The Word-Faith movement is a very influential part of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement today. It is also known as "Positive Confession" or simply the "Faith" movement. It has no organizational or denominational structure or hierarchy but it is promoted by many prominent Pentecostal leaders who have large and prosperous ministries.

In general it holds that healing is guaranteed to those who have faith, that Jesus was rich and that He desires for His followers to be financially prosperous, that faith is a creative force that can be used to shape one's world, that when Adam fell he forfeited the nature of God and took the nature of Satan and that salvation requires removing Satan's nature from mankind, that Jesus did not make the atonement for sin by His death and blood but by taking upon Himself the nature of Satan on the cross then going to
hell and overcoming the devil there and being born again and thus erasing Satan's nature from
man, that Jesus is establishing a new race of little Christs that are equal to Him and that can
do what He did.

The Word-Faith movement is powered by massive amounts of money that its teachers raise through
their promise of healing and prosperity and power. It is represented by the Trinity Broadcasting Network, a half-billion dollar corporation that beams Word-Faith teaching throughout the world.

While the Word-Faith teachers hold certain things in common and while all of them hold to most of
the aforementioned doctrines, they are highly individualistic and do not necessarily hold to every single one.

Some of the proponents of the Word-Faith doctrine are Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn,
David Yonggi Cho, Paul Crouch, John Avanzini, Robert Tilton, R.W. Shambach, Rod Parsley, Fred
Price, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Marilyn Hickey, Charles Capps, Peter Popoff, Morris Cerullo, John Bevere, Markus Bishop, Juanita Bynum, Kim Clement, Paula White, and Rodney Howard-Browne.

At its heart is the doctrine that whatever a believer claims by faith, he will have. Kenneth Hagin, Sr., said, "Your confession of faith in God's Word will bring healing or whatever it is you need from God into the present tense and make it a reality in your life!" (Hagin, The Word of Faith, Dec. 1992). Hagin defined positive confession in his booklet How to Write Your Own Ticket with God. Jesus allegedly appeared to him and gave him "the formula for faith," promising that "if anybody, anywhere, will take these four
steps or put these four principles into operation, he will always receive whatever he wants from Me or from God the Father." The formula is simple: "Say it, Do it, Receive it, and Tell it."

Kenneth Copeland states it like this: "All it takes is (1) Seeing or visualizing whatever you need, whether physical or financial; (2) Staking your claim on Scripture; and (3) Speaking it into existence" (Christianity in Crisis, p. 80).

Paul Yonggi Cho calls it the "Law of Incubation." In his book The Fourth Dimension he describes the
steps of this "law," which are first to make a clear-cut goal, then to create a precise mental picture of that goal, then to incubate it into reality by focusing on it, and finally to speak it into existence.

The Word-Faith theology denies many clear Bible teachings. For example, it denies the doctrine that the atonement was made by Christ's death and blood and that it was finished on the cross (Jn. 19:30; Rom. 3:25; 5:9; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:22). It denies the doctrine that Jesus Christ is the unique and eternal Son of God, that He is "the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting" (1 Tim. 6:15-16). It denies the
doctrine that Jesus was the "firstborn from the dead," referring to His resurrection, promoting rather that He was born again (Col. 1:18). It denies the doctrine that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God (Jn. 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 Jn. 4:9). If the believer could be anything like equal to Jesus He would cease to be the ONLY begotten Son of God. It denies the doctrine that Jesus Christ alone is the creator of all things
(Jn. 1:3; Col. 1:16; Rev. 4:11), which means the believer is not capable of creating things. It denies the doctrine that Jesus was poor (2 Cor. 8:9). It denies the doctrine that the believer is to flee from the lust for riches and is to be content with such things as he has (Phil. 4:11-13; 1 Tim. 6:8-11; Heb. 13:5-6). It denies the doctrine that the lust for miracles is the mark of the ungodly (Mat. 12:39; 16:4). It denies
the doctrine that enduring faith is just as real as overcoming faith (Heb. 11:32-38). It denies
the doctrine that faith is based strictly on the Word of God rather than upon personal experiences
revelations and miracles (Rom. 10:17). It denies (in practice, at least) the doctrine that the
Scripture is a more sure word of prophecy than any vision or supernatural experience (2 Pet.
1:16-21). It denies the doctrine that the apostles were unique and their miracles were signs of their apostleship (2 Cor. 12:12). It denies the doctrine that God does not always heal sicknesses (2 Cor. 12:7-10; 1 Tim. 5:23; 2 Tim. 4:20).

John MacArthur, Jr., rightly observes:

"I hesitate to label the Word Faith movement a cult only because its boundaries are as yet
somewhat hazy. Many sincere believers hover around the periphery of Word Faith teaching, and
some in the movement who adhere to the core of Word Faith teaching reject some of the most
extreme teachings of the group. Nevertheless, all the elements that are common to the cults exist
within the movement: a distorted christology, an exalted view of man, a theology based on human
works, a belief that new revelation from within the group is unlocking 'secrets' that have been
hidden from the church for years, extrabiblical human writings that are deemed inspired and
authoritative, the use and abuse of evangelical terminology, and an exclusivity that compels
adherents to shun any criticism of the movement or teaching that is contrary to the system. ...

"McConnell's book [A Different Gospel] is a devastating expose of the Word Faith movement. It
demonstrates irrefutably that Word Faith teachers owe their ancestry to groups like Christian
Science, Swedenborgianism, Theosophy, Science of Mind, and New Thought--not to classical
Pentecostalism. It reveals that at their very core, Word Faith teachings are corrupt. Their
undeniable derivation is cultish, not Christian. The sad truth is that the gospel proclaimed by
the Word Faith movement is not the gospel of the New Testament. WORD FAITH DOCTRINE IS A MONGREL SYSTEM, A BLEND OF MYSTICISM, DUALISM, AND NEO-GNOSTICISM THAT BORROWS GENEROUSLY FROM THE TEACHINGS OF THE METAPHYSICAL CULTS. Its perverse
teachings are causing untold harm to the church in general and charismatics in particular. ...

"The Word Faith movement may be the most dangerous false system that has grown out of the
charismatic movement so far. Because so many charismatics are unsure of the finality of
Scripture, and because they feel they cannot discount tales of people who claim to have had
visitations from Christ, they are particularly susceptible to the movement's lies--and often at
a loss to answer them" (Charismatic Chaos, 1992, pp. 327, 352).

