NO DEBATE (Mods, if anyone posts anything inappropriate, please remove their post not the thread, thanks)
Here's an interesting testimony about how a Christian found freedom:
Bill, you say that Joyce Meyer doesnt run a cult, otherwise you wouldnt be in it. Let me say that the people who are in cults think the same way! Nobody likes to think that they have been deceived,. They want to think they are smart enough to know better. I assure you that if Joyce Meyer teaches the prosperity gospel or that Jesus went to hell so you wouldnt have to (and she does!), then she IS running a cult, and if you are supporting her, then YOU ARE in a cult and you dont even know it!
Whats more, there is probably nothing anyone here can say to you that will convince you otherwise, and I for one will not attempt to do so. All anyone here can do for you is speak the truth. Its up to God and you from there. If God cant take some of what we say here and get it through to you, then you cannot be reached sir.
A few years ago, I supported Joyce Meyer with everything I had. I regarded her as a true, down to earth, sincere, and prosperous role model. I hung on every word that came out of her mouth as if they were the words of God straight to me. I never missed a show, and if I did, I watched her internet broadcasts. When she held her conferences in my area, I went to see her in person. I would do as she said to prove my commitment to God and take vacation days and drive 3 hours to Tulsa to see her preach at the ORU campus and drive 3 hours back home, justifying myself to God by reminding Him of these sacrifices.
Talking about sacrifice, not only did I give up a days pay to see her, but it was nothing for me to sacrifice $100 or more into the white buckets theyd pass around as offering plates, knowing all along that Id have to sacrifice again when I didnt have that money to pay a bill with! That, in addition to the hundreds of dollars Id send her through the mail every month! In the typical Word of Faith fashion, I would then go to God in prayer and tell Him what He had to do (you [God] MUST keep your word; you MUST provide pressed down, shaken-together etc; if I delight myself in you, you MUST give me the desire of my heart, ad nausea!).
Bill, thats NOT praying! When a WoF preacher prays by saying we bind you Satan, we come against all the powers of darkness, we rebuke all poverty and lack etc, they are NOT praying to God! They are talking to the devil and speaking as if they were God Himself. It is NOT prayer. But I digress.
I absolutely LOVED Joyce Meyer! But God had other plans for me. I was DEEP into the Word of Faith . It was all I had ever known all my life. My grandmother latched onto the seed faith teachings of Oral Roberts back when it first came out. She taught my mother in the ways of the WoF, and my mother in turn taught us the same way!
I grew up thanking God for being numbered among those who knew the truth! Needless to say, I naturally equated the WoF to be the one and only WILL OF GOD, and anyone who believed otherwise was deceived and damned to hell! That being the case, I grew up feeling at one with all the T.V. ministers. I loved them ALL! As a young boy, I read Copelands The Laws of Prosperity and I was determined to make those laws work after all they are LAWS and even God must abide by them!
But taking an honest look back over the past 30 years, I had to admit that they never worked for me. I grew up into my 40s all along thinking there was something wrong with me. I would actually look at a mustard seed in the spice rack and wonder why my faith was so much smaller that that and didnt work. Then I would get depressed because my faith was so much tinier than that mustard seed that God wouldnt honor it.
I felt rejected by God. Sometimes that feeling of rejection made me angry at Him and there were times I actually told Him that he was a liar! That He WAS a respecter of persons; that He showed favoritism, and that He didnt love me, even though I was doing everything I knew to do to keep with His teachings as I was taught them!
All that being said, let me say this: there was nothing wrong with my faith, so dont even try to tell me oh ye of little faith! Ive heard that all my life and now I know better. My faith was fine, but the problem was that my faith was in a LIE! The god I was mad at was NOT the God of the Bible! The god of the Word of Faith is a demon straight from HELL! I know that now, but therein lies the danger in Word of Faith teachings. The people in that CULT dont even know who the TRUE God really is, and are damned as a result!
Back to Joyce Meyer. I supported her ministry with ALL of my substance, and I thought she was truly God speaking straight to me. But the more I gave to her, the poorer I got (the story of my life)! It wasnt until I got down to where I was about to LOSE MY HOUSE the Lord began to act on the anguish inside me. I remember back in 2005, watching Joyce on T.V. One day she was talking about how she had brought her parents to St Louis and bought them a house close to her. She said I was just in the mood to buy houses! I almost screamed at her why dont you buy MINE for me?
