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BENNY HINN: THE PAINFUL, OTHER SIDE OF HIS ‘CONFESSION’….

Expectedly, Dr Benny Hinn’s ‘confession’ video is still creating massive ripples within Christian circles all over the world. And in the ensuing conversations, two distinct camps are emerging in the church in Nigeria.

There is the group that believes Benny Hinn has done a great thing in even venturing as far as he did in openly admitting that he has been wrong in his interpretation of the prosperity gospel. For our purpose here, let’s call this Group 1.

On the other hand, there is a smaller vocal group that is making the point that the ‘confession’ is half-hearted, and does not go far enough – considering the fact that he has amassed an IMMENSE FORTUNE as a direct result of the error he taught. Let’s call this Group 2.

Group 1 makes a good point about the need to avoid judging Benny Hinn’s motives that only God can see. They also highlight the need to be brotherly in rejoicing that Dr Hinn is, at least, moving in the right direction. A direction that most false preachers of the prosperity gospel are not even considering.

In truth, the valid argument of Group 1 is hinged only on ONE-SIDE of this multi-faceted subject. There is a MUCH WIDER perspective that is even more germane to the fundamental principles of the Christian faith. Group 1 is not only overlooking this important aspect, but is also viciously attacking Group 2 for holding this perspective, calling them all sorts of derogatory names.

Now, let’s consider the valid points that Group 2 is making. Christianity does not exist in the world in a vacuum. It exists as an Agency that God created to bring glory to Himself (Matthew 5:16). An Agency that God created to woo, win, and convert the world to Himself. This is the heart of the Great Commission that Christ gave His church.

In His plan to convert the world, God designed the church to be THE LIGHT in the darkness of the world. To be THE SALT in the corruption of the world. Jesus was clear about this when He described the church in those exact words in Matthew 5:13-15, making it clear that He wants the world to WATCH HIS CHURCH AS A MODEL. Here are His words in this regard: “A city that is set on an hill CANNOT BE HID.” (verse 14); "Let your light so shine before men, THAT THEY MAY SEE YOUR GOOD WORKS, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (verse 16). This is THE MANDATE that God gave the church in the world.

Undoubtedly, the Apostles of Christ understood this mandate clearly, and they had it in mind when they wrote passages like 1 Peter 2:12, 1 Peter 3:1, Titus 2:10, etc. That mandate was pivotal in their lives and ministries, as well as in the early church.

But our wayward generation of believers have not only lost this mandate, we seem not to care a hoot about it! Can we really IN TRUTH tell the world today that the church is its LIGHT? Or its SALT? It would obviously sound like a diabolical joke! And that is because of all the horrible stuff that the world sees in the church of today. And how some of the ways and standards of the world EXCEED the ways and standards of the church. Please read that last line again!

By the moral standards of decent societies in the world, the ‘confession’ of Benny Hinn would be considered a joke! A pathetic joke. For, by the moral standards of the world, when a man knowingly or unknowingly obtains A HUGE FORTUNE from people ‘by mistake’, he CANNOT be casual in dealing with the matter – as Benny Hinn did in the video. He acknowledged that he has been exaggerating the Bible’s teaching on prosperity. He pointed to those that taught him as the source of the error. He said he now knows better, and that his wealth is not up to $40 million as reported. And so on. Not once did he apologise for his action. Not once did he use the word ‘sorry’ to his millions of victims all over the world.

For, let’s face it, in his almost 40 years of ministry, Benny Hinn has collected BILLIONS OF DOLLARS from people through this erroneous teaching. According to widely available statistics, his ministry rakes in about $100 million annually. Apart from his ministry, Benny Hinn has also benefitted PERSONALLY from this money-spinning enterprise. This is reality.

To be fair, it may be unreasonable, impractical, or unwieldy to expect Benny Hinn to return all these monies. That is not the point. The point is that if you have collected Billions of Dollars in error, using the name of Jesus Christ to do so, the LEAST you can do is to GENUINELY APOLOGISE. And to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for your action.

Through this error, some lives may have been ruined! The prosperity gospel has done INCALCULABLE DAMAGE to the destiny and psyche of untold numbers of people – both in spiritual and physical terms. Under the ‘anointing’, in extreme cases, men like Benny Hinn are known to encourage and cajole their victims to go and close their bank accounts, and bring all the money in it ‘to God’! Many high-pressure tactics have been used in the name of Christ to take people’s money under the pretext that God will soon multiply the money. Clearly, this is EVIL! Thus, when the light dawns on the perpetrators of this evil (if any light is dawning at all), the least they can do is to be genuinely sorry!!!