KENNETH HAGIN, SR. (1917-2003), the father of the Word-Faith movement, has had a phenomenal
influence. By the late 1980s, more than three million of Hagin's 85 books and a half million of
his sermons on audio cassette were being distributed each year. His daily radio program is
broadcast on more than 180 stations in the USA and by short-wave to about 80 other countries.
The monthly Word of Faith magazine has 400,000 subscribers. Between 1974 and 1992, 12,000
students graduated from his Rhema Bible Training Center and have gone throughout the world
planting churches patterned after his ministry and preaching the Word-Faith message.

Hagin claimed that his teaching was given to him by God, but in fact he plagiarized heavily from
the writings of E.W. KENYON (1867-1948). D.R. McConnell, in his book A Different Gospel,
documents this with pages of comparisons that prove beyond question that Hagin plagiarized
Kenyon's writings. McConnell introduces this section of his book by saying: "Hagin has,
indeed, copied word-for-word without documentation from Kenyon's writings. The
following excerpts of plagiarisms from no less than eight books by E.W. Kenyon are presented as
evidence of this charge. This is only a sampling of such plagiarisms. Many more could be cited."

Kenyon was a Baptist pastor and never joined the Pentecostal movement (though he did move in Pentecostal circles toward the end of his life), but his pioneer radio broadcasts and voluminous
writings had broad influence in the Deeper Life and Pentecostal movements. Though he did not use
the term "revelation" to describe his teaching, he presented his doctrine as new and history-changing. He claimed that if his message were followed it would create a master race of Christians who would have complete power over demons and disease. In his book Identification, he stated: "When these truths really gain the ascendancy in us, they will make us spiritual supermen, masters of demons and disease. � It
will be the end of weakness and failure. � We go out and live as supermen indwelt by God" (Kenyon,
Identification, Seattle: Kenyon's Gospel Publishing Society, 1968, p. 68).

In his early years Kenyon was influenced by Methodist sinless perfectionism and by New Thought doctrine. It is obvious that he borrowed heavily from the latter. D.R. McConnell masterfully traces this connection in his book A Different Gospel.

In 1892 Kenyon enrolled in the Emerson College of Oratory, "an institution that was absolutely
inundated with metaphysical, cultic ideas and practices" (McConnell, A Different Gospel, p. 34). Charles Wesley Emerson, the head of the college, was a Unitarian minister and eventually joined Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science cult. A number of Emerson graduates went on to become prominent Christian Science practitioners. One graduate of Emerson compiled The Complete Concordance of the Writings of Mary Baker Eddy and another wrote the book Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy. Emerson's "religion was a veritable smorgasbord of the sources underlying New Thought metaphysics: Platonism, Swedenborgianism, New England Unitarianism, and Emersonian Transcendentalism. All of these various elements were held together by heavy proof-texting from the Bible and a quasi-Darwinian view of the
religious evolution of humanity which ended in man becoming a god" (A Different Gospel, p. 35).

Though Kenyon claimed to be opposed to the New Thought cults and though he claimed to derive his
teaching strictly from the Bible, there is no question that he incorporated many New Thought
principles into his doctrine. Like New Thought, Kenyon taught that the spiritual is the cause of
all physical effects and that positive confession has the power to create its own reality. He
believed that healing and other ongoing miracles are necessary to demonstrate the reality of
Christianity. He considered his writings "to be a wonderful new interpretation of the Scriptures, a
'new type of Christianity,' which would bring healing and prosperity to all who possessed his
revelation knowledge of the Bible" (McConnell, p. 50).

In spite of his claims that Christians can be spiritual supermen, masters of demons and disease, Kenyon died in a coma with a malignant tumor.

Kenneth Hagin's positive-confession teachings, which he derived at least partially from Kenyon,
have spawned an entire movement within modern Pentecostalism, and its proponents have vast
influence. The Dictionary of the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements admits that "Kenyon's
writings became seminal for the ministries of Kenneth Copeland, Don Gossett, Charles Capps, and others in the Word of Faith and Positive Confession movements" and that he influenced Ern
Baxter, F.F. Bosworth, David Nunn, T.L. Osborn, Jimmy Swaggart, "and many others." In a survey
taken by Charisma magazine in 1985, seven Word-Faith teachers ranked among the top 24 most
influential Charismatic leaders. Kenneth Copeland ranked second and Kenneth Hagin, Sr., ranked
third. Other Word-Faith teachers listed in the survey were Marilyn Hickey, Fred Price, Robert
Tilton, John Osteen, and Norvel Hayes.

Hagin taught that Christ's physical death did not remove sin. Rather, it was Christ's alleged
spiritual death and his alleged struggles in hell that removed sin. Hagin taught that Christ was
sent to hell after His death on the cross and there he struggled against Satan and the demons
and by his victory over them he was born again. This is heresy of the greatest sort. The Bible
plainly states that we are redeemed by Christ's death and blood (Acts 20:28; Heb. 9:14; 10:10).
The atonement was finished on the cross. When Christ dismissed His spirit from his body, He
cried, "It is finished" (John 19:30). The Lord Jesus Christ was not born again; He was never
lost. He bore our sin, but He was never a sinner. He was never tormented in hell by Satan and the
demons. He never assumed a satanic nature. Nowhere, in fact, does the Bible say that Satan
is in hell or that he has any influence in hell. One happy day in the future he will be bound for
1,000 years in the bottomless pit (Rev. 20:1-3) and ultimately he will be cast into the lake of
fire (Rev. 20:10), but nowhere does the Bible say that Satan is the master of hell.

Hagin further taught that the Christian is an incarnation of God like Jesus and is, in fact, Christ. "Man ... was created on terms of equality with God, and he could stand in God's presence without any consciousness of inferiority. ... God has made us as much like Himself as possible. ...
He made us the same class of being that He is Himself. ... The believer is called Christ. ...
That's who we are; we're Christ!" (Hagin, Zoe: The God-Kind of Life, Tulsa, OK: Kenneth Hagin
Ministries, 1989, pp. 35-36, 41). "The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth" (Hagin, "The Incarnation," The Word of Faith, Dec. 1980, p. 14). This is a gross heresy. The Lord Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. He is the eternal Son of God. Nowhere in Scripture is the believer said to be an incarnation of Almighty God and nowhere is he said to be Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ
performed miracles to demonstrate that He was the Son of God, the promised Messiah. No Christian
can do the things that Christ did. Not one Pentecostal preacher has ever been able to perform the miracles that Christ performed. It is blasphemous confusion to claim that the believer is an incarnation of God like Christ was.

Hagin was guided by alleged visitations of angels and by direct communication with the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself. His book I Believe in Visions describes eight of these visitations. He claimed to have seen Jesus and to have visited both heaven and hell.

