I count Justin Peters to be a true man of God as well as a dear friend. He was very gracious to me in conducting this interview and I pray that the Lord uses the recording to draw many of His elect sheep out of deception.
Today I received an encouraging email from a lady named Rebekah who has come out of the word of faith movement:
Hi John!
I just finished listening to your podcast on the Bridge Radio from 2018. I just wanted to say thank you.
I grew up as a pastors kid at Rhema Bible Church and this entire testimony from you is SO encouraging and helpful.
I discovered the true gospel (how truly unholy I was & in need of a Lord and Savior) at age 33 (3yrs ago). And I do not believe I was a christian prior to that, though I debate myself at times, but I really was lord of my own life (had no concept of lordship of Christ) but wanted the savior. After listening to Paul Washer this past year, I’d say i was not 😂.
This I think is the dangerous side of prosperity gospel – it simply uses the Bible and Jesus to give people a “savior” and false assurance when they make a “decision”, “say a prayer”, or learn to speak in “tongues”. Like you explained, the holiness of God and sinful nature of man is never discussed.
Anyways, I don’t know anyone else like myself so hearing the story is so so encouraging. To hear it’s a long process in understanding the errors of word of faith “gospel”, and realize the true gospel…. and also just to know I’m not alone in unlearning a lot of things in order to learn them correctly and in context.
Also I never knew of the plagiarism of EW Kenyon. That’s crazy.
I still have family and friends in the movement. I’ve spoken a bit about what I think of today’s modern prophets and the lack of gospel teaching with some family and friends, but don’t want to come across too harsh and have them totally write it off. I know I balked the first time I heard it.
Anyways, I just wanted to say thank you for sharing as it is encouraging and provides hope for family and friends still in it.
I was just interviewed on a reformed podcast based in Canada yesterday and was asked to speak about being a pastor in the word of faith movement and the Biblical principles the Lord used to bring me out. You can find the interview at this link:
A Review of the book, “God, Greed, and the (Prosperity) Gospel: How Truth Overwhelms a Life Built on Lies” by Graeme Adams, Senior Pastor, Ballymoney Elim Pentecostal Church, Ballymoney, Northern Ireland:
What this book is not, is as important as what it is. It’s not a drive by hit job. It’s not a rant. It’s not a cold graceless cheap shot at an easy target, nor is it a snipers bullet fired from a safe distance. Costi is no spiritual trophy hunter. He is fully engaged in a very real spiritual battle to bring truth to those entangled in the deception of the Prosperity Gospel.
Costi’s story is a disarmingly honest up
close and personal account of a life lived within the household of Prosperity
Gospel Royalty and his painful journey out of it. That’s what makes this book
as heart rending as it is heart warming, as painful as it is persuasive, and as
compassionate as it is convincing.
Starting with the Preface Costi wastes no
time in clearly laying out his motivation and purpose for writing. His passion for the Glory of God above all
things is made clear early on, and it’s this guiding conviction that shapes the
book. In the end we are left in no doubt that Costi Hinn has been transformed
by the grace of God and longs for his beloved family and others to come to the
life transforming knowledge of Jesus Christ.
In the first chapter the reader is immediately
plunged into the life of the young ‘royal’ as we see the nonchalant teen-age
Costi almost missing out on his ‘prosperity gospel inheritance’ over a mess of
Cheez-Its! What follows is a fascinating
insight into the Hinn familys’ rise from humble beginnings in war torn Israel
in 1967 to lavish riches in what became their Promised Land, North America.
Life for the young prince of prosperity
wasn’t all a bed of roses though; there were tough and testing times as a kid
in the school environment where the Hinn name was more a burden than a
blessing. All of this was brought to a
head, so to speak! (read the book) by a shocking incident involving a
skateboard! However in that moment Costi encountered incredible kindness
instead of the rejection he assumed was coming his way, prompting this from the
confused kid… “What in the world is
wrong with these people?” Later he would
reflect… “At the time, I believed I had a special anointing they most certainly
didn’t have. Looking back, I can see they were the ones who possessed something
I didn’t have. Grace.”
The story of uncle
George and his illness in chapter 3 is heart-breaking and highlights some of
the most callous abuses found in the Word of Faith movement. If this were
an isolated case it would be bad enough, but sadly as Costi and many others have
documented, it is all too common within the sphere of influence of the
Prosperity Gospel. This account alone should be enough to wake up and
motivate all right minded people to compassionate and concerted efforts to
highlight these abuses and rescue those caught in this snare.
As Costi toured the world serving Uncle
Benny he began to be awakened to see what was really going on around him and
what he himself had now become a part of.
Following a particularly “slimy” appeal for financial offerings in Helsinki
he felt very uncomfortable, he recalls, “I cringed. It was as though suddenly I
had a conscience.” Later, on a ministry
trip to India the stark contrast between the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by Word
Of Faith royalty and the grinding poverty and hopelessness he witnessed
prompted him to have a further crisis of conscience. These poor people would be among those called
upon to give sacrificially ‘to God’ later at the huge ‘miracle mission’. Costi, “I felt confused and angry. What’s wrong with this picture? I wondered.” By the grace of God it wouldn’t be too much
longer till he found the answer to that question.
Costi’s account of what
he refers to as his ‘grace awakening’ is simple and supernatural, yes the two
very often go together without the need for razzmatazz, or background
music. Clearly the greatest miracle of
all can and does still happen today…‘at Bethesda’! I’ll not spoil the
moment with a quote, get the book and read it for yourself; it’s worth it for
this paragraph alone.
This is not the kind of
book you can read and forget easily. I found it to be captivating, compelling
and deeply challenging, it is a clarion call to action.
What now for Costi Hinn? What now for us? What now for those who care passionately about the glory of God and the true life transforming Gospel? What now for those ensnared in deception and lost in darkness? We surely cannot pass by on the other side and pretend that we don’t see what is happening, can we? We must know by now that this so called Prosperity Gospel is much more than a flash in the pan; it’s a wild and strange fire that is threatening to consume our house!
In this excellent book
Costi has sounded an alarm and has succeeded in doing what too few of us even
attempt to do, and that is to explicitly
expose error by speaking out with courage, compassion, clarity and consistency.
As Costi so rightly
says, we are all in some way part of the problem. “We’ve collectively played some
role in the rise of prosperity theology at some point. Whether by passive
silence or active participation, we allow false gospels to get a footing. We
need to take responsibility together, whether we believe we should or not, to
eradicate evils like the prosperity gospel. That begins with committing
ourselves to defending the true gospel at all costs.” (157)
The ‘fall out’ from Costi’s ‘grace awakening’ clearly reminds us that Following Christ Costs! Costi has, Like Moses before him … “…considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt…” (Hebrews 11:26) Following Jesus has cost Costi Hinn in many ways, but that’s what he signed up for. What did we ‘sign up’ for?… ‘anything for a quiet life’ is not a good answer.
(The book is due for release on July 9, 2019 and can be pre-ordered now)
This last Sunday I had the privilege of teaching/preaching three times at Reformation Orthodox Presbyterean Church in Apache Junction, Arizona. In the Sunday School hour, I was asked to share something of my personal testimony regarding how the Lord brought me out of the deception of the word of faith movement:
