How Can You Tell If You're Hearing The Prosperity Gospel? - Costi Hinn & Michael Cerullo

I'm curious to hear from both you guys when did you start to see red flags I mean how was it that the Lord kind of opened your eyes in the middle of this to the gospel to His grace to suffering in the Christian life and what that actually looks like and and yeah I'd love to hear from you mine was a process I would point to I'm a preacher and a pastor so it's gonna be a three-point mini-stroke in here isn't it amazing how every passage in the Bible has three points they only do yeah they're always absolutely I'm surprised more people don't see that so you know jokes aside three things I would point to you got the coach the girl in the pastor well I ended up going to Dallas Baptist University to play baseball it's a great d1 school before I go my family says hey be real careful don't let the Baptist brainwash you they teach a solid word but they have no spirit no power there's no anointing there so take what you can get go play your baseball and come on back home so I go to Texas and the coach there talks about the sovereignty of God all the time we get called up one afternoon scrimmage game Yankee scout in the stands to see a few players who are in the big leagues now and the thought process everyone's nervous thinking well if you play well in the scrimmage game you get noticed too so coach sees us all he's young just uptight kids calls us up says hey guys listen relax Roberts 21:1 says the heart of the King is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord he turns it wherever he wishes he is a sovereign God he controls Kings he controls Scouts relax go play the game have fun God's in control and I'm sitting there thinking what are you talking about I got a ten thousand dollar Breitling watch in my locker right now Limited Edition I got a Hummer on 22s with TVs in it I'm living the high life you want to talk about knowing how to control God I know how to get the sovereign God to do what I want I just speak it by faith I believe it by faith this Baptist guy driving his white Toyota Camry doesn't know what he's talking about and but it stuck with me and later on in in my years I realized that's a crack in the dam moving on after that season of getting the the gospel truthfully the Bible being walked with they were always patient and kind to me which was really weird because I knew that they were bothered by the theology that I came from I meet this girl she's from California she drives a Yaris I drive a Hummer her parents are blue collar workers my father-in-law and ironworker mother-in-law schoolteacher literally this girl puts herself puts herself through college and is nothing like my family and starts questioning things humbly but saying you know the Bible says this I'm kind of a newer believer and it doesn't really line up and you guys fly on private planes and you live in you have two homes I'm like yeah and how does that all work I mean just help me understand there's a lot of HMU going on help me understand and I start realizing that she's asking the right questions and so one day my family was teaching you have to speak in tongues as evidence of salvation and we stumble upon first Corinthians 12:30 where Paul's say not all do they essentially you know rhetorical obvious no answers not everyone's gonna operate on all the gifts not everyone has to operate in all nine or what have you my family is to say we have all nine gifts if you're a hymn you have all nine gifts of the Holy Spirit just like there are nine persons of the Trinity absolutely that was one of the things my uncle taught in the 90s and had to retract and you know you get in a lot of trouble when you start taking liberties but it works in the inner circle you say what you want you do what you want Michael will tell you the story after story of how you handle money how you teach and people are just wowed it's like they're drinking the kool-aid it's essentially cult-like because no one ever questions and if they do you simply say don't touch the Lord's anointed don't put God in the box and God told me that's the ultimate trump card so this gal doesn't do any of the things that she's supposed to do we take her to services she gets people laying hands on her she's not getting it and we start asking big questions and dominoes start falling more cracks in the dam leading to point number three in the mini sermon the pastor I end up getting a way of escape essentially that the Lord providentially provides I end up over here in Southern California at a little church plant that was kind of a seeker driven model so of course let the hint Kidd in who cares maybe it's good for numbers I get there the church starts changing and he goes you know I'm tired of playing the game I can't figure out how to make people come back anymore I'm exhausted they're coming I'm tired of doing this he had all the bells and whistles we were you know putting on a big show he goes on study retreat our lead pastor and comes back and says we're going through a book and that's it so we're thinking what book like by by hybels or by what okay so he gets so our pastor comes back from study leave and says we're going through a book so we're all thinking okay which one what marketing plea no Bill Hybels like what cool thing are we doing now to grow this thing even bigger he goes no like a book like the Gospel of John a Bible book so we're talking okay he says it's called expository preaching I hear okay well let's try that so we start going through John and then he says hey Casta Europe on this date this is your text and everything was sequential verse by verse it was not pre-planned the Providence and sovereign hand of God of course now I see well it's my turn to preach John 5:1 through 17 the healing of the Pool of Bethesda and I'm thinking I'm a hint I got nailed and what you want to hear me preach on healing I got this well I start studying my pastor throws me a commentary I'd never used one before hadn't really seen one before and it's by this ultra conservative theologian and he goes hey this will keep the Train on the tracks in your study I'm thinking okay so I apply some of the principles of interpretation that I had learned I mean basic stuff just make observations ask questions of the text something I'd never done because you don't you just make up what you want and say God told me and I see jesus heals one man out of a multitude I'm thinking that's really weird we used to say