Hagin taught a health-prosperity gospel. He said: "Like salvation, healing is a gift, already paid for at Calvary. All we need to do is accept it. All we need to do is possess the promise that is ours. As children of God, we need to realize that healing belongs to us" (Hagin, Healing Belongs to Us, p. 32). He further says: "God is glorified through healing and deliverance, not sickness and suffering" (Hagin, The Key to Scriptural Healing, p. 17). Hagin's claims do not match reality, though. In the 1990s he claimed that he hadn't been sick in 60 years, but actually he had several cardiovascular crises, one lasting six
weeks, and he eventually succumbed to the disease. Heart disease is a sickness, dear friends, and Hagin's heart disease was never healed!

As for prosperity, Hagin claimed that the Lord spoke to him in a vision in 1959 with the words: "If you will learn to follow that inward witness I will make you rich. I will guide you in all the affairs of life, financial as well as spiritual" (Hagin, How to Be Led by the Holy Spirit). In an article "How God Taught Me about Prosperity," Hagin claimed that Jesus Christ taught him not to think that it is wrong to have riches. Allegedly Christ told him not to "pray about money anymore; that is, the way you've been praying. CLAIM
WHATEVER YOU NEED." Christ allegedly further taught Hagin that he has personal angels that could be commanded to do his bidding. Hagin said Christ told him in 1963, "They are waiting on you to give them the order, just as the waitress cannot do anything for you until you give her the order" (Hagin, I Believe in Visions, p. 126).

Hagin's ministry was characterized by phenomena that can only be described as demonic. The unscriptural "spirit slaying" was a major part of his ministry. He described many people who fell into trances. He claimed one teenage girl was in a trance for almost nine hours, and that when he and a pastor tried to move her, the two of them were unable to budge her off the floor. He told of other people being glued to the floor so that no one could move them. He also described levitations that occurred in his meetings. He told of a woman who danced off a platform and levitated in the air while she was “dancing in the Spirit." On one occasion, when someone was levitated, Hagin's wife and two other people
questioned whether it was of the Lord. He claimed that God instructed him to touch all three of them on the forehead with his little finger, and when he did they were knocked to the floor and paralyzed so that they could not get up. They were not allowed to rise until they acknowledged that Hagin's power was of God. When they admitted this, Hagin touched them again with his finger and they were released (McConnell, A Different Gospel, p. 64).

I have seen video recordings of a conference conducted by Kenneth Hagin, Sr., Kenneth Hagin,
Jr., and Kenneth Copeland in Chesterfield, Missouri, October 12-24, 1997. Hagin Sr. staggers around like a drunk, sticking his tongue out and wiggling it like a serpent. He hisses and pants, blowing on people, waving his arms at them, striking them on the head, while entire rows of people fall down or slide out of their seats in a drunken stupor as he lurches by. Women fall to the floor in all sorts of compromising positions and have to be covered with the assistance of other women. Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin, Jr., are right in the middle of the insanity, acting as if they were completely drunk, rolling on the floor, making strange noises, laughing hysterically for no apparent reason. One of Hagin's helpers, a large man who is attempting to hold the senior Hagin upright, is overcome with "drunkenness" and falls into the lap of an attractive woman. Pandemonium and confusion reign. Four men are required to help the drunken Hagin get back onto the speaker's platform.

I personally witnessed Hagin get "drunk in the spirit" at the New Life Victory Center in Huntington, West Virginia, on September 17, 1998. Hagin preached on "The Demonstration of the Spirit" from 1 Corinthians 2:4. There was no gospel message, no preaching against sin or carnality or worldliness or apostasy; no call to grow in Christ. Instead, the message was a litany of the aforementioned alleged miracles that have occurred in Hagin's ministry. After he had preached for ten or fifteen minutes, Hagin began to argue that one of the demonstrations of the Spirit is drunkenness. At that point he stopped
preaching and for about 25 minutes and staggered about, laughing, blowing on people, waving his
arms, and otherwise acting drunk. He repeatedly tried to speak but was unable to do so. Large
numbers of people in the crowd also began to laugh loudly and some fell to the floor or staggered about and acted foolishly like drunks. Like in the meeting a year earlier in Chesterfield, Missouri, women fell to the floor in all sorts of compromising positions and had to be covered. Kenneth Hagin, Jr., attempted to read from his father's sermon notes, but he could not form the words and instead staggered all the way
across the front of the church.

When Hagin began speaking again, he claimed that this was a fulfillment of Ezekiel 3:26-27, but there is nothing whatsoever in this passage about a drunken prophet. Hagin also cited Acts chapter 2 in an attempt to prove that the apostles were drunk in the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, but this is nonsense. Those who said the disciples were "full of new wine" were mockers, and in his reply to them PETER PLAINLY SAID THEY WERE NOT DRUNKEN (Acts 2:15).

Throughout the rest of Hagin's sermon, various people in the crowd were laughing hysterically,
making it difficult to follow his message. The service could best be characterized by confusion,
and it ended like it began, with a rock concert disguised as a worship service.

Upon Hagin's death in 2003, his son, Kenneth, Jr., took control of the Rhema Empire.

BENNY HINN is a hugely influential Pentecostal healing evangelist. Thousands attended the church
he pastored in Orlando, Florida (before he moved his headquarters to Dallas, Texas) and multiplied
thousands attend his crusades throughout the world and watch his programs on television. His books are distributed by the millions. Good Morning Holy Spirit was the best selling Christian book in 1991.

Hinn has taught that Adam could fly like a bird and swim underwater like a fish ("Praise the Lord" program, TBN, Dec. 26, 1991). He claims that his "anointing" comes from visits to the graves of Kathryn Kuhlman and Aimee Semple McPherson. In an April 7, 1991 sermon Hinn "revealed that he periodically visits Kuhlman's grave and that he is one of the few with a key to gain access to it. He also visits Aimee's grave, where he says: 'I felt a terrific anointing ... I was shaking all over ... trembling under the
power of God ... 'Dear God,' I said, 'I feel the anointing.' ... I believe the anointing has lingered over Aimee's body'" (Dave Hunt, "Signs of the Times," CIB Bulletin, January 1992). Hinn even claims that he met Kathryn Kuhlman in a vision of heaven (Alexander Seibel, "Who Is Benny Hinn? (http://www.alexanderseibel.de/who_is_benny_hinn.htm).