This is the MINIMUM STANDARD that the world would expect and demand – be it in government, or in public enterprise. If this is the world’s MINIMUM STANDARD, why should the standard be MUCH LOWER in the church? If the church is not transparent and accountable, how can she ever hope to live up to its MANDATE as the light of the world? How can she justify her calling as the ‘wisdom of God’ in a dark and evil world?

It is only in the dark, dank, stinky corridors of the apostate church of today that evil men get away with all sorts of atrocities ‘in the name of Christ’. Many of the believers in these churches have been so BRAINWASHED as to be incapable of distinguishing right from wrong – when a ‘man of God’ is involved. In their deluded minds, ‘touch not my anointed’ is a divine umbrella that shields ‘men of God’ from accountability and taking responsibility for their action.

This is probably why the people in Group 2 are crying out against Benny Hinn! Let’s leave their motives for doing so aside for a while. For, if we are accusing them of judging Benny Hinn’s motive for repenting, are we not also guilty of judging their motive for crying out against him? Do you see the double-standard and hypocrisy? Rather than vilify these people, we should listen to them as they raise the banner of morality and accountability in the church!

We should encourage them for their bravery in raising their heads above the parapet of our sycophancy in the church, and above our culture of ‘men worship’. If this type of HARD truth-telling does not occur within the church, do we want God to raise another Daddy Freeze from outside the church to come and teach us what we are TOO CHICKEN to discuss among ourselves as brethren in Christ?

And if we get the message that Group 2 is passing across, the right response would be to be penitent in our hearts. Penitent when we realise that the church in our days is betraying the divine mandate to be a light in the world. Penitent that we are dragging the name of Christ in the mud. Penitent that our collective ‘mumuism’ is HINDERING the spread of the Gospel for which Christ Jesus died. It is a collective responsibility, a collective culpability, and a collective shame. For, as the Body of Christ, what happens to ONE happens to ALL.

The Apostles of Christ knew all these very well. Particularly, the importance of guarding the INTEGRITY OF THE GOSPEL jealously. They knew how the enemies of the Gospel can capitalise on our conduct/lifestyle to slur the name of Christ, and His Gospel. Thus, this was the guiding principle of their lives and ministries: "... but (we) suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ" (I Corinthians 9:12). How many ministers of Christ think and act with this mindset today? How many believers do so? How many think about the reputation of Christ and the Gospel AHEAD of ALL that we do or say in the world?

Even the orthodox churches still have a sense of shame/modesty that the Pentecostal churches seem to need desperately. For when the clergy in orthodox churches are embroiled in scandals on the world stage, they do come out to apologise and show some contrition. Their Pentecostal counterparts would barely ever do such. They have a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, say-no-evil culture that forms A RING OF STEEL around their erring ‘men of God’ – even when this involves ASSAULTING the truth!

Clearly, God is NOT a part of this charade!!! His standards for men that occupy leadership positions in the church is VERY HIGH. Personal integrity is very high up in that list. And it is also clearly written that such men MUST BE BLAMELESS – not involved in scandals (1 Timothy 3:7, Titus 1:6). God put all those commandments in place so that the integrity of the Gospel will not be compromised before a mocking, gloating world.

But the church of today does not care about these standards! ANY man that can perform miracles is AUTOMATICALLY a ‘man of God’ that must be revered, and shielded at ALL COSTS. Believers do not pay much attention to Jesus’ admonition that we should use the fruits of their lives to JUDGE all the men that come in His name. That is THE ONLY YARDSTICK for a true man of God. But the believers of today do not really care about this standard – because Jesus Himself has been relegated from the centre of His own Gospel! Like Esau, the believers of today have traded their ‘LIGHT and SALT’ mandate for a bowl of miracles and prosperity.

The church that still has an ear within this apostate church can NO LONGER AFFORD to be silent or complicit. Respectfully, and in love, we need to let the world know that there is a world of difference between the GENUINE Church of Jesus Christ (which still exists today), and the HUGE APOSTATE CHURCH that uses the name of Christ in vain.