I pleaded with God to speak to her heart to send me a check and prevent the impending disaster facing me. Then I would know that God really heard me and loved me enough to finally do something after 30 years of giving!
But of course Joyce never did do that, and since I thought she was close to God and had his attentive ear, that it must be that God wanted me to suffer all the more! I couldnt understand it. I had donated to her (Gods?) ministry, I helped her build her headquarters building and all the furnishings in it. According to her plea for funds back then, I was promised that I would own one square foot for each $100 I gave towards it (I gave $300, so I owned 3 square feet).
Had God forgotten that ????? Now I was in desperate need, had NOBODY to beg from like she did, and I felt God didnt care. I told Him He was cruel and mean! But I still loved Him because even then, if I had given up on my ONLY hope, then I REALLY had no hope at all. Even then, I felt that my breakthrough might still come, so Id pick myself up and apologize to God for my ill will towards Him.
Then one day, as I was watching Joyce on T.V. it seemed like literally scales fell from my eyes! Near the end of the show, as she was begging for donations, and her announcer came on talking about all her books that we could have for a gift of X-dollars, and then talked about seeing Joyce in person and hearing Joyce preach the word as only she can do. God Himself spoke to my spirit in that still small voice and told me this isnt about God, this is about JOYCE! Joyce this, and Joyce that! And all the dollar signs on the T.V. screen seemed to stick-out like sore thumbs, and the whole thing smacked of one big long INFOMERCIAL about Joyce Meyer!!
That, my friend, was the beginning of my exodus from the Word of Faith! Each time I saw her show, it got even more disgusting to me and I stopped giving to her. S L O W L Y, by putting a stop to the hemorrhage of money flowing out of my bank account to these people, I was able to recover somewhat, and I never did lose my house. But it was close. That, my friend was GOD showing me that He really did care about my financial well-being. He didnt want my money!!!!! And not only did He NOT want my money, I was NOT cursed with a curse if I KEPT it !!!! That is freedom!
About the same time, I just happened to stumble upon this website, Pulpit-Pimps.org, and God has used this site TREMENDOUSLY to teach me the truth about where I had been all my life and that the Lord loved me enough to lead me out of it into the truth!
Unbeknownst to me, my mother, who had raised me in the WoF, had been led out of their heresy about a year before I had! She never told me though. I asked her why, and she said that I would have thought she was backslidden and lost in heresy forever. And she was right. Some other members of my extended family are not convinced, and there is a definite divide - but even that is mentioned in the Bible. Thats why I say that nothing any of us say will EVER convince you of the truth. You will just think that we are deceived and damned to hell. If God doesnt get through to you, then YOU are not reachable. Its as simple as that!
I know this is a LONG post, but before I stop there is some more I want to say about the Word of Faith.
The salvation of Jesus Christ is NOT about all the things that the Lord gives to His people! And people who seek the Lord for what He can give them are seeking Him for all the WRONG reasons! A person cannot receive the salvation of Christ unless first he realizes that he is a wretched sinner who deserves HELL, not all of the worldly stuff you WoF people clamor after! Its not about getting all the STUFF. Its about giving up their lives for HIM and becoming His slaves. Somehow you Word of Faith people have gotten that all backwards. You think salvation is about getting, and getting more Its just STUFF, material worldly stuff, its CARNAL and ungodly! You think that all your STUFF is proof that you are blessed. There is one thing that is promised for sure to all true followers of Christ and that is PERSECUTION!
You Word of Faithers only think of earthly blessings. But God does not promise us the things of this world. Think about it What would it profit you to gain the whole world and lose your own SOUL? Copeland, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Paula White, all of those hellish creatures on TBN - I cant even name all of the pulpit pimps on TV (and maybe even your pastor too by the way) all of them have their reward. They have their Best Life Now But they cant take any of it with them where they go.
What about later on? The Bible speaks of the rich man and Lazarus. That kind of reminds me of the relationship between all these RICH pastors and their pimped followers. I believe they will suffer the same fate!