Hinn claims to have intimate conversations with the Lord almost on a daily basis. He had his first vision of Jesus at age 11 and has had an eight-hour private conversation with the Holy Spirit (Hinn, Rise and Be Healed, pp. 1, 22). He not only has talked to the Lord and seen the Lord and felt the Lord, but he says he can also smell the Lord (Hinn, speaking from Honolulu, Hawaii, Feb. 28, 1997).

Hinn tosses the "anointing of the Holy Spirit" like a baseball and "slays people in the spirit" by blowing on them. An eyewitness to a Hinn meeting in 1991 reported:

"Winded catchers try to keep up with the toppling bodies. He rears back and with a pitching motion slays the entire choir with one toss. ... Hinn takes off his custom tailored jacket and rubs it briskly on his body. He is rubbing the Power into the jacket. Then he starts swinging it wildly, like the biblical David swinging his sling. He decks his followers left and right. Bam! Bam! Bam! The stage vibrates with their landings. Then he throws it. Another bam. As a catcher moves to pick up a woman, Hinn slays him ... then he slays
the catcher who caught the catcher. When Benny Hinn is moved, nobody is safe from the Power ...
[H]e blows loudly into the microphone ... Hundreds fall backward" (Mike Thomas, Florida Magazine, Nov. 24, 1991).

In one of his many appearances on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Hinn said of those who criticize his ministry:

"Somebody is attacking me because of something I
am teaching. Let me tell you something brother, you watch it! ... Don't attack this man of God.
There is a group here in California that thinks they are the judgment seat of Christ. ... Dear God in heaven, I wish I can just.... Sometimes I wish God would give me a Holy Ghost machine gun,
I'll blow your head off!" (Benny Hinn, "Praise-a-Thon," TBN, Nov. 8 1990).

Earlier in his ministry Hinn taught by "revelation knowledge" that the believer is "a little god on earth," that he [Hinn] is Jesus, and that there are actually nine members of the "Trinity," since God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit "each has a body, soul, and spirit." But in 1991 he repudiated these amazing
revelations.

Hinn claims that in the 1990s he "received a new mandate from heaven" which was "to bring the
message of the miraculous healing power of God back to America." He says: "God is not going to heal you now--he healed you 2,000 years ago. All you have to do today is receive your healing by faith" (Hinn, Rise and Be Healed, p. 44). He says, "We must never say, 'If it be thy will, Lord," and claims that 1,000 people are healed at each of his "miracle services," yet when a reporter attempted to verify any healings he was unable to do so.

"When pressed for truly convincing miracles, [Hinn spokesperson] Susan Smith cited a woman in
Orlando who was cured of blindness caused by diabetes. But she would not give the woman's name. She later admitted that the woman's vision may still be cloudy. 'She still has diabetes, strangely ... [and] was just rehospitalized'" (Florida Magazine, Nov. 24, 1991).

Hinn sent Hank Hanegraaff three prime examples of the supposed thousands of healings that have
occurred through his ministry, including the case of the healing of colon cancer; but when Dr. Preston Simpson investigated he found that the colon tumor had been surgically removed rather than miraculously healed and that the other two cases were also bogus (Hank Hanegraaff, What's
Wrong with the Faith Movement, Part 1, http://www.equip.org/free/DC755-1.htm).

Following Benny Hinn's November 1993 crusade in Basel, Switzerland, the co-organizer apologized
because no miracle occurred and because Hinn made promises that were not kept. He said: "... no
miracle happened with Hinn. Instead, the healings turned out to be falsified. They did not honour
God; they were the work of man. ... One case had to do with a man ill with cancer. Hinn prophesied
over him that he would have many years of health ahead. This man died two days later" (Alexander
Seibel, "Who Is Benny Hinn? http://www.alexanderseibel.de/who_is_benny_hinn.htm).

On Sunday, April 30, 2000, four people died in Nairobi, Kenya, during a Hinn "Miracle Crusade" (Reuters News Service, "Four Die Waiting for 'Miracle' Cures," May 4, 2000, quoting the Kenya Times). They had been released from a hospital to be cured at Hinn's meeting, but they died instead. I don't read in the Bible where anyone died when they tried to reach out to Jesus Christ for healing!

Anthony Thomas, who produced a television documentary titled "A Question of Miracles" focusing on Benny Hinn and Reinhard Bonnke, testified, "I was quite willing to be persuaded that there really were miracles and it was an important journey of discovery for me." He examined a Hinn crusade in Portland, Oregon, during which 76 miracles were claimed. Thomas followed five of the cases for a year and
concluded that there was no medical evidence of healings. He concluded, "In my experience, there was nothing that we saw that in any way could qualify as a miracle" ("Documentary Questions Healing Miracles," Christian News, April 30, 2001, p. 19). The team was also unable to verify the 78 miracles claimed during a Reinhard Bonnke crusade in Benin City, Nigeria. The Dateline program on NBC television asked Hinn's ministry to provide confirmation of the 56 cases of healing that were claimed at one of his crusades. Hinn's people could only come up with five cases of what they called "irrefutable and medically proven miracles," but when Dateline researched these cases they found that only one of the
people involved could provide medical records and her doctor suspected that the woman never had the
Lou Gehrig's disease she claimed to have been healed of (Charisma Online, Feb. 20, 2003).

Though Hinn claims to talk with God as naturally as one would talk with his husband or wife, he has made many false prophecies. On December 31, 1989, at the Orlando Christian Center, Hinn said: "The Lord also tells me to tell you, in mid 90s, about '94 or '95, no later than that, God will destroy the homosexual community of America. ... He will destroy it with fire." During the same service Hinn said: "The Spirit of God tells me an earthquake will hit the East Coast of America and destroy much in the 90's. Not one place will be safe from earthquakes in the 90's." On the "Praise the Lord" program on Trinity Broadcasting Network, May 2, 2000, Hinn prophesied that Jesus would soon begin appearing to Muslims and in Christian meetings and that many would see Him. On that same program Ruth Heflin prophesied that Jesus would soon appear on the platform with Benny Hinn.

KENNETH COPELAND, the founder of Believer's Voice of Victory (BVOV), is one of the most popular of
the "word-faith" preachers and walks in the footsteps of the late Kenneth Hagin. He is extremely influential. His broadcasts are heard in many parts of the world and his books have been distributed by the millions. Consider some of Copeland's statements:

"You're all God. You don't have a God living in you; you are one! ... When I read in the Bible where God tells Moses, 'I AM,' I say, 'Yah, I am too!'" ("The Force of Love," Believer's Voice of Victory, 1987, audiotape #02-0028, side 1).

