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Read carefully the following statements and guess who made them:

Speaking from the center of your being, say: "This body is the temple of the living God; the Lord is now in His holy temple; Christ in me is my life; Christ is my health; Christ is my strength; Christ is perfect. Therefore, I am now perfect, because He dwelleth in me as perfect life, health, and strength." Say these words with all earnestness, trying to realize what you are saying, and almost immediately the perennial fountain of life at the center of your being will begin to bubble up and continue with rapidly increasing activity, until new life will radiate through pain, sickness, sores, all diseases, to the surface, and your body will show forth the perfect life of Christ…We claim this power, or bring it into our consciousness where it is of practical use, by declaring over and over again that it is ours already. Saying and trying to realize, "Christ is my wisdom, hence I know Truth, " will in a short time make us understand spiritual things better than months of study will do. Our saying, "Christ is my strength, I cannot be weak or frail," will make us strong enough to meet any emergency with calm assurance. Remember, we do not begin by feeling these things at first, but by earnestly and faithfully saying them, and acting as though they were true—and this is the faith that brings the power into manifestation.

Who made the above statements? Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Charles Capps, Norvel Hayes, or E.W. Kenyon? It was none of these, neither was it any other well or lesser known faith teacher—it was a woman named H. Emilie Cady. She wrote these things in her book How I Used Truth published in 1916 by Unity School of Christianity in Kansas City, founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in the 1890’s. Mrs. Cady and the Fillmores were fellow students of Emma Curtis Hopkins who had left Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, to start her own mind-science school in Chicago in the 1880’s. Surprised? Mrs. Cady’s statements would fit well into any faith teacher’s magazine today, wouldn’t they?

Almost everyone in the faith movement admits there are imbalances in it. Even the leaders have sought to correct "excesses." However, very few individuals have ventured to question the most basic, fundamental principles taught in it.

Even before I attended Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa in 1976, for eight years I studied the writings of E.W. Kenyon and Kenneth Hagin to the exclusion of almost everything else except the Bible. After graduation and for nine years as a pastor-teacher, I did minister on many other themes, but "faith", "confession", and "who we are in Christ" were my mainstays. Kenneth Hagin says of those who teach against "confession": "What people are not ‘up’ on, they are ‘down’ on." This certainly does not apply to me—I was "up on" faith teaching for 17 years—no one who knows me can deny this. I prepared and sold thousands of copies of "confession sheets" on various topics to the Healing School at Rhema. In other words, my involvement in the movement was anything but casual—I was deeply into it.

By 1984 I began to get seriously honest with the bad fruit I had seen over the years in the movement. For over 10 years, annual prophecies of a great revival surpassing the book of Acts failed to come to pass. "A new breed" of men strong in faith doing exploits was supposed to come forth—instead, sin, corruption, greed, and carnality abounded. I recognized that many Scripture passages were twisted to fit "positive faith" theology. For example, I heard at one of Kenneth Hagin’s summer camp meetings Kenneth Copeland teach, contrary to plain statements in Genesis 6, that "God did not send the flood." (There are literally hundreds of such examples I could cite.) I recognized that there was a general lightness on sin, the idea being that we must not say too much about it except in a "positive" manner, lest we should put people under "condemnation." Pride and arrogance, a sort of (to use a Kenyon term) "superman" complex seemed prominent in leaders as well as followers, contrary to Christ-like meekness and true boldness. There was, it seemed to me, a general self-centeredness instead of a Christ-centeredness in the movement, with a focus on man and our needs more than on Jesus. Yet, in spite of all this "bad fruit," I thought the basic message of the movement was sound—it only needed balance or correction.

THE TWO BASIC PRINCIPLES OF FAITH TEACHING

The two basic principles upon which the "faith" message is built that set it apart from other Pentecostal and charismatic groups are 1) that one must believe he receives or believe he has (in the spiritual sense) the thing he desires before he actually has it in order to get it, and 2) that one must "confess" or say that he believes he receives it or has it before he has it in order to get it:

You don’t go by looks or feelings, you go by what the Word says. It says to believe it first and then confess it with your mouth and it shall be done…If you can grasp that, you have God’s law of faith. (Kenneth Hagin, Bible Faith Study Course, p. 59)

Christianity is called the great confession. The law of that confession is that I confess I have obtained it before I consciously possess it. (p. 93) The law of God is that you believe and confess it’s yours and then it comes into being. (p. 95)

These "principles" are commonly expressed in the characteristic slogans of the faith movement, such as, "What I confess, I possess," "Sooner or later we become what we confess," "Faith’s confessions create realities," "Confession brings possession," "Realization follows confession," etc., all of which, incidentally, are the original sayings of E.W. Kenyon. My challenge to those in the faith movement is, who in the Bible ever believed he received a particular thing he did not have yet in order to get it? Who in the Bible ever "confessed" he had a thing before he got it?