God does promise us SPIRITUAL prosperity, but you Word of Faith people only think on things of this world. When people like you give expecting your 100-fold return, you are giving to GET !!!! But the true Jesus tells us to give, expecting NOTHING in return. Do any of you honestly do that? Neither are we supposed to give out of NECESSITY or of COMPULSION tell THAT to all of the pimp preachers on TV who incessantly compel us to give to their ministries ad nausea! Its WRONG! If any of them really believed what they preach then all they really have to do is give and expect their 100-fold return and leave their audiences ALONE! But they wont ever do that, because they really dont believe what they preach either. Otherwise they would practice what they preach. YOU are profitable to them, and they fear that if they dont ask YOU for it, YOU wont give it to them. YOU are their cash cow, not GOD.
I am not attacking you, so dont even go there. I am speaking from a life of experience. As I said, I was all bound up and hog-tied in all that Word of Faith crap for almost 30 YEARS!!! I gave, and I gave. I did all of the right things according to our famous PIMPS! It was nothing for me to fork over almost everything I had tithes and offerings above and beyond what was expected, because I BELIEVED what the pimps said. I thought that I was doing what GOD wanted, and I suffered the consequences of that for far too long.
Like Joyce Meyer always says give until it hurts! give SACRIFICIALLY! My intentions were good. And I had faith. But my faith was in a LIE! I was sincere and honest, but I was sincerely and honestly WRONG. I think that the Lord really knew that, and finally got through to me to just STOP IT! Like, HELL-OOOOO! If this thing still doesnt work after nearly 30 years, guess what - IT DOESNT WORK!!
I see myself all over all of you defenders of these people. I was just like ALL of you. And a couple of years ago, I would have been standing right there by your side. Thats why I say that ONLY THE LORD will ever get through to you. Nobody could have EVER gotten through to me so I know that.
I guess you can tell I am just a little bit angry about this lie that is continuously propagated by the deluge of televangelists spewing this prosperity vomit into living rooms across this country and bringing millions to hell with them. But maybe somehow the Lord can use my experience to help lead someone else out of this DELUSION you call faith. It is another gospel, and the Jesus you think you worship will someday be crystal clear to you. I just hope that you find out who it really is before its too late. REALLY! The Bible is the truth, and it contains the way to the real Jesus. This Word of Faith gospel is pure MADNESS !!!!!
Posted by Melvin Jones at this site:
Pulpit Pimps Blog Archive Get Out Before They Suck You Dry!!!
peace,
Simon
Here's an interesting testimony about how a Christian found freedom:
Bill, you say that Joyce Meyer doesnt run a cult, otherwise you wouldnt be in it. Let me say that the people who are in cults think the same way! Nobody likes to think that they have been deceived,. They want to think they are smart enough to know better. I assure you that if Joyce Meyer teaches the prosperity gospel or that Jesus went to hell so you wouldnt have to (and she does!), then she IS running a cult, and if you are supporting her, then YOU ARE in a cult and you dont even know it!
Whats more, there is probably nothing anyone here can say to you that will convince you otherwise, and I for one will not attempt to do so. All anyone here can do for you is speak the truth. Its up to God and you from there. If God cant take some of what we say here and get it through to you, then you cannot be reached sir.
A few years ago, I supported Joyce Meyer with everything I had. I regarded her as a true, down to earth, sincere, and prosperous role model. I hung on every word that came out of her mouth as if they were the words of God straight to me. I never missed a show, and if I did, I watched her internet broadcasts. When she held her conferences in my area, I went to see her in person. I would do as she said to prove my commitment to God and take vacation days and drive 3 hours to Tulsa to see her preach at the ORU campus and drive 3 hours back home, justifying myself to God by reminding Him of these sacrifices.
Talking about sacrifice, not only did I give up a days pay to see her, but it was nothing for me to sacrifice $100 or more into the white buckets theyd pass around as offering plates, knowing all along that Id have to sacrifice again when I didnt have that money to pay a bill with! That, in addition to the hundreds of dollars Id send her through the mail every month! In the typical Word of Faith fashion, I would then go to God in prayer and tell Him what He had to do (you [God] MUST keep your word; you MUST provide pressed down, shaken-together etc; if I delight myself in you, you MUST give me the desire of my heart, ad nausea!).
Bill, thats NOT praying! When a WoF preacher prays by saying we bind you Satan, we come against all the powers of darkness, we rebuke all poverty and lack etc, they are NOT praying to God! They are talking to the devil and speaking as if they were God Himself. It is NOT prayer. But I digress.