"He [Adam] was not a little like God. He was not almost like God. He was not subordinate to God even.... Adam is as much like God as you could get, just the same as Jesus. ... Adam, in the Garden of Eden, was God manifested in the flesh" ("Following the Faith of Abraham I," Believer's Voice of Victory, 1989 audiotape, #01-3001, side 1).

"[Adam] was the copy, looked just like [God]. If you stood Adam upside God, they look just exactly
alike. If you stood Jesus and Adam side-by-side, they would look and sound exactly alike" (Kenneth
Copeland, "Authority of the Believer IV," Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1987, audiotape #01-0304,
side 1).

"God made us as much like Himself as possible. ... He made us the same class of being that He is
Himself. ... [The] believer is called Christ. ... That's who we are; we're Christ" (Copeland, Zoe:
The God-Kind of Life, 1989, pp. 35-36, 41).

"Jesus is no longer the only begotten Son of God" (Copeland, Now We Are in Christ Jesus, 1980, p.24). "Pray to yourself, because I'm in your self and you're in Myself. We are one Spirit, saith the Lord" (Copeland, Believer's Voice of Victory, Feb. 1987, p.9).

"It wasn't the physical death on the cross that paid the price for sin ... anybody could do that" (What Satan Saw on the Day of Pentecost). "And while I was laying there thinking about these things, the Spirit of God spoke to me. And He said, 'Son, realize this: Now follow Me in this, don't let your tradition trip you up.' He said, 'Think this way: A twice-born man whipped Satan in his own domain.' And I threw my Bible down. I said, 'What?' He said, 'A born-again man defeated Satan. The first-born of many brethren defeated him.' He said, 'You are the very image and the very copy of that one.' I said, 'Goodness
gracious, sakes alive!' And I began to see what had gone on in there, and I said, 'You don't mean--you couldn't dare mean, that I could have done the same thing?' He said, 'Oh, yeah, if you'd had the knowledge of the Word of God that He did, you could have done the same thing, cause you're a reborn man, too'" (Copeland, "What Happened from the Cross to the Throne," tape # 02-0017).

"God has never used sickness to discipline His children" (Believer's Voice of Victory, Sept. 1989).

"The first step to spiritual maturity is to realize your position before God. You are a child of God and a joint-heir with Jesus. Consequently, you are entitled to all the rights and privileges in the kingdom of God, and one of their rights is health and healing" (Copeland, Healed ... to Be or Note to Be, p. 25).

"It would have been impossible for Jesus to have been poor!" (Charisma, Sept. 1990).

"Believe it in your heart; say it with your mouth. That is the principle of faith. You can have what you say" (Copeland, quoted from John MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos, p. 285).

"As a believer, you have a right to make commands in the name of Jesus. Each time you stand on the
Word, you are commanding God to a certain extent because it is His Word" (Copeland, Our Covenant
with God, KCP Publications, 1987, p. 32).

Copeland's wife Gloria is a preacher in her own right, ignoring the divine restriction on the woman's ministry in the Word of God. And she is every bit as good at preaching the "seed faith" doctrine and raising funds as her husband. In her book God's Will Is Prosperity she says: "Give $10 and receive $1000; Give $1000 and receive $100,000 � give one house and receive one hundred houses or a house worth one hundred times as much. Give one airplane and receive one hundred times the value of the airplane. � In short, Mark 10:30 is a very good deal" (p. 54).

PAUL CROUCH'S TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK broadcasts "miracle Christianity" throughout the world, thus making Crouch one of Pentecostalism's most influential men. When TBN was launched in
the 1970s Paul and his wife Jan were partners with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, who went on to found PTL. Crouch, who lives in a $5 million mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean (only one of many homes) and travels in his own private jet, works the prosperity gospel and the Oral Roberts style seed faith philosophy for all it is worth, claiming that God wants every believer to be wealthy and urging listeners to give extravagantly to TBN so that God can bless them in turn. The listener is tantalized with the promise of prosperity but the ball is left in his court, because he is told that he has to get things moving by "giving God something to work with," and that, of course, requires a gift to TBN. With the promise of physical healing and the ability to create your own reality through your words heaped on for good measure, the package is a sure-fire key to success, appealing as it does to man's natural greed and the universal yearning for health and wealth.

Like his friend Benny Hinn, Paul Crouch has less than kind words for those who criticize him. On the Praise the Lord program, Nov. 7, 1997, he said: "God, we proclaim death to anything or anyone that will lift a hand against this network and this ministry that belongs to You, God. Amen!" On a TBN Praise-a-Thon program on April 2, 1991, Crouch had these gracious words for his critics: "To hell with you! Get out of my life! Get out of the way! I say get out of God's way! Quit blocking God's bridges or God's going to shoot you if I don't. ... I don't even want to even talk to you or hear you! I don't want to see your ugly face!"

TBN features a lineup of some of the most radical Pentecostal-Charismatic preachers, including Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, John Avanzini, Earl Paulk, Jesse Duplantis, Rod Parsley, Jerry Savelle, Creflo Dollar, Marilyn Hickey, Frederick Price, Kim Clement, and Joel Osteen.

Crouch refers to the heretical Word-Faith message as a "revival of truth ... restored by a few precious men" (Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," TBN, August 6, 1991).

JOHN AVANZINI, who co-pastors the International Faith Center in Texas, is a Word-Faith teacher who focuses on financial blessing. Claiming that the believer glorifies God by being rich, Avanzini sends out a steady stream of books on the subject, such as Always Abounding, Financial Excellence, Miracle Money, Powerful Principles of Increase, and The Proven Wealth Transfer System. These sound like titles the apostle Paul would have published, don't they? Avanzini even claims that Jesus was so rich that he wore designer clothes, lived in a big house, and was funded by wealthy people (Avanzini, "Was Jesus Poor?"
Believer's Voice of Victory, July/August 1991, 6-7). Avanzini also preaches the Word-Faith doctrine that God is duplicating Himself on earth and that believers are little gods and Christs. He claims that the Spirit of God "declared in the earth today what the eternal purpose of God has been through the ages .... that He is duplicating Himself on earth" (John Avanzini with Morris Cerullo, "The Endtime Manifestation of the Sons of God," Morris Cerullo World Evangelism, nd, audiotape 1, side 2).