Faith teachers cite Abraham, but the Word of God explicitly tells us what he believed. "He believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness" (Genesis 15:6) and "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was ABLE also to perform" (Romans 4:20, 21). Nowhere does the Scripture say he believed he was the father of many or that he believed he received a son before he had Isaac, or that he "confessed" these things. Kenneth Hagin maintains (What To Do When Faith Seems Weak & Victory Lost, pp. 101-105) that according to the marginal footnote in Romans 4:17, "before" may read "like unto," that Abraham "called those things which are not as though they were"—"(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) like unto (instead of "before") him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were." It should be obvious, however, even accepting this reading, that it is God, not Abraham who "calls those things that be not as though they were." Could Abraham also "quicken (or raise) the dead" like unto Him? "Like unto Him", if it be the true reading, refers to Abraham’s being the father of us all, not to his "believing like God." In other words, just as God is the Father of us all (believers), so, in a sense, is Abraham, because by his faithful obedience to God’s call he became the father of the Jewish nation out of which the Messiah, Jesus Christ, came.

Other faith teachers, like Charles Capps, erroneously teach that Abraham "confessed" he was the father of many nations every time he used his name:

So God just changed Abram’s name. Every time Abraham walked up to someone and said, "My name is Abraham," he was saying, "I am the father of many nations"…Faith came for many years before the manifestation of it came…You will notice it was 25 years from the time God made him that promise until it came to pass." (Charles Capps, Dynamics of Faith and Confession, Word of Faith: Dallas; 1983, pp. 108-111)

Abraham did not go around for years "confessing" he was the "father of many nations" as is commonly supposed. A close examination of the narrative concerning Abraham in Genesis will show that God did not change his name until His third appearance to him when he was 99 years old, only months before the birth of Isaac (Genesis 17:1, 5). This, therefore, is only one prominent example of how faith teachers, consciously or unconsciously, have twisted the Scriptures to "proof text" their "principle." Actually, even the birth of Isaac itself was not the fulfillment of God’s promise to make Abraham the father of many nations, because at that point he was the father of only two sons—Ishmael and Isaac. The birth of Isaac was simply the fulfillment of the promise God made to him some months before that he would have a son through Sarah. Obviously, the manifestation of God’s promise to Abraham to make him father of nations was not fulfilled until many years after his death, and then not because he had "confessed" it, but because God "calls those things which be not as though they were." "Abraham" does not mean "father of Isaac". So it is clear that even when Abraham spoke his name, it was not the "confession principle" at work, that his "confession" of his name brought about the birth of Isaac.

Kenneth Hagin says we should "imitate God" in this and "call those things which be not as though they were." "If it’s wrong for us to do it, then it’s wrong for God to do it," he says. But according to this reasoning, since it would be wrong for us to call ourselves "Lord and Sovereign of the universe," it’s wrong for God to do so, too! There are many things we cannot do that only God can do; among them are "quickening the dead" and "calling those things which be not as though they were." He can do the latter because He is God, and no one can keep what He purposes from happening.

Abraham is no example at all of believing a thing and confessing that thing before one has it in order to create the reality of it. Neither is Sarah. Hebrews 11:11 tells us exactly what she believed—"she judged him faithful who had promised." Abraham and Sarah did not believe and confess they received something before they had it. They simply believed God could fulfill what He had promised, that’s all.

The woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5 is often cited as an example of the "confess it before you see it" principle. But the Word of God is also explicit as to what she believed: "She said, if I touch but his clothes I shall be (future tense) healed" (Mark 5:28). She didn’t believe and confess she had healing before she got it. And if her "saying it out loud" were so crucial to her receiving, why do Matthew and Luke fail to mention this at all? (Matthew 9:20-22; Luke 8:43-46). Matthew says, "She said within herself."

