John MacArthur

Grace to You

I don’t watch much television, and when I do I generally avoid the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). For many years TBN has been dominated by faith-healers, full-time fund-raisers, and self-proclaimed prophets spewing heresy. I wrote about the false gospel they proclaim and the phony miracles they pretend to do almost two decades ago in Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. See especially chapter 12). I had my fill of charismatic televangelism while researching that book, and I can hardly bear to watch it any more.

Recently, however, while recovering from knee-replacement surgery, I decided to sample some of the current fare on TBN. From a therapeutic point of view it seemed a good choice: something more excruciating than the pain in my leg might distract me from the physical suffering of post-surgical trauma. And I suppose on that basis the strategy was effective.

But it left me outraged and frustrated – and eager to challenge the misperceptions in the minds of millions of unbelievers who see these false teachers masquerading as ministers of Christ on TBN.

I’m outraged at the brazen way so many false teachers twist the message of Scripture in Jesus’ name. And I’m frustrated because I’m certain that if these charlatans were not receiving a large proportion of their financial support from sincere believers (and silent acquiescence from Christian leaders who surely know better), they would have no platform for their shenanigans. They would soon lose their core constituency and fade from the scene.

Instead, religious quacks are actually multiplying at a frightening pace. One thing I discovered to my immense displeasure is that TBN is by no means the only religious network broadcasting poisonous false doctrine around the clock. The channel lineup I receive includes at least seven other channels whose schedules are filled with false teachers and charlatans. There’s The Church Channel, Daystar, GodTV, World Harvest Television (LeSEA), Total Christian Television, and several others. Some of them feature blocs of family television programming and a few fairly sound teachers who provide moments of escape from the prosperity preachers. But all of them give prominence to enormous amounts of heresy and religious claptrap – enough to make them positively dangerous. And TBN is singularly responsible for kicking that door open so wide.

The continued growth and influence of TBN is baffling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the thick aura of lust, greed, and other kinds of moral impropriety that surrounds the whole enterprise. A long string of scandals involving notable charismatic televangelists between 1988 and 1992 should have been sufficient reason for even the most credulous viewers to scrutinize the entire industry with skepticism. First came the international spectacle of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s moral, marital, and financial collapse. That was followed closely by the revelation of Jimmy Swaggart’s repeated dalliances with prostitutes. Shortly afterward, an episode of ABC’s Primetime Live exposed clear examples of deliberate fraud on the part of three more leading charismatic televangelists. Those incidents were punctuated by a score of lesser scandals over several years’ time. It is clear (or should be) – based on empirical evidence alone – that preachers promising miracles in exchange for money are not to be trusted. And for anyone who simply bothers to compare Jesus’ teaching with the health-and-wealth message, it is clear that the message that currently dominates religious television is “a different gospel; which is really not another” (Galatians 1:6-7), but a damnable lie.

TBN is by far the leading perpetrator of that lie worldwide. Virtually all the network’s main celebrities tell listeners that God will give them healing, wealth, and other material blessings in return for their money. On program after program people are urged to “plant a seed” by sending “the largest bill you have or the biggest check you can write” with the promise that God will miraculously make them rich in return. That same message dominates all of TBN’s major fundraising drives. It’s known as the “seed faith” plan, so-called by Oral Roberts, who set the pattern for most of the charismatic televangelists who have followed the trail he blazed. Paul Crouch, founder, chairman, and commander-in-chief of TBN, is one of the doctrine’s staunchest defenders.

The only people who actually get rich by this scheme, of course, are the televangelists. Their people who send money get little in return but phony promises – and as a result, many of them turn away from the truth completely.

If the scheme seems reminiscent of Tetzel, that’s because it is precisely the same doctrine. (Tetzel was a medieval monk whose high-pressure selling of indulgences – phony promises of forgiveness – outraged Martin Luther and touched off the Protestant Reformation.)

Like Tetzel, TBN preys on the poor and plies them with false promises. Yet what is happening daily on TBN is many times worse than the abuses that Luther decried because it is more widespread and more flagrant. The medium is more high-tech and the amounts bilked out of viewers’ pockets are astronomically higher. (By most estimates, TBN is worth more than a billion dollars and rakes in $200 million annually. Those are direct contributions to the network, not counting millions more in donations sent directly to TBN broadcasters.) Like Tetzel on steroids, the Crouches and virtually all the key broadcasters on TBN live in garish opulence, while constantly begging their needy viewers for more money. Elderly, poor, and working-class viewers constitute TBN’s primary demographic. And TBN’s fundraisers all know that. The most desperate people – “unemployed,” “even though I’m in between jobs,” “trying to make it; trying to survive,” “broke” – are baited with false promises to give what they do not even have. Jan Crouch addresses viewers as “you little people,” and suggests that they send their grocery money to TBN “to assure God’s blessing.”