JESSE DUPLANTIS promises prosperity to those with "the anointing" and those who learn how to give
properly. He boasts of his own wealth. He also warns about doctrine, claiming that it is the devil who "used theological understanding to water down the fire" (Duplantis, Voice of the Covenant magazine, November 1997, p. 7). Instead of doctrine, Duplantis specializes in stories and the taller the tale the better. He has been to heaven, of course, seen all sorts of angels, talked with God man to man, you name it. He claims that the devil tried to kill him with lightening one time when he was flying in a
commercial airline and that though the lightening blew a hole in the plane right above him he wasn't hurt, so he got up out of his seat and yelled, "You missed me Devil," and later went out and bought his own plane just for an added measure of protection (http://www.letusreason.org/Popteac12.htm). Duplantis claims there are two types of Christians in heaven, strong and weak, and the weak have to smell the leaves of the tree of life to gain strength. He even thinks he can entertain God, claiming that in one of many direct conversations with the Almighty, God said to him, "Jesse, make me laugh." The man really has an amazing imagination! He even claims that one day he knew that God was discouraged so He asked the Lord if He was having a bad day and the Lord replied, "Yea, my children have been disobeying
me." So Duplantis cancelled his appointments and just spent the day encouraging God, who expressed
his appreciation by saying, "Thank you, Jesse" (Duplantis interview with Benny Hinn," "This Is Your Day, Feb, 2000; cited from http://www.letusreason.org/Popteac12.htm). In a boastful manner that is typical of the Word-Faith Pentecostals, Duplantis claims, "I can honestly say that the Lord has done everything I have prayed for" (Heaven Close Encounters of the God Kind, p. 44). Not even Job or the apostle Paul
had all of their prayers answered. Duplantis' teaching gets even weirder than this, but if the reader is not already convinced that he is a false teacher I don't see how that more examples could help.

ROD PARSLEY, television personality and the influential pastor of World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, preaches the Word-faith doctrine. He preaches a prosperity gospel and lives it, as well. As of 1993, Parsley owned an electronically-gated 21-acre compound containing two homes valued at almost $2 million (Columbus Monthly, May 1993). He also owns a jet. He says, "Salvation and healing are two gifts wrapped up in the same package" (Parsley, The Backside of Calvary, 1991). He teaches that believers can have whatever they desire by faith and confession with their mouths, but he cautions that you have
"to believe for a bicycle" before you can believe God for "a new Lincoln Continental" (Parsley, audio tape, The Subject of Sin). He says God speaks revelation directly to and through him, but he warns about serious Bible study, "claiming that "exegesis X's out Jesus" (http://faith.propadeutic.com/authors/wof.html).

Exegesis, of course, is the study of the Bible using proper principles of interpretation, such as context and comparing Scripture with Scripture. Parsley claims that those who give to his ministry will receive "the tangible transfer of God's creator power" so as to "reap a mighty harvest of your physical, spiritual and financial needs" (Birthing Your Miracle, World Harvest website, July 1999). He claims that such things as anger and lack of finances and headaches are demons, and that through a 40 day fast you can
"kill Beelzebub, the fly father" (Parsely, June 12, 1998), which sounds a lot like Franklin Hall's "Atomic Power through Fasting" doctrine.

ROBERTS LIARDON, founder (with his wife Carol, who is the senior pastor) of Embassy Christian Center of Irvine, California, and head of the Spirit of Life Bible College, was described in 2001 as "one of the top 100 fastest growing churches in America." He is author of many books that have glorified former Pentecostals and have influenced many to accept Pentecostal doctrine. Liardon publishes the "God's Generals" video series, which glorifies many of the pioneers of the Pentecostal movement, including John Dowie, Maria Woodworth-Etter, Charles Parham, William Seymour, Smith Wigglesworth, Amy Semple Mcpherson, William Branham, A.A. Allen, Jack Coe, and Kathryn Kuhlman, whitewashing their heresies and lunacies. Liardon claims that he has toured heaven on three separate occasions and seen "the storehouse where 'spare [body] parts' await believers' faith to bring them to earth" and frolicked with Jesus in the river of life. In 2002 he acknowledged that he had "a homosexual relationship" (Charisma News, Jan. 31, 2002). Though Charisma said it was a short-term relationship, other sources said there was "a long-term homosexual relationship with a member of his church, as well as others" ("Roberts
Lairdon Leaves Ministry over Moral Failure," (http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/housechu/Lairdon.htm). Lairdon was back in the ministry within weeks.

KIM CLEMENT, who is often featured on Trinity Broadcasting Network, claims to be a prophet. In 2001 Clement (and Tommy Tenney) were interviewed by Matthew and Laurie Crouch on the Praise the Lord program and he claimed that God gave him the following prophecy:

"There will be a world-wide universal move of my spirit and the spirit of the Lord says, 'They will prepare for the greatest kingdom that has ever been around, the kingdom of my son. I will change the laws of this country [America]. I will put favor, favor, favor, in the church of the living God. And for seven years you will have the greatest prosperity you have ever dreamed about. And it's yours! It's yours! It's yours!' Says the Lord. Come on!" [The crowd shouted and jumped and yelled.] ("The Bible Under Attack,"
http://www.apostasyalert.org/bible_under_attack.htm).

The Bible prophesies seven years of Tribulation, but the Charismatic prophet prophesies seven years of prosperity.

On an earlier Praise the Lord program, Clement said:

"You know, we aren't even thinking now about Tribulation and seven years of this and pre and mid and post and all this stuff. We don't care about that. We just want to see the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God. We don't waste our time with that. ... We are living in the greatest time the church has ever been in, we're living right now. And a lot of people don't want to see that because they'd rather go home and be with the Lord. We don't want to do that!" (Ibid.).

The apostle Paul said he would rather go to heaven and be with the Lord (Phil. 1:23-24), but these Charismatics would much rather stay in this wicked world and be prosperous.

CREFLO DOLLAR, another Trinity Broadcasting Network star, is founder of World Changes Christian Center and host of Changing Your World. Dollar is "one of the most extravagant Word of Faith leaders, teaching that health and riches are the inheritance of the saints by Jesus' death on the cross, and that divine healing is obtained through the 'covenant connector' of tithing" (http://faith.propadeutic.com/authors/wof.html).

Word-Faith Pentecostal preacher and television personality JERRY SAVELLE claims that people create the world they live in with the words of their mouths, whether they are healthy or sick, wealthy or poor. "Somebody says, 'You mean the world that I'm living in right now originated by the words of my mouth?' They certainly did, because the Bible says you are snared by the words of your mouth, you are taken by your words. Amen?" (Jerry Savelle, "Framing Your World with the Word of God, Part 1," Jerry Savelle
Evangelistic Assn., nd, audiotape #SS-36, side 1, cited from Hank Hanegraaff, Christianity in Crisis, 1993, p. 68). In the same sermon Savelle boasts that sickness and disease cannot enter his world.