The 12 spies who went into Canaan in Numbers 13 and 14 are often cited as examples supporting the "faith and confession" principle. "The 12 spies all got exactly what they said. Ten said they couldn’t and died I the wilderness and two, Joshua and Caleb, said they could, and they did," faith teachers say. But again, a close look at these two chapters will show that the ten spies died of the plague before the Lord, not because they "spoke negatively" but because they were guilty of murmuring and complaining, and God judged them. Likewise, the whole congregation of Israelites perished in the wilderness not because "you’ll have what you say," but because they murmured and rebelled against God so that "He swore in his wrath that they would not enter His rest." As a result of their example, we are warned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:1-11 to take heed—not to make "positive" instead of "negative confessions" because "what you say is what you get"—but not to murmur and be destroyed like they were.

The Bible teaches the moral and immoral use of the tongue, not of its "power to create the circumstances of life." This is especially stressed in the book of Proverbs. It is certainly true that "death and life are in the power of the tongue" (18:21). Two of the Ten Commandments warn us of the immoral use of the tongue: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" and "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" (Exodus 20:7, 16). And the Bible warns us that all blasphemers and liars "shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Revelation 21:8). So, death and life certainly are in the power of the tongue, but this (and many other texts in Proverbs) has no reference at all to "the creative power of words" but to the fact that God is Holy and will judge all sin, including sins of speech.

To make a very long story short, nowhere in either the Old or New Testaments did anyone ever become what he "confessed", either sooner or later. No one ever believed they received and then confessed a thing, whether spiritual or physical, before they had it in order to get it.

Romans 10:9, 10 does not say, as faith teachers claim, that one confesses salvation or that he is saved in order to get saved. Neither does it say one creates the reality of his own salvation with his mouth. Romans 10:9, 10 simply tells us to confess the Lord Jesus Christ—He is the Saviour. This confession does not "create the reality" of anything. It is simply a solemn admission of the fact, not of one’s salvation before he obtains it, but of who Jesus is. The words "confess" and "confession" certainly do appear in the New Testament (31 times in some form), and they do refer to something spoken, but never are they used for the creation or obtaining of anything, physical or spiritual.

We do not have time nor space to deal with all of the texts twisted by faith teachers to support their "principle." But many will insist, "What about Mark 11:24?" "Believe you received (aorist or perfect tense) them, and ye shall have them." The true reading in the Greek, whether "receive" (present tense) or "received" (perfect tense) is disputed in the manuscripts. But even assuming that the aorist or perfect tense is correct, it does not necessarily follow that it means that we must believe we have something before we see it. If this "believing you have already received a thing regardless of sense evidence" is the absolutely crucial law for obtaining a thing desired, as faith teachers claim it is, why does it not appear in the parallel passage in Matthew? (this is one of the best ways to properly interpret a saying in one of the "Synoptic" gospels [Matthew, Mark, and Luke]—consult the parallel accounts in the other Evangelists.) Matthew 21:22 says, "And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." No mention of "believing you have it first" though you don’t see it, but simply the participle, "believing", is used. The aorist or perfect tense, "received", is used in Mark 11:24 simply to emphasize absolute assurance, paralleling and explaining in different words the phrase in verse 23 before it, "and shall not doubt in his hear." This assurance, Jesus is saying, in other words, of obtaining an answer must be as strong as if the prayer were already granted. If Jesus meant us to understand here that we must "believe we’ve got it before we have it" as faith teachers insist, that this is a crucial point in receiving answers to prayer and the reason why people fail to receive, why didn’t the Holy Spirit include this "indispensable principle" in the parallel passage, Matthew 21:22? Secondly, if this "principle" is so necessary to faith, why are there absolutely no solid examples of anyone who ever did this or where asked to do so in all the cases of people receiving from God by faith in either the Four Gospels or the rest of the New Testament? And yet, remarkably, and please consider this—a whole movement is based on these principles!

THE TRUE ORIGIN OF FAITH TEACHING

If these "principles" did not come from the New Testament, what is their true origin? The answer is that they came into the Pentecostal-charismatic movement from mind science via the writings of E.W. Kenyon. The principles of believing you have something or are something, and affirming this before you see it in order to have it or become it, are basic tenets of mind science and have been so from before 1900.

