to bring blessings to you. This is all very confusing. How do I know which one to use in which situation? I don’t want to use the wrong one and have fallen angels sent to me. That would be bad. But then I suppose I could use another prayer that will enable and empower me to conquer the fallen angels.
So you can see, there are lots of scams, shenanigans, magical prayers and whatever else can be wrapped in bible verses that cause people to send money to these wolves. These tactics are easy for the discerning people who read Pulpit and Pen, Polemics Reports and who listen to Fighting for the Faith and podcasts from discerning websites like them to spot and ignore. I am sure we all have people in our lives who listen to these people and believe they are real Christian brothers and sisters. It is our responsibility as people who know and understand the danger to warn them out of our love for them.
If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. –Ezekiel 3:18
[Guest Post by Michael Hall]