CHARLES CAPPS has taken the Kenneth Hagin Word-Faith doctrine so far as to claim that Jesus Christ was the product of God's positive confession. He says: "This is the key to understanding the virgin birth. God's Word is full of faith and spirit power. God spoke it. God transmitted that image to Mary. She received the image inside of her. ... The embryo that was in Mary's womb was nothing more than the Word of God. ... She conceived the Word of God" (Capps, Dynamics of Faith and Confession, Tulsa, OK:
Harrison House, 1987, pp. 86-87; cf. Charles Capps, Authority in Three Worlds, 1982, pp. 76-85). Capps even warns that if someone says, even jokingly, "That just tickled me to death," they might die (Capps, The Tongue: A Creative Force, 1976, p. 91).

MARILYN HICKEY has a very influential ministry through television, literature, and international personal speaking engagements. She sends out prayer cloths, widow's mites, and all sorts of other gimmicks that are "guaranteed to produce miracles." Preaching the Word-Faith prosperity message, she says: "What do you need? Start creating it. Start speaking about it. Start speaking it into being. Speak to your billfold.
Say, 'You big, thick billfold full of money.' Speak to your checkbook. Say, 'You, checkbook, you. You've never been so prosperous since I owned you. You're just jammed full of money'" ("Claim Your Miracles, Denver: Marilyn Hickey Ministries, n.d., audiotape #186, side 2). When I visited her website in March 2006, the featured item was "The Key to More Miracles in Your Life," in which "Marilyn and Sarah reveal an essential key to lift you above disappointment and defeat to a new level of power, significance, and
prosperity."

JOEL OSTEEN is pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, the largest church in America. The church's weekend services draw up to 40,000 and the television program is broadcast in all 210 American markets, with an estimated seven million viewers per week. The church takes in roughly $32 million per year in tithes and offerings. Joel's father, John, who founded the church and pastored it for 40 years, taught that Christians should have superior privileges in this world (i.e., exemption from traffic tickets and first-class seats on airplanes) and that they can use their words to create their own reality.
He taught the people to chant, "This is my Bible; I have what it says I have." John Osteen was the author of "How to Flow in the Super Supernatural." Joel holds his father's Word-Faith theology, but he focuses more on a "positive uplifting" message and ignores unpopular Bible teachings such as hell and self-sacrifice. In an interview on the international cable television program Larry King Live, June 20, 2005, Joel Osteen said that he does not know who goes to heaven or who goes to hell. When asked if atheists go to heaven, Osteen replied, "I'm going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and hell" (Charismanow.com, June 30). When asked where Jews or Muslims go if they don't accept Jesus Christ, Osteen replied, "You know, I'm very careful about saying who would and wouldn't go to heaven; I don't know." In a letter posted to his web site, Osteen later apologized for being "unclear on the very thing in which I have dedicated my life." He said: "In my desire not to alienate the people that Jesus came to save, I did not clearly communicate the convictions that I hold so precious." In fact, in his statements
on Larry King Live Osteen was indeed communicating the core conviction of his church-growth philosophy, which is to preach only "positive truth." He has not drawn a crowd of tens of thousands by preaching clearly on eternal Hell as the Lord Jesus Christ did, and even in his "apology" Osteen did not plainly state that those outside of Christ go to an eternal fiery Hell. When Osteen packed out the Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, in March 2005, a local news reporter enthused, "Osteen doesn't rail against gays or thump a Bible, like so many others do" ("Evangelist: Don't Worry, Be Happy," The Charlotte Observer, March 8, p. E1). Osteen's message was, "Make a decision before you leave this place, you're going to get happy where you are."

FREDERICK PRICE, founder of the 22-000 member Crenshaw Christian Center in Inglewood, California, and the Ever Increasing Faith Ministries, is the self-proclaimed "master of name-it-and-claim-it." As a preacher in the Christian and Missionary Alliance in the 1960s Price, after a series of crises, bought into the false doctrine that believers today can perform the miracles of Jesus. Kathryn Kuhlman's misguided book "God Can Do It Again" challenged him to seek "the gift of the Holy Spirit and tongues," which he claims that he received in Feb. 28, 1970. Today he is part of the Word-Faith movement and credits the late Kenneth Hagin, Sr., as his chief mentor. He teaches the typical Word-Faith error that God gave complete control of the earth to man and therefore lost it when man believed the devil's lie, that words have the power to create circumstances, that Jesus was rich and the believer should be rich, too, that
healing is guaranteed, etc. Price boasts about driving a Rolls Royce, claiming that Jesus would do the same. Price claims that God must be given man's permission to do things in this world. "Now this is a shocker! But God has to be given permission to work in this earth realm on behalf of man. � Yes! You are in control! So if man has control, who no longer has it? God. ... When God gave Adam dominion, that meant God no longer had dominion. So, God cannot do anything on this earth unless we let Him or give Him permission through prayer" (Price, "Prayer: Do You Know What Prayer Is. ... and How to Pray?" The Word Study Bible, p. 1178). Taking the theology of healing in the atonement to new levels, Price said: "How can you glorify God in your body, when it doesn't function right? ... What makes you think the Holy
Ghost wants to live inside of a body where He can't see out through the windows, and He can't hear out the ears?" (Price, "Is God Glorified through Sickness?" tape # FP605). Though Price professes that he doesn't allow sickness in his home, his wife has been treated for pelvic cancer, which is certainly a sickness (Hank Hanegraaff, What's Wrong with the Faith Movement, Part 1, http://www.equip.org/free/DC755-1.htm).

Pentecostal healing-evangelist MORRIS CERULLO, who took over the Heritage USA properties after
Jim Bakker went to prison, joins Kenneth Copeland, Paul Crouch, and others in claiming that Christians are as much an incarnation of God as Jesus. In 1991 he told his audience: "You're not looking at Morris Cerullo--you're looking at God. You're looking at Jesus. ... Today I am a Son of the all powerful almighty God of the Universe. His life flows through me. ... Jesus didn't come to teach you how to defend yourself.
He came to lead you in an attack. Jesus went into Satan's territory. The strategy of Christ was not to wait until the enemy came. He taught us how to march out, go into his territory ... We DECLARE WAR. ... 'I and the Father are ONE.' How's that for taking the offensive!" (Morris Cerullo, "The Endtime Manifestation of the Sons of God," Morris Cerullo World Evangelism, 1991, tape 1).

Cerullo alleges to have had personal meetings with Jesus Christ since age eight and to have had a face-to-face meeting with God in heaven.