Faith leaders admit there are similarities between what they teach and mind science, but they insist there are also important differences. These claimed differences are: "They use some of the same Scriptures we do." "They make confessions." But "they make confessions based upon their own wills, their own ability to make it good." "They think that their mind is God." "We’re making confessions based on the Word." "Theirs is a mental confession and ours is a spiritual or heart confession." "They think that man is just a mental and physical being." "They deny the reality of pain, sin, and sickness, but we do not." "They deny these things exist, but we simply deny they have a right to exist in our bodies." (See Kenneth Hagin, Bible Faith Study Course, pp. 10, 96, and Right and Wrong Thinking, p. 3; Charles Capps, The Tongue, A creative Force, p. 27, and Dynamics of Faith and Confession, p. 162; Fred Price, Faith, Foolishness, or Presumption, p. 16; and E.W. Kenyon, The Hidden Man, pp. 109, 110.)

Without anything else, using only these very claims of faith teachers themselves of the difference between their teaching and mind science, I can prove just the opposite—that their teaching is in fact the same as the basic tenets of mind science! Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science does deny that physical things exist. But what all the faith leaders have failed to understand is that she and Christian Science are only one branch of the broad mental healing movement that came out of the experiments of P.P. Quimby in the 1860’s. Nearly everyone else in the mind science or mental healing movement said that physical things were real, but that they could be overcome or changed by right thinking, believing, and confessing—just like faith teachers teach!

Horatio Dresser, whose father Julius along with Mary Baker Eddy studied under P.P. Quimby, became a leader in the "New Thought" branch of the mental healing movement. New Thought is made up of many groups, such as Unity, Science of Mind, and secular mind science or "success" teaching. Horatio Dresser wrote:

Physical evolution [change] follows spiritual involution. The physical evolution or manifestation is real. It is surely existent. The New Thought makes no attempt to ignore it. But since the physical evolution is the outcome of the mental or spiritual involution, it must be controlled or modified by the spirit within. (The Spirit of New Thought, 1917; pp. 1-12)

So, you see, many mind science people teach that physical things are real. Secondly, they also distinguish between mind and spirit just like faith teachers do (contrary to what they claim about them), neither do "they think that their mind is God":

The silence and receptivity of the patient, while seated expectantly by the mental therapeutist, offer favorable conditions for impressing on the patient’s subconscious the desired mental imagery or affirmation. The mental process is supplemented and strengthened by the spiritual phase of the silent treatment, namely, the realization of the presence of God. (Dresser, ibid.)

Speaking from the plane of that spiritual nature, that great and transcendent Self which is common to us all, that Eternal Christ who is our life, we have the perfect right to affirm with all the energy and conviction of our souls…All things are working together for my good…God is my all-sufficiency in all things…In the eternal reality of my being all good things are mine now…[etc.] The spirit of man is creative…We must think and speak from the standpoint of the True Self…In all this that has preceded I have carefully distinguished between spirit, soul, and body. The spirit is our real being, the Self, the Indwelling God; the soul or mind is our present consciousness of our spiritual reality; the body is the outer expression or manifestation of the soul and spirit. There are those who deny our right to use these high affirmations of our perfection, power, life, freedom, on the ground that they are not strictly true. Certainly they are not true of the outer personality, the growing, developing soul or mind; but they are profoundly true of the Higher Self. (Egbert Morse Chesley, in Dresser’s The Spirit of the New Thought, pp. 225-239).

We speak the word, we confidently affirm, but we have nothing to do with the "establishing" of the word, or brining it to pass. "Thou shalt decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee" (Job 22:28). So if we decree or affirm unwaveringly, steadfastly, we hold God by His own unalterable laws to do the establishing or fulfilling. (H. Emilie Cady, Lessons In Truth, published by Unity, 1894, pp. 51-59)

Faith does not depend on physical facts, or on the evidence of the senses, because it is born of intuition, or the spirit of truth ever living at the center of our being. Its action is infinitely higher than that of intellectual conclusions; it is founded on Truth. (Cady, ibid., pp. 85-87)

Beloved, that which you so earnestly desire will never be found by your seeking it through the mental side alone, any more than it has heretofore been found through the emotional side alone. Intuition and intellect are meant to travel together, intuition always holding the reins to guide intellect…If you have been thus far on the way cultivating and enlarging only the mental side of Truth, as probably is the case, you need, in order to come into the fullness of understanding, to let the mental, the reasoning side rest a while. "Become as little children" (Matthew 18:3), and, learning how to be still, listen to that which the Father will say to you through the intuitional part of your being. The light that you so crave will come out of the deep silence and become manifest to you from within yourself, if you will but keep still and look for it from that source. "The secret place of the Most High" (Psalms 91:1), where each one of us may dwell and be safe from all harm or fear of evil, is the point of mystical union between man and Spirit (or God in us), wherein we no longer believe, but know, that God in Christ abides always at the center of our being as our perfect health, deliverance, prosperity, power, ready to come forth into manifestation at any moment we claim it. We know it. We know it…This revelation will never come through the intellect of man to the consciousness, but must ever come through the intuitional to the intellect as a manifestation of Spirit to man… When you have learned how to abandon yourself to infinite Spirit, and have seasons of doing this daily, you will be surprised at the marvelous change that will be wrought in you without any conscious effort of your own. It will search far below your conscious mind. (Cady, ibid., pp. 93-100)