This is how to contend for the faith in these dark days. And it is a duty that every genuine believer owes the Captain of our Salvation. Even when we have to love and nurture our erring brethren back to repentance, we must NEVER DO SO AT THE EXPENSE OF TRUTH. At the expense of a high standard that the world can TRULY seek to emulate. This is how to shine the LIGHT. This is how to honour the exalted name of our Saviour that calls Himself THE TRUTH. Jesus Christ expects no less from us. Let us all repent TODAY, and bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. The world is WATCHING – as God expects them to do.

Thanks for reading, God bless you.

WE THANK GOD FOR THE ‘CONFESSION’ OF BENNY HINN. BUT THAT IS STILL NOT THE WHOLE TRUTH….

As the Body of Christ, we ought to thank God for the ‘confession’ of Benny Hinn on how he, and other prosperity preachers, have misrepresented biblical truth on the true meaning of PROSPERITY in New Testament terms.

First, we ought to be grateful to God that one of the most visible proponents of this evil doctrine is OPENLY admitting the error. Second, we also need to be grateful that Benny Hinn is drawing nearer to the truth of the Gospel. In the current waywardness of the church, the ONLY thing God asks of us is to repent and abandon our sins, errors, and heresies to draw closer to the truth. This appears to be the path that Benny Hinn is taking. So, we should rejoice with him.

Third, we should commend the boldness of this globally recognised man in coming out to PUBLICLY hold up his hands, admitting that he has been wrong. And that he has been teaching a false, exaggerated doctrine for decades. This takes real courage and should be applauded. (Can we imagine that our own false prosperity-preachers in Nigeria will come out to ‘confess’ in this way?). So, we also ought to thank God for this. As well as the fact that some believers that have been brainwashed into that false doctrine can now begin to RE-THINK their belief system, and move away from this deadly error.

But in the midst of this euphoria and applause, we must not allow ourselves to be deceived and sucked into another subtle error. For in his widely shared video, Benny Hinn made some points that ought to be examined and challenged in the light of Scriptures.

In the video, he said he has now come to re-define biblical prosperity as THE ABSENCE OF LACK. Whereas this is partially true, it is NOT the whole, balanced truth of Scriptures! There are Bible accounts that show CLEARLY that, in walking faithfully with God, there are times that believers MAY SUFFER LACK.

This will often be a part of a believer’s suffering for the sake of the Gospel, or for taking a bold stand for Jesus Christ. In other words, LACK may be a cross that a believer may have to suffer in the journey of following Christ in the narrow way that leads to eternity (Luke 9:23).

We do not have to search the Scriptures too far to find examples of this difficult truth. We only have to look at the life and testimony of one of the greatest apostles of Christ – Apostle Paul. Here is his testimony:

"Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace...." (1 Corinthians 4:11)

"In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." (2 Corinthians 11:27)

LACK is obviously evident in those passages. In addition to this, we also see an example in the lives of the brethren at the church in Smyrna in Revelation 2:8-11. According to the words of Jesus, this dearly beloved church of God was actually POOR! This is despite the fact that it was one of the only two churches that had no single negative comment in Jesus’ assessment of the seven churches in Asia. So, this was A GREAT CHURCH in God’s sight - yet they were poor. Interestingly, after noting their poverty in verse 9, Jesus declared that, in the real sense, THEY WERE ACTUALLY RICH.

Please contrast this with Jesus’ interaction with the financially wealthy church in Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22). Although it is clear that this church was really financially wealthy, Jesus described them as actually POOR in verse 17! What this should tell us is that what we call riches may not always be what God calls riches. And what we carnally call poverty may not always be what God calls poverty! The experience of Paul and the church in Smyrna shows clearly that it is possible to PROSPER IN CHRIST AND YET SUFFER LACK AT THE SAME TIME.

It is important that we note these distinctions, particularly in this age when the love of the world, the love of comfort, and the love of money have eaten deeply into the souls of many believers. Unscrupulous preachers and pastors that are wolves-in-sheep’s clothing are always quick to leverage on this greed for money. They use God’s name to collect money from gullible, wealth-pursuing believers – under the guise that God will multiply all the money given to their ministries.

This is a ‘holy’ scam that has been going on in Christianity for decades. And, today, this scam is ten times more popular in Christendom than the true Gospel of Jesus Christ and the attendant cross we are called to bear. And God’s people love it so (Jeremiah 5:31)! It is one of the reasons that the church of today has remained as LUKEWARM as our ‘wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked’ counterparts in Laodicea.