At his healing crusades Cerullo proclaims that "it is God's will to heal every person" (Calgary Herald, Calgary, Alberta, June 6, 1987), yet those with obvious sicknesses--such as those in the wheelchair sections--go back to their homes disappointed.

The September 1992 issue of the Evangelical Times contained the following information about Cerullo
healing crusades:

"Miss Audrey Reynolds attended a Morris Cerullo healing crusade in London and believed she was healed of a brain abnormality. She stopped taking her medicine and, as a result, suffered a fatal brain seizure. Sir Montague Levine, the Southwark Coroner, told the inquest, 'It was a tragedy that she went to this meeting and thought she was cured of everything. Sadly, it led to her death.' Andrew Fergusson, a general practitioner for ten years and currently the General Secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship, was present at the Earl's Court meetings. He recently wrote, 'The healing miracles of the New Testament were instant, total reversals of obvious, organic disease which nobody could argue with, and indeed that was the gold standard Cerullo set by his advertising. We saw nothing verifiable that approached this'" (Evangelical Times, September 1992, reprinted in Australian Beacon, Oct. 1992).

Foundation magazine, published by the Fundamental Evangelistic Association of Los Osos, California,
wisely warns: "Multitudes have been discouraged and led astray by so-called faith healers such as
Cerullo. Their paths are strewn with heartbreak and confusion. I realize that many feel it is wrong to speak publicly against supposed Christian preachers such as this, but this type of thing is a great wickedness. It is a serious matter to claim that God wants to heal every sickness" (Foundation, May-June 1980).

DAVID YONGGI CHO of Seoul, Korea is one of the most influential Pentecostal preachers alive today. (His name was Paul Yonggi Cho until 1992, when he claimed that God personally changed his name.) He pastors the 850,000-member Yoido Full Gospel Church, the world's largest church, and because of his "success" he has impressed and misled multitudes of other Pentecostals and even non-Pentecostals in this pragmatism-crazed generation. John Wimber said that Cho's growth through "signs and wonders" was one of the chief things that impressed him to follow that route.

That Cho walks in the mainstream of the Pentecostal movement is evident in that he regularly speaks at large, broadly attended Pentecostal meetings, such as the 15th Pentecostal World Conference in 1989. He also moves fairly freely in evangelical circles and has been promoted by men such as Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren of "Purpose Driven Church" fame, Peter Wagner of Fuller Theological Seminary, Bill Hybels of the Willowcreek Association, and Elmer Towns, co-founder with Jerry Falwell of Liberty University.

Cho claims that he received the call to preach directly and personally from Jesus Christ, who supposedly appeared to him dressed like a fireman ("Paul Yonggi Cho," Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements).

Cho teaches that God promises healing and prosperity for every believer. In fact, he considers this part of the gospel. The church's web site presents a "five fold gospel" – the gospel of regeneration, the gospel of the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the gospel of divine healing, the gospel of blessing, and the gospel of the advent. By adding "healing, blessing, the fulness of the Holy Spirit, and the advent" to the apostolic gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (which Paul, by divine inspiration, carefully delineated as "the gospel" in 1 Cor. 15:1-4), these churches have perverted the gospel and Paul warned that if someone adds to or changes the gospel, they are cursed of God (Galatians 1:6-8).

As of 2005, 279 of the Yoido Full Gospel Church's 527 pastors were women.

Cho's book The Fourth Dimension sets out his strange doctrine, and in typical Pentecostal fashion he claims that he received it directly from God. According to Cho, the "third dimension" is the material world, while the "fourth dimension" is the spiritual world. Through concentrating the effect of visions and dreams in their imagination, people can influence the third dimension by the power of the Spirit similar to what happened on the first day of creation when the Holy Spirit set to work on the earth. Cho teaches that effective prayer requires visualizing the thing desired exactly in your mind before God and "incubating" that very image in your heart by faith until you receive it. "Through visualization and dreaming you can
incubate your future and hatch the results" (The Fourth Dimension, p. 44). He describes how that God allegedly taught him this doctrine through personal revelation when he was a young preacher. He was praying for a desk, a chair, and a bicycle and was discouraged because his prayer was not answered when God allegedly said: "Don't you know that there are dozens of desks, chairs and bicycles? But you've simply asked Me for a desk, chair and bicycle. You never ordered a specific desk, chair and bicycle." Learning his lesson well, Cho ordered up a certain mahogany desk, a specific chair with rollers on the tips "so he could push himself around like a big shot," and a "bicycle made in the USA, with gears on the side," and he has been allegedly operating in fourth dimensional power ever since.

To a woman who was concerned because her prayers for a husband were not answered after ten years
Cho replied, "Until you see your husband clearly in your imagination you can't order, because God will never answer. You must see him clearly before you begin to pray."

Cho admits that he borrowed some of his teaching from Buddhist sects that allegedly operate in
miracles in Korea and Japan.

Ignoring the Bible's emphasis on faith and the fact that most who witnessed Christ's mighty miracles did not believe, Cho claims that "without seeing miracles, people cannot be satisfied that God is powerful. It is you [Christians] who are responsible to supply miracles for these people."

Dr. Peter Masters, senior pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England, has examined Cho's teaching carefully and warns: "What has built the largest church in the world? The answer is, an idolatrous mixture of biblical teaching and pagan mind-techniques. God is deprived of His sovereignty in the believer's affairs, and the authority of Scripture is replaced by the authority of supposedly direct
messages from God and the produce of the imagination. This is the kind of church which has moved hordes of impressionable Christian teachers the world over to jump on to the healing-prophesying bandwagon. We need to take very great care in these days" (Masters, The Healing Epidemic, "Occult Healing Builds World's Largest Church," 1988).

We have only exposed the "tip of the iceberg" in relation to the errors of the Word-Faith movement, but this warning should be more than enough for any Bible-based Christian.

The previous material is from the author's 317-page book THE PENTECOSTAL-CHARISMATIC
MOVEMENTS: THE HISTORY AND THE ERROR, available from Way of Life Literature. This book begins with my own experience with the Pentecostal movement. The next section deals with the history
of the Pentecostal movement, beginning with a survey of miraculous signs from the second to the
18th centuries. In the last section of the book we carefully deal with the theological errors of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movements (such as exalting experience over Scripture, emphasizing the miraculous, Messianic and apostolic miracles can be reproduced today, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, tongues speaking, healing is guaranteed in the atonement, spirit slaying, spirit drunkenness, visions of Jesus, trips to heaven, women preachers, and ecumenism). The final section of the book answers the question: "Why are people deluded by Pentecostal-Charismatic error?"

AUTHOR: David Cloud, Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, www.wayoflige.org