We could offer many other statements from mind science writers, but the ones above are sufficient to let you see that the claimed differences between faith teaching and New Thought mind science (but not necessarily Christian Science) simply do not exist. They are exactly the same in practical operation of the "faith and confession" principle even though they are admittedly different in other fundamental doctrines. As for the charge that "they base their confessions on their own wills, but we base ours on the Word," you can see from our opening quote from Mrs. Cady as well as others that they certainly base theirs on Scriptures also.

Read the following passage from H. Emilie Cady, the foremost author of Unity textbooks, excepting the Fillmores themselves, and, again, notice that it would fit perfectly into any faith teacher’s magazine:

We pray, we ask, believing that we are going to receive, but we receive not. Again and again this happens until we grow sick and our courage fails because of our unanswered prayers, and we begin to say: "God does not answer. I have not sufficient faith or the right kind of faith." Because of repeated failures we are benumbed, and though we still pray we seldom really expect an answer. Is not this so? Where is the trouble? Many Christians mistake hope for faith. Hope expects an answer sometime in the future; faith takes it as having already been given. Hope looks forward; faith declares that she has received even before there is the slightest visible evidence. Man’s way is to declare something done after it has become obvious to the senses; God’s way is to declare it done before there is anything whatever in sight (pp. 65, 66)…"All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." "Believe that ye receive them"—present tense! Ah, there is the hard part. Believe that ye will (future) receive them. Yes, that were easier. But to say a thing is done when there is no sign of it anywhere—can we do this? Yes, we can, and we must if we would obtain an answer to prayer. This is the faith on which all receiving depends: "calling that which is not as though it were," simply because God has said so, and holding to it unwaveringly by positive and continued affirmation that it is done…We continue to thank Him that we do have (not shall have) the petitions we desired of Him; and in confidence, but silently and positively, we affirm over and over again that we have it in possession…Expecting that anything will be given tends to keep it forever a little in the future, just ahead of the now. (God A Present Help, H. Emilie Cady; Unity School of Christianity: Kansas City; 1940 [first published in 1912]; pp. 72-75)

Lest anyone should think that maybe Mrs. Cady was a true Christian whose writings somehow got mixed up with Unity, let me remind you that she was a student of a student of Mary Baker Eddy! Mrs. Cady believed and taught, like many mind science people, that Jesus was a man who had a "divine spark" in him that he developed and that all men have Christ in them. And she certainly did not get her teachings from Kenyon—she was teaching like this before 1894.

The basic principles of faith teaching are no more than the fundamental precepts of mind science. And the mind science teaching is no "counterfeit of the true" as is claimed by faith people. In that case, how strange that the "counterfeit" came first and was taught many years before E.W. Kenyon or Kenneth Hagin ever conceived of it!

KENNETH HAGIN’S PLAGIARISM

Kenneth Hagin claims that he heard a "Voice from heaven saying, ‘Go teach my people faith.’" But the truth is, the voice he has heard concerning his teaching not only on faith and confession but many related subjects came very much from someone on earth—E.W. Kenyon. Kenneth Hagin has massively plagiarized his writings. I have full documentation of this—over 35 pages of side-by-side, practically word-for-word plagiarism of E.W. Kenyon in the writings of Kenneth Hagin. He has refused to acknowledge that he has done this, even though he has been confronted over plagiarizing Kenyon as well as others. He continues to do this orally as well. I also have full documentation of this with undeniable evidence that it is conscious and deliberate and no manifestation of his famed "photographic memory."

Plagiarism is a very serious offence, especially for one who claims to be a prophet obeying "a voice from heaven"! In short, Kenneth Hagin claims to be teaching Bible faith in obedience to a voice from heaven; but in reality, he is teaching the fundamental tenets of mind science, plagiarized from E.W. Kenyon! Two living ministers who knew Kenyon personally (he died in 1948) have testified publicly that they heard him say he drew heavily from mind science writers. (See Dan McConnell’s book, A Different Gospel, Hendrickson Publishers, 1988, pp. 15, 24-26.)

