Word Of Faith

[Christina M]

Unfortunately, this whole thread is asking what WoF is and then the OP tells everyone his version of it, which contains in it not one of the things that any WoFer here has stated.

We were all set up.................... OP deliberately baited us all.

If it wasn't so important to me that people know the fullness and goodness of God, it wouldn't matter.

 

[TheMatman]

I refuse to base my faith in God on what Joni believes. She does not set the standard. God's word always sets the standard. Does Joni's condition void out the word of God? She's a wonderful faithful women of God. But she don't pay my bills.

I once went to a WoF church in Tulsa. My wife worked there as a school teacher. She was on the ministry's prayer list. Whenever anyone in the ministry was sick, she got the prayer chain phone call. And just about every time, they would pray, and the person would get sicker. Then the person would express his desire to be with the Lord, and people would pray accordingly. Shortly thereafter, the person would die.

Please do not misunderstand me. I do believe in the message of healing. But there is no denying the fact that many WoF Christian's have prayed for healing but have died anyway.

Trish, please take an inventory of all the people for whom you know sought prayer for healing. Narrow this list to those with terminal diseases. Then itemize how many of these people have died.

Again, please don't misunderstand me. I believe that God performs healing today. But I have serious doubts about how the WoF movement is being used to appropriate this healing to people. In other words, while I believe that healing is for today, and while I have seen miracles with my own eyes, I have serious doubts as to whether the WoF paradigm is the most effective means of procuring the necessary faith to see God move.

A while back, I believe the Lord showed me something about faith and why people who think they have it may not actually have it. Later I may share this with you.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

If the OPer wants an answer to the question presented in the OP... then the logical and reasonable thing to do is to listen to those who actually belong to WoF. They naturally know what they believe and present it in they way they understand it.
Obviously those who are opposed to it will be prone to giving you a negative slant... even if they do not mean to.

 

[Fresh_ers]

Faith - that is the Faith of God - comes to us only one way. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."

Two prerequisites for Faith to manifest: "Believe that God is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."

Most people are in the state of wanting God to do something for them, but not completely certain He will or has done something for them.

You hear people say, "We're hoping and praying." Yet, the hope to which they refer is not the Hope of the Bible. Hope is powerful. It is the paper on which a Believer writes what he or she knows God has granted him or her. The God kind of Hope is the dirt in which the seeds of Faith, watered by God's Love, grow and produce the Will and Word of God.

Faith is not wanting God to do what He has promised in His Word , it is knowing God has and will make those promises a reality in His children and their lives.

The manifestation of the Promise is not the substance of the Promise. Faith is the substance. We cannot Hope for anything outside of God's Word. What we Hope for is substantiated by Faith.

 

[Bassman]

And also, to say that we should all go back to basic Biblical understanding may be misleading... We all need to mature and get on to the meat -- the deeper things of the Word -- than to stay drinking milk for the rest of our lives.

1 Corinthians 3:1-3 (NIV) Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?
​

And still, strangely (or not so strangely), I see very little substance from WoF critics. Only opinions and accusations.

In other words, great preachers like Moody, Spurgeon, Wigglesworth, Billy Sunday, Dr. Billy Graham, Dr. Charles Stanley, et al should be regarded as "immature" Christians because they reject the WoF teachings?

 

[Hadron]

In other words, great preachers like Moody, Spurgeon, Wigglesworth, Billy Sunday, Dr. Billy Graham, Dr. Charles Stanley, et al should be regarded as "immature" Christians because they reject the WoF teachings?

Not in other words. What I said is not what you just said. When did they reject them? Could you provide quotes, please?

And wasn't Billy Graham's ministry in bringing in new believers, i.e. strictly evangelical? What does a new believer do after that?
I'm sure there could be more questions, but I know very little of Wigglesworth, Spurgeon, and the others.

 

[Trish1947]

The Matman......Trish, please take an inventory of all the people for whom you know sought prayer for healing. Narrow this list to those with terminal diseases. Then itemize how many of these people have died.

