| Author | Message | ||
| Max |
Simon Sorcerer KENNETH E. HAGIN Dead giveaway: Shameless self-promotion. Hagin boasts of personal visits to heaven and hell. Also of voyeuristic, pornographic out-of-body experiences. Example (quoting Hanegraaff, p.32-33): "Hagin claims he was in the middle of a sermon when suddenly he was transported back in time. He ended up in the back seat of a car and watched as a young woman from his church committed adultery with the driver. The entire experience lasted about fifteen minutes, after which Hagin abruptly found himself back in church, summoning his parishioners to prayer." Nuff sed. | ||
| Graceambassador |
Hey Max! Great Max! Although I do not agree with Hank's approach to error, (I believe all of us are sometimes heretics in a couple of points, THANK GOD FOR GRACE!!!) but his overall assessment of comtemporary errors is right on the money! I am glad you read his book! The faith movement with its "I" centered has destroyed the genuine "charismatic" movement, where people sincerely sought to pursue learning and living by the Word of God. If you do not mind my joke: THANK GOD THE CHARISMATICS HAVE UNCLE MILT TO BRING THEM BACK INTO BIBLICAL BALANCE! Grace Ambassador | ||
| Max |
Simon Sorcerer KENNETH COPELAND Dead giveaways: This mere human being: 1. "Pronounces God to be the greatest failure of all time," 2. "Proclaims that 'Satan CONQUERED Jesus on the cross,'" and 3. "Describes Christ in hell as an 'emaciated, poured out, little, wormy spirit.'" | ||
| Max |
Simon Sorcerer BENNY HINN Dead giveaway: Blasphemer of Holy Scripture. Unscriptural claims: 1. That the Holy Spirit revealed to HIM that God originally designed women to give birth out of their sides. (Freudian slipup?) 2. That HE has healed thousands. Writes Hannegraaff (p.34): One of the cases involved a man who was suposedly healed of colon cancer. A medically naive person reading the pathology report may well see the notation "no evidence of malignancy" and be duped into thinking that a bona fide healing had indeed taken place. The Christian Research Institute's medical consultant, however, noted that the colon tumor in question was SURGICALLY removed rather than miraculously healed! | ||
| Max |
Simon Sorcerer JOHN AVANZINI Specialty: Separating poor people from their money. His pitch: "A greater than lottery has come. His name is Jesus!" Or, rather, his name is John Avanzini! If Jesus was rich, claims Avanzini, we should be rich as well. Writes Hannegraaff (p.35): He recasts Christ into a mirror image of himself -- complete with designer clothes, a big house, and a wealthy, well-financed advance team. One wonders who comprised the membership of Jesus of Nazareth's "wealthy, well-financed advance team"! John the Baptist? Joseph and Mary? The shepherds in the fields watching their sheep by night? Ah! I rememer! The three kings from India who followed the star of Bethlehem! Favored ploy: "Teaching people how to get their hands on the 'wealth of the wicked'" (Hannegraaff, p.35). He means you and me, folks! | ||
| Graceambassador |
MAX AND ALL: I just have to postpone my nap and arise from my rest to say something that I believe is timely: Do not say of a washing machine: Well, this machine did not work as its instruction book, therefore, ALL WASHING MACHINES are junk and the manufacturer a liar. I will DO ALL MY LAUNDRY BY HAND HENCEFORTH! All Max is saying about these preachers is and has been one time or another true. It has been 10 years since Hank wrote Christianity in Crisis. Hank himself has been raised Church of God, a Pentecostal denomination. I do not want to sound cruel, but Hank had a terrible experience with healing in his own family and WITHOUT BEING JUDGEMENTAL, his motivation for writing against healers may be pure bitterness. The way he addresses the issues, does sound bitter anyway. Healing IS a tool for the body of Christ today. Every time there is intense and clear demonstration of God's power, there is along with it the DEMONIC COUNTERFEIT. Hank writes about this DEMONIC COUNTERFEITS, no doubt about it. I however, beseech ALL OF YOU not to shy away from seeking healing when you need it because you may feel that there is no such interest in God's heart today. YOU MAY, AS MANY, EVEN BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE SICK BECAUSE IT IS GOD'S WILL FOR YOU TO BE SICK. IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEN, I STERNLY WARN YOU NOT TO TAKE ANY MEDICINE OR GO TO THE DOCTOR. WHY WOULD YOU GO AGAINST GOD'S WILL?. In summary, DO NOT THROW THE BATH WATER WITH THE BABY! I, as Hank and Max, am very familiar with fake healings. I've seen people in wheel chairs who were in the wheel chairs because they had a heart attack or something like that. THEY COULD WALK VERY WELL HOWEVER! The fake healer went to their wheel chair and screamed "RISE UP IN THE NAME OF...(I refuse to repeat) and the person did rise UP AND WALK BECAUSE THEY COULD WALK ALL ALONG AND NOT WALKING WAS NOT THE REASON THEY WERE IN THE WHEEL CHAIR. The choir shouted HALELLUYAH, the people started to scream in collective hysteria and no one noticed that NOTHING ACAUTLLY HAPPENED THAT CAN EVEN REMOTELY BE CALLED A HEALING. DO I HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO TEACH THESE PEOPLE OR WHAT? I NEED YOUR PRAYERS BECAUSE SHUNNING IS COMMON AND I BELIEVE YOU, AND A FORMER SDA ARE FAMILIAR WITH SHUNNING. But, Paul says, EXAMINE EVERYTHING. PROVE EVERYTHING AND RETAIN THAT WHICH IS GOOD. In Uncle Milt's translation: Eat the fish but do not get choked with the bones!!! Grace Ambassador | ||
| Max |
Simon Sorcerer ROBERT TILTON Key heresy: Misunderstanding the cross: "If I'm going to go to the cross, I'm going to go in a pretty place [Hawaii]. Not some dusty place like Jerusalem. That's gravel is all that place is." Claim: That God inspired him: He "realized his mission was to persuade the poor to give what they could to HIM -- God's surrogate -- so that they too could be blessed." With such "blessings," what need have we of curses? This "surrogate of God" so sacrificed himself for the poor that he was able to use the moneys they donated to him to amass a real estate empire that "takes in as much as 65 million dollars per year" (Hannegraaff, p.35). And the blessed poor are now suing. Writes Hannegraaff (p.35): Responding to charges that the prayer request letters he promises to pray over end up in dumpsters, Tilton claims, "I laid on top of those prayer requests so much that the chemicals actually got into my blood stream, and ... I had two small strokes in my brain." | ||
| Max |
Simon Sorcerer MARILYN HICKEY Hickey unscripturally claims: 1. "The God-kind of faith." 2. "Confession brings possession." 3. "Receiving follows giving." Although you may find some texts that SEEM to support these claims -- such as "Ask and ye shall receive" -- they are nevertheless false and unscriptural because they ASSUME that "the believer" controls God, which is original sin. The truth: God remains sovereign: unmocked, unminipulated, uncontrolled. Read Job. Examples of Hickey's money extraction techniques: If you will send her $$$$$, she will: 1. "Slip into a ceremonial breastplate." 2. "Press your prayer request to [her] heart." 3. "Place your requests on [her] shoulders." | ||
| Max |
Simon Sorcerer CHARLES CAPPS Key heresy: God-manipulating voodoo. Proof: Capps claims that if you say: 1. "I'm just dying to see the giant pandas at the National Zoo in Washington DC, and you go and see them," then you will LITERALLY die. 2. "That just tickled me to death," then you will LITERALLY die. Don't laugh. He's serious. Writes Hannegraaff (p.37): "According to Capps, this is precisely why members of the human race now live only about 70 years instead of 900 years, as was the case with Adam." | ||
| Max |
Simon Sorcerer JERRY SAVELLE Heresy No. 1: God complex: "Savelle boasts that sickness and disease cannot enter HIS world." Heresy No. 2: Voodoo: "Words can speak your world into existence." Specialty: Separating the credulous poor from their money: "Savelle now peddles his books and tapes to 36 countries at the astonishing rate of some 300,000 copies per year." | ||
| Patti |
Uncle Milt, How can people judge the false if they do not know the Truth? Isn't the best way to protect people from falsehood to firmly ground them in the Truth? Does warning of a counterfeit ever convince people of the Truth? In short: Isn't the Gospel the litmus test by which to judge all the "spirits"? If we don't know the Gospel, we cannot discern them as being true or false, anyway. So...is there any reason for us to preach anything OTHER than our perfectly fulfilled salvation in Jesus Christ? Grace and peace, Patti | ||
| Max |
Simon Sorcerer MORRIS CERULLO Indictment: God complex. Proof: "You're not looking at Morris Cerullo -- you're looking at God. You're looking at Jesus." Some claims (Hanegraaff, p.38): He was: 1.Led out of a Jewish orphanage by two angelic beings. 2. Transported to heaven for a face-to-face meeting with God [shades of EGW!]. 3. Told he would be capable of revealing the future. Bottom line $$$$$ extraction technique: "Would you surrender your pocketbooks unto Me [Cerullo], saith God, and let Me be the Lord of your pocketbooks . . . . Yea, so be thou obedient unto My voice." | ||
| Max |