FALSE PROPHECIES

Dear friend, Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland are not true prophets of God. Kenneth Hagin is a plagiarist, and plagiarists are, if I may say so plainly, liars and thieves. "Therefore," declares the Lord, "I am against the prophets who steal from one another words supposedly from me" (Jeremiah 23:30, NIV). I have many examples of the false prophecies of Kenneth Copeland, things he prophesied would occur within a specified time, such as Richard Nixon’s "exoneration" in 1975 and 1976, "amputated limbs growing back, missing sockets replaced" in 1976; "great revival, great revival in New York City" in 1978; "great strides between now and the first of January [1979] concerning the prices of you fuel" (they actually kept rising during this time and stayed above $1.25 until 1986); and "great revival in Mexico" in 1978, absolutely none of which came to pass! And what does God’s Word tell us about such a "prophet"? "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him" (Deuteronomy 18:22). This applies also in a less conspicuous manner to Kenneth Hagin, who prophesied on August 25, 1963, "then in the year 1964 it shall be the year for more and ye shall see the revival come into its fullness, for surely 1964 shall be the year." Then later in the same year he prophesied that 1966 would be the year in which "there shall be miracles, wonders and signs such as the eyes of no man has ever beheld, even in days of yore." There certainly were not.

Why am I doing this? Dear friend, you may be like I was. You may sincerely love the Lord and would not dare deliberately misrepresent the Word of God but endeavor to preach and follow it faithfully. I do not want you to be mislead as I was for so long.

"BUT SO MANY ARE HEALED AND BLESSED"

"But," you may say, "Look at all the people who have been healed and blessed." Dear friend, Unity and Christian Science have produced thousands of such testimonies for 100 years! This does not mean the supposed results came from God. And tragically, what about the (who knows how many?) dear ones who have died while refusing or neglecting until it was too late, life-saving medical attention while they faithfully and tenaciously confessed "I’m already healed." How many have gone bankrupt confessing "the need is already met"? Should we trade out "success" and "horror" stories? And why should the leaders chide their followers for thus being "extreme" and bringing the message and the movement into disrepute when they have done nothing but to "act out" to its fullest the principles taught them that are "guaranteed to work when you work them"—that is, believe you already have it and confess you already have it no matter how things look!

Do not be deluded and led astray by this false gospel! Turn away from it now because not only may the life and well-being of you or one near you be at stake—so also may be your very soul! Flee this foolishness disguised as "deeper knowledge" and return to the plain, simple teachings of Christ and the apostles in the Word of God! Read after true men of God like John Wesley and John Bunyan and learn what true conversion and the true Christian life is! Don’t make the mistake that I did of supposing that the leaders of the faith movement had a greater revelation than those in the past.

The teaching of "prosperity" has produced rich preachers and covetous people, both of which are in danger of dropping into hell! "No covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God" (Ephesians 5:5). If the "hundredfold return" and "seed-faith living" really work, why don’t Kenneth Copeland and Oral Roberts just send you or your church $100 the next time they need money instead of the other way around? This message that "gain is godliness" is producing preachers living in four-to-nine-thousand-square-foot houses and driving Rolls Royces, "which while some have coveted after [and in this case have obtained], they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows," falling "into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition." It is common knowledge now that at least one of the top leaders in the faith movement cannot keep his pants on around women! Evidently he is following and practicing the light teaching on sin of Kenneth Hagin and Fred Price:

If you miss the mark and mess up in some way, don’t wait; stop right then and say, "Lord, I missed it. Forgive me." He’ll do it and you’ll just keep walking in fellowship…If I confess my sins once, that moment He forgives me and I stand in His presence as though sin had never been. Don’t keep confessing your sins over and over again because you are building weakness, doubt, and sin consciousness into your spirit. If you confessed it once, He forgave you and He forgot it so then you forget it. He has no memory of it…The thing you must do is not to have any memory of it either…If we’ve sinned and asked God to forgive us then He did and forgot it and we should too. What I’m saying is this, that the believer must be willing to forgive himself just as the Father God is willing to forgive him. Many people have robbed themselves of faith because they are not willing to forgive themselves. They hold themselves in a state of condemnation and it robs them of their faith…[A] short time ago, I was praying with and about a certain man and I knew that that person was in sin. In fact, I knew that he just kept stumbling over the same stone, doing the same thing over and over again. I was praying about this fellow and I said to the Lord, "I don’t know about this fellow, after all he’s done the same thing over and over again." The Lord said to me, "Well, in the first place do you think that I would require and ask you to do something that I wouldn’t do?" I said, "Why no, Lord, certainly not." "Well, didn’t you ever read in my word where Peter said, ‘Master, if my brother sins against me, how oft should I forgive him, until seven times?’" Then I knew He had me. He said, "I said to him, not up to seven, but seven times seventy." (That is four hundred and ninety times.) Now Jesus said, "Would I require you to do something I wouldn’t do?" I said, "No, that would be unjust and you’re not unjust." "Well," He said, "I’ll forgive the man, you go ahead and pray with him"…"If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." You should have no more knowledge of it. He doesn’t. Why should you? (Kenneth Hagin, Bible Faith Study Course, pp. 47-49)

Judgment is not coming on the Church. The Bible said if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged (1 Corinthians 11:31). That means if we miss it, we just say, "I missed it. That’s wrong. Forgive me"—and He forgives us. (Kenneth Hagin, Turning Hopeless Situations Around, 1981, p. 9)

The sinner needn’t think that God is mad at him or that God is against him. The sin that sends a man to hell is not an act or deed, such as lying, stealing, or cheating. It is rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. (The Present Day Ministry of Jesus Christ, 1978, p. 30)

When you come into the knowledge of the fullness of the Word of God then Satan wages an all out war against you…He will use your body, sickness, disease, or sex…Oftentimes Christians fall into a situation where they make a mistake, which is no big deal. We all have made mistakes. We all have messed up at one time or another. (Fred Price, Ever Increasing Faith Messenger, September 1987, p. 2)

Yes, and while some keep "forgiving themselves" and "getting up and going on down the road" they are leaving marriages and families behind devastated in their wake! And didn’t you ever read in His Word where John said, "No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him" (1 John 3:6, NIV)?

EXAMINE THE MESSAGE AND REPENT

Do not be afraid to objectively examine either the leaders in the faith movement or their teachings. You will not come under "judgment" or a "curse" for doing so! Jesus Christ commended the church at Ephesus: "Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars" (Revelation 2:2).

There are over 500 references to the Greek word for faith in some form in the New Testament. Such an important subject to our salvation and the Christian life certainly does merit our closest study and attention, but not after those who teach merely metaphysical precepts instead. In almost 400 references on faith, there is a definite object of it either expressed or implied: Jesus Christ, God the Father, or the gospel. There are only 5 references to faith with the written Word as its object. Faith has to have an object—we must trust or believe in a certain one or thing. The object of Bible faith is God or Jesus Christ. Faith is never spoken of, on the other hand, as a force directed at either your problems or God. Faith is simply trusting God, a Person. And faith is obeying His commandments and taking heed to His warnings as well as claiming His promises. In Mark 11:22, "Have faith in God" is the true translation of the Greek, not "Have the ‘God-kind’ of faith" as faith leaders avow. It is improper and unScriptural to say that God or Jesus have faith. Who would He believe in? We put faith in God because we cannot "see Him who is invisible," but "all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." And the benefit of faith in the New Testament is salvation 252 times, healing only 24 times, overcoming trials or the world just 12 times, protection 7 times, obtaining a miracle 4 times, and obtaining a material benefit only twice, and even then it is only indirectly applied in Matthew 6!

I can only praise Jesus for His marvelous grace in opening my eyes and turning me from these errors of the faith movement, and I pray that He will do the same for you if you, too, have become a victim of its deceptions! If you have not fallen a prey to these lies, be forewarned and do not do so. Warn your friends of these also, loving your neighbor as yourself by rebuking him out of his sin and error (Leviticus 19:17, 18), just as I have sought to do in this brief account.

I am calling upon the faith movement’s leaders as well as followers to repent and renounce their false teachings, whether they have held these deliberately or not, and to quit perverting and corrupting the precious Word of God and leading and being led astray! Turn to the Lord with all your heart and live, before judgment falls upon those who promote these errors!

May God bless you!

If you would like fuller documentation of the things we have claimed concerning the faith movement or its leaders, write and ask for our 193-page notebook, Metaphysical Elements In the Faith Movement. We place no charge on it, but please consider sending a dollar or two for postage. Write:

Background from Greenfield Graphics.