you're gonna it's always God's will God's gonna heal everybody so I circled that make some notes going down John's beautiful explanation he says immediately after the man was healed Jesus says arise pick up your pallet and walk John records immediately thinking that's interesting no music no atmosphere no fanfare no anointed leader no jacket not even funny I used to think that the jacket was an anointed mantle kind of Elijah Elisha esque well that's odd keep going John then explains the man goes off the pharisees see him go who told you you can pick up your pallet and walk it's the sabbath you can't work they have all these little extras and putting them on the people the guy goes the man who healed me and John records this really interesting word that he didn't know who Jesus was the word meaning he didn't even perceive I'm going well if you didn't how did he not know he didn't know who Jesus was so my wires stopped firing because to me you got to know Jesus you got to have enough faith you got to give an offering I mean this is not the picture of healing that I believed and it incurred all of my theology too so I'm gonna go to this commentary I open it up and this guy tees off on the sovereignty of God he says here's a beautiful example of Christ's sovereign authority and power to heal sometimes he's moved with compassion sometimes he simply heals people out of his own volition and will it is always a sovereign act of God and I remember the coach and that crack in that dam starts to just burst forth and I keep reading and he says here we see and understand the cruelest lie of faith healers today Wow that if people don't get healed they're guilty of negative confession a lack of faith so he starts teeing off and I start bursting into tears that was me he essentially read my mail read my resume there it was that's what I believe and so in the office at that time I'm studying as a pastor for a sermon I start weeping I repent of my sin everything makes sense I start saying I've got to preach the true gospel so I vowed in that moment I'll preach the truth I'll lose my title I became pastor in training piti like a pledge at a fraternity I go to seminary I my pastor I came into his office and I was like I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna take down this thing I'm gonna call out those heretics and he said no you're not sit down and he said God is sovereign right I said yeah listen he's got a handle on his gospel he's got a handle on this world what do you want to be a pastor or some showman talking about the him thing I said well I want to be a pastor he said what does a pastor do he serves the local church he goes here's what you're gonna do and he said it in less eloquent terms he basically said sit down be quiet and you go serve these people that God has given us to serve and then if God decides to use you he'll make it clear and when he does you better be ready because you got to rightly divide the word are you first Timothy 3:1 through said and I'm all the sudden going oh my goodness what so at that moment began four years of silence of counseling of seminary of just the word reconstructing and I'm thankful for him and what God used him to do in my life because when the time came he's the first phone call now that I make and it keeps my feet on the ground and I'm thankful for wise men like that praise the Lord for him Michael what was it for you I mean what were some of the red flags that you began to see that got the the dam open if you will yeah as I'm listening to cost you speak here I I'm grateful for you guys having me on today I think why would I come on talking about my family in a negative sense and I just I think about how I came out of the prosperity gospel and I hope that that God will use these kind of programs to bring others out of the prosperity gospel as well for me so I went to Oral Roberts University very charismatic college I then went to work for Mike Murdock who's a prosperity gospel teacher in Texas so I was I bought in from day one I wanted to be an entrepreneur a businessman and I wanted to you know reap the harvest of all the seeds I was sowing into anything with Kenneth Copeland and all yeah so from a young age I was going to conferences with with cost ease uncle Kenneth Copeland Paula White Joyce Meyer Myles Munroe I went to college with Myles and rose son and so I was a rounded all the time conferences throughout the year and I was going to a prosperity gospel church here in San Diego and I the crack for me was that was of one friend in particular was telling me that it was heretical and to look into these things and another thing for me was I didn't see the difference in the teaching I was hearing at church and Tony Robbins and so for me I felt like I was just hearing motivational teaching with no gospel and I knew the gospel enough to know that this wasn't the true gospel and so each week I was going wasn't even being mangled it just wasn't there right and when it was there it was so soft that I didn't know I was a sinner and my sins being saved and words like repentance holiness righteousness those just words that weren't used because they were there to encourage me make me feel better about myself and I wasn't being presented the true gospel so a friend of mine was a reformed friend was just sending me YouTube videos on preaching of really a solid guys and I started watching those and then I was still going in my prosperity gospel church and seeing like these two are not the same like one of these is focused on Christ and one of these is focused on me the individual and so eventually over time it was a slow process probably about a year and a half or so that I started to realize that I was not in a biblically faithful church and that even my own family was not preaching the gospel and then that's where it kind of leads into analyzing the conference's which is a the gospel is just not there it's all about health wealth anointing is a very big thing faith being a force there's so many different subject matters in the prosperity gospel even outside of finances that are just so missed supplied it misunderstood

Channel: Core Christianity

Views: 49,382

Rating: 4.8851962 out of 5

Keywords: Costi Hinn, Michael Cerullo, prosperity gospel, the gospel, Benny Hinn, Charismatic movement, Morris Cerullo, Jesus, healing, faith healing, Michael Horton, Adriel Sanchez

Id: TWyUxmLuUaQ

Length: 12min 26sec (746 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 22 2019