Simon Sorcerer PAUL CROUCH Indictment (Hanegraaff p.38-39): "Promoting cultic groups and individuals who not only deny the trinity but claim that this essential of Christianity is a pagan doctrine." Irony (Hanegraaff): The name of his TV empire is "Trinity Boradcasting Network." Malediction against Hannegraaff and others who "speak out against the false teachings proliferated on his network": "They're damned and on their way to hell; and I don't think there's any redemption for them." Writes Hannegraaff: "Crouch''s influence has become so vast that he can now raise as much as 50 million dollars during a single 'Praise-a-Thon.'" Commentary by Max: I saw a Crouch production on TV. They had piled up the current donations on a low table in the middle of the soundstage. Then the talent all gathered round. The ones closest to the table placed their hands upon the mountain of checks and cash and knelt in prayer. Some who couldn't touch the money for the size of the crowd surrounding it placed their hands on the backs of those who placed their hands on the money. Others, who coldn't even reach the "inner circle," place their hands on the backs of those of who were placing their hands on the backs of the "inner circle." All knelt in a looong series of prayers. And the thought suddenly hit me: Hey! They're not praying to their God in heaven! They're praying to their god piled up on the table! Now, maybe I was wrong in thinking that. But that is in truth exactly what I thought at the time. But you be the judge as to whom you send your $$$$$$$$. Max of the Cross | ||
| Max |
Cindy and Uncle Milt, I agree: We do NOT preach faith-response or ROS (repentance, obedience and submission) -- if it is detached from the historical Christ hanging on the cross. Nor do we preach grace -- if it is detached from the historical Christ hanging on the cross. We preach ONLY the historical Christ hanging on the cross. For if we preach grace detached from the historical Christ hanging on the cross, we preach pseudograce, false grace, "cheap grace" (Bonhoeffer), the "grace" of Adolf Hitler and the right-wing "Christian" rise to Nazi power of 1930s Germany during which Dr. Bonhoeffer was martyred for his ROS faith-response to grace UNDETACHED from the historical Christ hanging on the cross. Such bogus grace -- "changed grace" (Jude 4) -- doesn't save. The historical Christ hanging on the cross saves. God's grace is the way He has in his sovereign will -- that we cannot mock or manipulate in any way -- has chosen to transmit the historical Christ hanging on the cross to us. God's unasked-for, imposed-from-without grace demands our all. It ALWAYS comes with a test attached. That test differs from person to person. It differs from time to time in a person's life. This always remains under God's sovereign control -- not ours. Our "all" always involves ROS -- repentance, obedience, and submission to the will of God. Uncle Milt, I do differ with you at least slightly on this point: You said, if I read you correctly, that the purpose of the gospel was to: SHOW or INDICATE salvation by grace. I agree with that, of course, but I assert that more is involved. The gospel of grace of Christ hanging on the historical cross does more: It also EFFECTS the change, the transformation, from spiritual death to life in the Holy Spirit. It puts Christ in us, the hope of glory, BY our leave. For, if the Son God makes you free, you are free indeed! For if the Holy Spirit is in you, so is the Son God and the Father God, since God is One and only One. Bottom line: We don't choose God, we don't elect God, we don't -- as that great heretic Dr. Graham Maxwell so elequently phrases it -- "VOTE FOR GOD"! Rather, God chooses us! Elects us! Votes for us! Blessings to one and all, Max of the Cross | ||
| Maryann |
A quick question that has puzzled me for years and my son has asked this general question too. When a missionary goes to poor country that has had NO Christianity of any kind and sets up "house keeping" by teaching the children basic knowledge in basic areas, give them medical attention, start a church, send the most motivated ones to universities, bring food, teach them how to have a better life style, how do these natives "TEST" the truth and stand firm on truth? How do they test the gospel? Before you answer, remember two things. Any religion from Evangelical to Mormon get MANY converts when they go in and teach them what they "BELIEVE" is right and show them kindness in the meantime. Second and most important. I will share this with my 12 year old son and would hope that the answers given will be up-lifting and in the range of understanding for a child. IBC | ||
| Max |
IBC, Is it up to us to speculate on how the "natives" are led by the Holy Spirit? | ||
| Max |
Valerie, Did I hear you singing, "I OWE, I OWE, SO OFF TO WORK I GO...."? Max | ||
| Valm |