I absolutely LOVED Joyce Meyer! But God had other plans for me. I was DEEP into the Word of Faith . It was all I had ever known all my life. My grandmother latched onto the seed faith teachings of Oral Roberts back when it first came out. She taught my mother in the ways of the WoF, and my mother in turn taught us the same way!
I grew up thanking God for being numbered among those who knew the truth! Needless to say, I naturally equated the WoF to be the one and only WILL OF GOD, and anyone who believed otherwise was deceived and damned to hell! That being the case, I grew up feeling at one with all the T.V. ministers. I loved them ALL! As a young boy, I read Copelands The Laws of Prosperity and I was determined to make those laws work after all they are LAWS and even God must abide by them!
But taking an honest look back over the past 30 years, I had to admit that they never worked for me. I grew up into my 40s all along thinking there was something wrong with me. I would actually look at a mustard seed in the spice rack and wonder why my faith was so much smaller that that and didnt work. Then I would get depressed because my faith was so much tinier than that mustard seed that God wouldnt honor it.
I felt rejected by God. Sometimes that feeling of rejection made me angry at Him and there were times I actually told Him that he was a liar! That He WAS a respecter of persons; that He showed favoritism, and that He didnt love me, even though I was doing everything I knew to do to keep with His teachings as I was taught them!
All that being said, let me say this: there was nothing wrong with my faith, so dont even try to tell me oh ye of little faith! Ive heard that all my life and now I know better. My faith was fine, but the problem was that my faith was in a LIE! The god I was mad at was NOT the God of the Bible! The god of the Word of Faith is a demon straight from HELL! I know that now, but therein lies the danger in Word of Faith teachings. The people in that CULT dont even know who the TRUE God really is, and are damned as a result!
Back to Joyce Meyer. I supported her ministry with ALL of my substance, and I thought she was truly God speaking straight to me. But the more I gave to her, the poorer I got (the story of my life)! It wasnt until I got down to where I was about to LOSE MY HOUSE the Lord began to act on the anguish inside me. I remember back in 2005, watching Joyce on T.V. One day she was talking about how she had brought her parents to St Louis and bought them a house close to her. She said I was just in the mood to buy houses! I almost screamed at her why dont you buy MINE for me?
I pleaded with God to speak to her heart to send me a check and prevent the impending disaster facing me. Then I would know that God really heard me and loved me enough to finally do something after 30 years of giving!
But of course Joyce never did do that, and since I thought she was close to God and had his attentive ear, that it must be that God wanted me to suffer all the more! I couldnt understand it. I had donated to her (Gods?) ministry, I helped her build her headquarters building and all the furnishings in it. According to her plea for funds back then, I was promised that I would own one square foot for each $100 I gave towards it (I gave $300, so I owned 3 square feet).
Had God forgotten that ????? Now I was in desperate need, had NOBODY to beg from like she did, and I felt God didnt care. I told Him He was cruel and mean! But I still loved Him because even then, if I had given up on my ONLY hope, then I REALLY had no hope at all. Even then, I felt that my breakthrough might still come, so Id pick myself up and apologize to God for my ill will towards Him.
Then one day, as I was watching Joyce on T.V. it seemed like literally scales fell from my eyes! Near the end of the show, as she was begging for donations, and her announcer came on talking about all her books that we could have for a gift of X-dollars, and then talked about seeing Joyce in person and hearing Joyce preach the word as only she can do. God Himself spoke to my spirit in that still small voice and told me this isnt about God, this is about JOYCE! Joyce this, and Joyce that! And all the dollar signs on the T.V. screen seemed to stick-out like sore thumbs, and the whole thing smacked of one big long INFOMERCIAL about Joyce Meyer!!
That, my friend, was the beginning of my exodus from the Word of Faith! Each time I saw her show, it got even more disgusting to me and I stopped giving to her. S L O W L Y, by putting a stop to the hemorrhage of money flowing out of my bank account to these people, I was able to recover somewhat, and I never did lose my house. But it was close. That, my friend was GOD showing me that He really did care about my financial well-being. He didnt want my money!!!!! And not only did He NOT want my money, I was NOT cursed with a curse if I KEPT it !!!! That is freedom!
About the same time, I just happened to stumble upon this website, Pulpit-Pimps.org, and God has used this site TREMENDOUSLY to teach me the truth about where I had been all my life and that the Lord loved me enough to lead me out of it into the truth!