I don't think my post is going to disappoint you. and please dont take this as a boast. For it is all God's doing. When I was with the Healing Team through our church, I think that approximatly 2500 people have been prayed for. Out of those, I'd say about 250 were what doctors would call fatal, or terminal. I don't believe having a cold or cancer has any degrees of difficulty when it comes to God healing someone, but out of those we had 3 that died, and did not recover. One was an old man that the Lord told us to let Him come home. We prayed anyway, but knew the result. The other, was an older lady that wanted to go be with the Lord since her husband had died and she also wanted to be with the Lord. The other was someone that we did not know the answer to. But this was personal contact with these people. And we never prayed without presenting the word of God to them first. Which I think is one of the reasons we had such a success rate. Jesus always preached the Kingdom of God to them first, then went and healed. If they don't have the word in them, how can they have faith? On one of our hospital visits to pray for a women that had a cancerous tumor in her stomach that was huge, you could see it through her gown. We presented the word of God to her, asked her if she was ready to see her healing, she said "yes", layed hands on her, and prayed, the tumor was gone, the nurses were unable to stand and were on their knee's, people came running down the hallway to see what was going on, the lady in the next bed, that previously was cursing every breath at her husband, had heard what we were saying, suddenly became as docile as a lamb, at those words, and was healed of bowel cancer. God worked mightily.

A while back, I believe the Lord showed me something about faith and why people who think they have it may not actually have it. Later I may share this with you.

Now we might have some agreement about this. And would be very interested in what you have to say.

 

[Bassman]

Point being; Spurgeon, Moody, Wigglesworth, Charles Stanley, Dr. RC Sproul don't preach the "prosperity" mesage of the WoF movement.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Point being; Spurgeon, Moody, Wigglesworth, Charles Stanley, Dr. RC Sproul don't preach the "prosperity" mesage of the WoF movement.

I am not sure...but did they preach healing, baptism with the Holy Ghost, speaking with tongues, and gifts of the Spirit?
I am just asking because I do not know.

 

[Hadron]

Point being; Spurgeon, Moody, Wigglesworth, Charles Stanley, Dr. RC Sproul don't preach the "prosperity" mesage of the WoF movement.

We went from "they rejected the teaching" to "they did not teach that". Not teaching something is not grounds for saying they rejected it. An English teacher can't be said to reject mathematics, simply because they don't teach it.

 

[TheMatman]

Now we might have some agreement about this. And would be very interested in what you have to say.

I think i may create a special thread for this. In fact, I will do it now.

 

[Bassman]

I am not sure...but did they preach healing, baptism with the Holy Ghost, speaking with tongues, and gifts of the Spirit?
I am just asking because I do not know.

Dr. Stanley heads up In Touch Ministries, and Dr. Sproul is president of Ligonier Ministries. These men, as well as Spurgeon, Moody. etc. preached more on the fundamentals than the peripheral gifts.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Dr. Stanley heads up In Touch Ministries, and Dr. Sproul is president of Ligonier Ministries. These men, as well as Spurgeon, Moody. etc. preached more on the fundamentals than the peripheral gifts.

Soooo....
Just because they did not preach on these things... that does not mean they were against them.
I understand.

 

[TheLordIsWonderful]

In other words, great preachers like Moody, Spurgeon, Wigglesworth, Billy Sunday, Dr. Billy Graham, Dr. Charles Stanley, et al should be regarded as "immature" Christians because they reject the WoF teachings?

This is one of the things I have against Hank Hanegraaff and others like him. He has often taken something a minister has said or misspoken, twisted it around into something they never said, never meant, and with his own further critique... turned it into something they don't even recognize. It's the same thing regarding the claim that the WoF teaches that Jesus was a sinner. That isn't what they teach at all. I have never seen that anywhere. In fact, they teach that Jesus never sinned. They teach that Jesus bore the sin of the world. And that is scriptural.

I didn't hear pnumbra say that people who reject the WoF teachings are immature. What I heard was that we all have room to grow. And I will add.. 'Even Hank Hanegraaff.'

I am in the same situation as some others here. I have problems with the WoF ministries. But I also don't believe the Spirit of God would attack them. The Spirit loves, corrects and unites.

 

[victoryword]

In other words, great preachers like Moody, Spurgeon, Wigglesworth, Billy Sunday, Dr. Billy Graham, Dr. Charles Stanley, et al should be regarded as "immature" Christians because they reject the WoF teachings?

I could show you stuff by almost all of these men that you mention that is similar to what is taught in the Faith Movement. Let's start with some quotes by Spurgeon that I placed in a thread on the WoF forum sometime back:

http://www.christianforums.com/t1641491-charles-spurgeon-on-claiming-gods-promises.html

And those quotes are just the frosting, I have yet to cut the whole CAKE

By the way, I have a video tape here at home of a sermon by Charles Stanley on Positive Confession. Do you know what the title of his message was? POSITIVE CONFESSION!!! Sounds kinda Word-Faith for a BAPTIST preacher, don't it?