Max, I am afraid so. My motives of saving babies is not completely pure. Valerie | ||
| Max |
Valerie, 1 Corinthians 9:6 Is it only I [Paul] and Barnabas who must work for a living? 7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk? 8 Do I say this merely from a human point of view? Doesn't the Law say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Surely he says this for us, doesn't he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? And much more blessings to you as well, MC | ||
| Graceambassador |
Dear Patti: GREAT QUESTION! Uncle Milt, How can people judge the false if they do not know the Truth? Isn't the best way to protect people from falsehood to firmly ground them in the Truth? Does warning of a counterfeit ever convince people of the Truth? The answer to your question has been one the strongest pillars of my ministry. I will exemplify with a secular illustration. Then a Biblical one. In the Federal Reserve, it is known that in order to train a worker to identify a fake dollar bill, they put this worker through a rigorous training where, for months, HE ONLY HANDLES real dollar bills. The principle is that the more one has contact with the REAL THING, the MORE LIKELY THEY WILL BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY THE FALSE. ALSO, HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYONE COUNTERFEITING GROCERY STORE BROWN BAGS...? DO YOU KNOW WHY DO THEY COUNTERFEIT 100 DOLLAR BILLS AND DO NOT CONTERFEIT GROCERY STORE BROWN BAGS? BECAUSE THERE IS VALUE IN A 100 DOLLAR BILL! The DEVIL WILL NOT COUNTERFEIT A MUSLIM, A BUDHIST, OR EVEN A SDA! BUT HE WILL COUNTERFEIT THE REAL WORK OF THE SPIRIT TODAY IN THE BODY OF CHRIST. HE WILL COUNTERFEIT A CHRISTIAN BECAUSE THERE IS VALUE IN A CHRISTIAN. IT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT DWELLING IN HIM/HER Same with the Gospel sister Patti! (SORRY SAINTS, BUT I AM FULL OF THESE ILLUSTRATIONS, I AM A PUBLIC SPEAKER, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?} Now the Biblical one: At Bible school I had a teacher who liked to read the Bible idenpendent of Chapters and verses, right off the Greek, translating immediately into English. The point is to avoid the normal confusion that the non-inspired division between chapters and verses and the PONCTUATION, which very few are able to master, causes. One of the few scriptures that I remember is when the professor was reading Paul's instructions to Timothy and Paul describes to Timothy all kinds of false teachings in the Church. Then he simple instructs Timothy, BUT YOU, PREACH THE WORD... It may not appear that way in our English translations, but that is what it is. The explanation, I believe to be similar to the "counterfeit one" above. The antidote for false teaching is PREACHING TRUE TEACHING! No other remedy! I know some think that truth is relative and there is no such thing as truth even in Gospel circles. Well, PREACH THE WORD... The TRUE WORD has a particular and Spiritual way to penetrate the strongest of all walls of separation. The ELECT, Christ Sheep, WILL HEAR HIS VOICE!!! Period. I go to Charismatic circles, (I just had an experience no more than 2 hours ago), and announce the TRUE WORD. The intention is not to split the Church or cause rebellion. The intention is to do God's work. The CONSEQUENCES ARE IN MY PAY SCHEDULE! It is up to God! I will keep doing such until they shoot me. Then, they will have to shoot me again because until I finish God's calling for me I WILL SURVIVE!************************************************* TO ALL: THE UNCLE MILT THING: MANY THING THAT I AM DIMISHED IN MY DIGNITY BECAUSE OF THIS NICKNAME. I TRULY APPRECIATE THEIR CONCERN. BUT WHEN I WAS A MINISTER TO YOUNG PEOPLE IN SKID ROW, A TYPE OF TEEN CHALLENGE WORK, THE KIDS WOULD COME TO THE LORD, CLEAN UP AND INSTEAD OF CALLING ME REVEREND, THEY WOULD CALL ME UNCLE MILT... WITH MORE RESPECT THAN THOSE WHO DID CALL ME REVEREND! I RECENTLY TRAVELED TO BRASIL AND A FLIGHT ATTENDAND, A GIRL, SAW IN MY SON'S GUITAR THE SYMBOL OF YOUTH WITH A MISSION. SHE ASKED ME IF I WAS A CHRISTIAN AND I INTRODUCED MYSELF AS A MINISTER, SHARE WITH HER A FEW WORDS FROM THE BIBLE, AND 5 MINUTES LATER WHE WAS CALLING ME UNCLE... WHAT CAN I DO? IT IS JUST NATURAL. I ASKED... IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MILTON BERLE OR ANY OTHER TV CHARACTER. THEY SAY THAT IT IS JUST SOMETHING THAT MAKES THEM FEEL CONFORTABLE WITHOUT LOSING RESPECT BY CALLING ME UNCLE MILT. PERHAPS I SHOULD MODIFY THE BIBLE TEXT IN EPHESIANS 4: GOD HAS GIVEN TO SOME APOSTLES, SOME PROPHETS, SOME PASTORS, SOME TEACHERS AND SOME EVANGELISTS, AND TO SOME UNCLE MILT... SO, PLEASE, I DO NOT MIND, I DO NOT FEEL DIMISHED BY PEOPLE CALLING ME UNCLE MILT... IT IS OKAY!!! Grace Ambassador or... |