Unbeknownst to me, my mother, who had raised me in the WoF, had been led out of their heresy about a year before I had! She never told me though. I asked her why, and she said that I would have thought she was backslidden and lost in heresy forever. And she was right. Some other members of my extended family are not convinced, and there is a definite divide - but even that is mentioned in the Bible. Thats why I say that nothing any of us say will EVER convince you of the truth. You will just think that we are deceived and damned to hell. If God doesnt get through to you, then YOU are not reachable. Its as simple as that!
I know this is a LONG post, but before I stop there is some more I want to say about the Word of Faith.
The salvation of Jesus Christ is NOT about all the things that the Lord gives to His people! And people who seek the Lord for what He can give them are seeking Him for all the WRONG reasons! A person cannot receive the salvation of Christ unless first he realizes that he is a wretched sinner who deserves HELL, not all of the worldly stuff you WoF people clamor after! Its not about getting all the STUFF. Its about giving up their lives for HIM and becoming His slaves. Somehow you Word of Faith people have gotten that all backwards. You think salvation is about getting, and getting more Its just STUFF, material worldly stuff, its CARNAL and ungodly! You think that all your STUFF is proof that you are blessed. There is one thing that is promised for sure to all true followers of Christ and that is PERSECUTION!
You Word of Faithers only think of earthly blessings. But God does not promise us the things of this world. Think about it What would it profit you to gain the whole world and lose your own SOUL? Copeland, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Paula White, all of those hellish creatures on TBN - I cant even name all of the pulpit pimps on TV (and maybe even your pastor too by the way) all of them have their reward. They have their Best Life Now But they cant take any of it with them where they go.
What about later on? The Bible speaks of the rich man and Lazarus. That kind of reminds me of the relationship between all these RICH pastors and their pimped followers. I believe they will suffer the same fate!
God does promise us SPIRITUAL prosperity, but you Word of Faith people only think on things of this world. When people like you give expecting your 100-fold return, you are giving to GET !!!! But the true Jesus tells us to give, expecting NOTHING in return. Do any of you honestly do that? Neither are we supposed to give out of NECESSITY or of COMPULSION tell THAT to all of the pimp preachers on TV who incessantly compel us to give to their ministries ad nausea! Its WRONG! If any of them really believed what they preach then all they really have to do is give and expect their 100-fold return and leave their audiences ALONE! But they wont ever do that, because they really dont believe what they preach either. Otherwise they would practice what they preach. YOU are profitable to them, and they fear that if they dont ask YOU for it, YOU wont give it to them. YOU are their cash cow, not GOD.
I am not attacking you, so dont even go there. I am speaking from a life of experience. As I said, I was all bound up and hog-tied in all that Word of Faith crap for almost 30 YEARS!!! I gave, and I gave. I did all of the right things according to our famous PIMPS! It was nothing for me to fork over almost everything I had tithes and offerings above and beyond what was expected, because I BELIEVED what the pimps said. I thought that I was doing what GOD wanted, and I suffered the consequences of that for far too long.
Like Joyce Meyer always says give until it hurts! give SACRIFICIALLY! My intentions were good. And I had faith. But my faith was in a LIE! I was sincere and honest, but I was sincerely and honestly WRONG. I think that the Lord really knew that, and finally got through to me to just STOP IT! Like, HELL-OOOOO! If this thing still doesnt work after nearly 30 years, guess what - IT DOESNT WORK!!
I see myself all over all of you defenders of these people. I was just like ALL of you. And a couple of years ago, I would have been standing right there by your side. Thats why I say that ONLY THE LORD will ever get through to you. Nobody could have EVER gotten through to me so I know that.
I guess you can tell I am just a little bit angry about this lie that is continuously propagated by the deluge of televangelists spewing this prosperity vomit into living rooms across this country and bringing millions to hell with them. But maybe somehow the Lord can use my experience to help lead someone else out of this DELUSION you call faith. It is another gospel, and the Jesus you think you worship will someday be crystal clear to you. I just hope that you find out who it really is before its too late. REALLY! The Bible is the truth, and it contains the way to the real Jesus. This Word of Faith gospel is pure MADNESS !!!!!
Posted by Melvin Jones at this site:
Pulpit Pimps Blog Archive Get Out Before They Suck You Dry!!!
peace,
Simon