 

[TheMatman]

I think i may create a special thread for this. In fact, I will do it now.

Never mind... God doesn't want me to... or at least I don't think he does.

 

[ShaunJ]

These threads are so worthless.

Everytime I see one I love to just come in and say that.

It's like a thread drive-by!

*shoots Holy Spirit bullets*

 

[victoryword]

Point being; Spurgeon, Moody, Wigglesworth, Charles Stanley, Dr. RC Sproul don't preach the "prosperity" mesage of the WoF movement.

Have you ever read Charles Stanley's book, Success, God's Way? It's an interesting book. Let me quote you a passage from it:

The success or the prosperity that God has for you is always a whole-person prosperity. Note again in 3 John 2 that the prayer of John was that the people would prosper in all things - their material, social, natural, financial, outer lives - just as they would prosper in their personal health and their spiritual lives. It was prosperity that might be described as "wholeness in action." (pp. 14, 15)​

Sounds like Charles Stanley is preaching prosperity to me. I recommend you get the whole book though so that you won't think I am just quote spurious passages from it.

Paul L. King, who is not really a fan of the Faith MOvement, has written a book in which he shows some similarities (and what he feels are disparities) between the Faith Teachers and some the classic teachers you mention. King writes, "Spurgeon seems to be one of the earliest leaders of faith to make the connection between giving and prosperity." (Moving Mountains, p. 62). He then quotes Spurgeon:

I have noticed that the most generous Christians have always been the most happy and almost invariably the most prosperous. I have seen the liberal giver rise to wealth of which he never dreamed... It takes faith to act toward our God with an open hand." (Moving Mountains, pp. 62, 63).​

My final remarks: R. C. Sproul is a CALVINIST. I don't take much stock in what he has to say since he believes that God has elected some to be saved and others to be lost by nothing more than an eternal decree even before they were ever born. So why should we be concerned about him?

 

[TheLordIsWonderful]

I am in the same situation as some others here. I have problems with the WoF ministries.

Let me also say that I have also learned alot from the WoF ministries even though there are some things I can't agree with. But then, I think we can all learn alittle from every part of the body of Christ. I think that's what Paul meant when he said the Lord has set inside the church some teachers, some evangelists, some pastors, some preachers. And all for the learning, edifying and unifying of the entire body. I've seen R.C. Sproul quoted by many theologians who aren't calvinist. I'm not Calvinist either, but there are a some things I can agree with in their theology.

 

[victoryword]

Let me also say that I have also learned alot from the WoF ministries even though there are some things I can't agree with. But then, I think we can all learn alittle from every part of the body of Christ. I think that's what Paul meant when he said the Lord has set inside the church some teachers, some evangelists, some pastors, some preachers. And all for the learning, edifying and unifying of the entire body. I've seen R.C. Sproul quoted by many theologians who aren't calvinist. I'm not Calvinist either, but there are a some things I can agree with in their theology.

I guess I should do a better job of explaining myself. I have benefitted from the writings of a number of Calvinists, to include Charles H. Spurgeon and even a near hyper-calvinist such as A. W. Pink. If you see above, I have placed a link to a thread with quotes by Spurgeon. So I do not mean to portray Calvinists as being totally devoid of any good things that I could benefit from. However, I reject the CALVINIST THEOLOGY WHOLEHEARTEDLY.

If someone present R. C. Sproul, John Piper, and other Calvinists in comparison to Word-Faith teachers as though the former were the paragons of pure and sound teaching, that is when I sense the need to point out the anti-biblical stances that these men take. I can benefit from Calvinists, but I cannot benefit from Calvinism. Much Word-Faith teaching is actually a reaction to extreme Calvinism, so of course many things that Calvinists teach (at least the modern day Calvinists) will conflict with today's Word-Faith teaching.

When Calvinists are teaching the Bible and not reading Calvinism into it, some of them share some great insights. When they begin promoting their "reformed beliefs" then that is when they get my opposition because I believe that this theology misrepresents the loving God, makes a mockery of the redemptive work of Christ, and is a damper on fervent prayer and evangelism. I do not believe that the Bible teaches Calvinism. Such a theology has to be read into the Bible.

Finally, even if Sproul is quoted favorably by non-calvinists, I doubt if he often returns the favor as I often heard him refer to Arminians as "semi-pelagian" and "barely saved."