Contrary to Benny Hinn’s revised definition, the prosperity of a believer is NOT the absence of lack. Nor can it be tied to material blessings. To do this is to claim that all the believers that suffer lack are NOT prosperous or prospering in Christ. Clearly, this is absurd! In reality, our prosperity goes far, far beyond material possessions, and should NEVER be defined by it. In New Testament terms, PROSPERITY is simply the state of a believer’s blessing of well-being in Christ. In 3 John 2, Apostle John prayed that Gaius may prosper and be in health as his soul prospered. He was NOT praying for money for Gaius, or material substance! He was praying for his overall well-being in general.

In following God, the Bible is clear in Philippians 4:19 that God will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Please note that the promise is to supply our NEEDS, not our GREED). In the course of the journey, there are times that the Lord may allow us to suffer lack – for reasons that He best understands in His sovereignty and providence. This lack does NOT mean we are not prosperous!

This is the testimony of Scriptures. And it tallies perfectly with the practical experience of millions of people that have FAITHFULLY followed God in Christ Jesus through the ages. Ask the untold number of missionaries serving God faithfully in remote and difficult terrains. Many of them will tell you that LACK is often a close companion. Also, ask the urban dwellers that God has told to forsake their lucrative careers to serve Him more diligently. They will tell you that LACK is often a close companion. Do we dare to insinuate that all these ones are not prospering in Christ, and in the Christian faith?

So while we rejoice in Benny Hinn’s shift in position, please let us be careful not to swallow this latest half-truth. This half-truth may be just as deadly as the full-blown lie of the prosperity gospel.

There is even a much more important reason why we need to be extremely careful in these days. Satan is aware that God is beginning to move mightily in this end-time by revealing more and more truth to His sheep. Deception is now becoming a little bit harder to sell to discerning sheep. So, please expect a significant shift in Satan’s strategy in this end-time! Rather than offer full-blown deception, in many cases, he’ll start using more and more of half-truths/half-lies that will lead to compromise.

This is an old trick that Satan has tried before. He tried to use it against the Israelites in Egypt. When it became apparent that they would leave Egypt because of God’s uncompromising stance on the issue, Satan started offering them a compromise through Pharaoh. Hear him in Exodus 10:24, “And Pharaoh called unto Moses, and said, Go ye, serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds be stayed: let your little ones also go with you.”

Thankfully, Moses, a GENUINE leader of God’s people, was unyielding and resolute. This was his uncompromising response to Pharaoh, “Our cattle also shall go with us; THERE SHALL NOT AN HOOF BE LEFT BEHIND…” (verse 26).

And so should it be in this end-time, we must not allow Satan to sell us half-truths in replacement of his full-blown deception in the church. A half-truth is as deadly as outright falsehood – perhaps, even much more deadly in some cases. So, let’s be vigilant. Let’s be resolute. Let us settle for nothing else apart from the burning 100% truth of God’s word. This is the only path to safety in this end-time that Jesus told us would be full of deception.

As for Benny Hinn, Only God truly knows why he has done what he did. He may have done it in good faith. It may even be that God’s light is dawning on him gradually. Only God knows. Our response should not be to suspect him, or to judge him. Only God knows the motives of the human heart. All we should do is to rejoice with Benny Hinn, and pray for him. As well as for other preachers that continue to peddle the falsehood of the prosperity Gospel.

But, as we rejoice and pray, let us also keep our eyes WIDE OPEN, and our spirit alert and attuned to God as we expect the imminent return of the Son of God. “For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” (Hebrews 10:37). So, let’s keep our lamps burning brightly as we wait expectantly for our Bridegroom.

Thanks for reading, God bless you.

(NOTE: In the next few days, please look out for a follow-up article titled, “DOES GOD WANT BELIEVERS TO BE FINANCIALLY RICH?”)

"I have one message: that Jesus Christ came, he died on a cross, he rose again, and he asked us to repent of our sins and receive him by faith as Lord and Savior, and if we do, we have forgiveness of all of our sins."
—Billy Graham (1918-2018)
Well done, good and faithful servant!

God will turn you to a surprise even to yourself!

The consistency and authenticity of your teaching has turned broke, busted, individuals to leaders and giants of industry. It's easy to celebrate you Papa and on this special occasion we wish you many more fulfilling years ahead. Happy birthday Pastor Paul!

Praying for your acceleration this year... Remember we cannot enter into the breakthroughs of 2018 with the negativities of 2017.

We cannot step into victories of 2018 locked in failures of 2017.

Enter into your Breakthrough! Step into your Victory!