Thus TBN devours the poor while making the charlatans rich. God cursed false prophets in the Old Testament for that very thing (Jeremiah 6:13-15). It’s also one of the main reasons the Pharisees incurred Jesus’ condemnation (Luke 20:46-47). It’s hard to think of any sin more evil. It not only hurts people materially; it deludes them with groundless hope, deceives them with a false gospel, and thereby places their souls in eternal peril. And yet those who do it pretend they are doing the work of God.

That’s not all. Almost no false prophecy, erroneous doctrine, rank superstition, or silly claim is too outlandish to receive airtime on TBN. Jan Crouch tearfully gives a fanciful account of how her pet chicken was miraculously raised from the dead. Benny Hinn trumps that claim with a bizarre prophecy that if TBN viewers will put their dead loved ones’ caskets in front of television set and touch the dead person’s hand to the screen, people will “be raised from the dead… by the thousands.”

Ironically, one doesn’t even need to be an orthodox Trinitarian in order to broadcast on the Trinity network. Bishop T. D. Jakes, well known for his rejection of the Nicene Creed in favor of oneness Pentecostalism, is a staple on TBN. Benny Hinn has repeatedly attempted to revise the doctrine of the Trinity in novel ways, notoriously teaching at one point that there are nine persons in the godhead.

And yet evangelical church leaders typically show a kind of benign tolerance toward the whole enterprise. Most would never endorse it, of course. They may joke about the gaudiness of the big hair and tawdry set decorations on TBN. Ask them, and they will most likely acknowledge that the prosperity gospel is no gospel at all. Press the issue, and you will probably get them to admit that it is a dangerous form of false doctrine, totally unbiblical, and essentially anti-Christian.

Why, then, is there no large-scale effort among Bible-believing evangelicals to expose, denounce, refute, and silence these false teachers? After all, that is what Scripture commands church leaders to do when we encounter purveyors of soul-destroying substitutes for the true gospel:

The overseer must be above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain (Titus 1:7-11).

Those who remain silent in the face of such grotesque lies may in fact be partly responsible for turning people away from the truth. Consider the testimony of William Lobdell, religion reporter for the Los Angeles Times, who once considered himself a devout evangelical Christian, but after doing a series of investigative reports on the moral and doctrinal cesspool at TBN; then “finding that his investigative stories about faith healer Benny Hinn and televangelists Jan and Paul Crouch appear to make no difference on the reach of these ministries or the lives of their followers, he [gave] up on the beat and on religion generally.”

All those who truly love Christ and care about the truth have a solemn duty to defend the truth by exposing and opposing these lies that masquerade as truth. If we fail in that duty because of indifference, apathy, or a craving for the approval of men, we are no less guilty than those who actively spread the lies.

Publication date: February 24, 2010

“And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.” – Acts 16:13-15 (Emphasis added.)

The highlighted portion of the above passage of scripture seems to contain two critical elements to the conversion of Lydia. While we are told she was a worshipper of God, something else happened before she ‘heard’ internally what Paul was saying that day down by the river. The Lord opened her heart to hear what was said by Paul. What happened to Lydia was not something strictly of human intellect, although we can be certain that she had to mentally process the information. Her heart was opened by the Lord in ‘secret’ so that she could ‘hear’ with her heart, not just her ears.

The second element in this picture was ‘what Paul said’. We don’t know exactly what he said, but it is certainly safe to assume that it was the pure gospel message Paul was known to preach, that Christ died for our sins – Christ and Him crucified.

The next thing we are told is that Lydia was baptized along with her whole household, so it goes without saying that Lydia received the gospel message and trusted in Christ as her Savior and Lord.

One might even assume that there are indeed two essential elements in a person’s being saved – a heart opened by God and the preaching of the gospel message.

At this point I could offer other ‘gospel encounters’, as well as other scripture that points to these same two elements in the salvation of men, perhaps not in language quite as clear, but present nonetheless. However, I leave further reading of scripture on the matter to you, the reader, because I am certain that such reading and study on your own will reveal whether the question posed above is answered within its pages.

Excerpted from a larger article titled “Evangelicalism, False and True”, that can be read here.

“From a strictly etymological perspective, “evangelical” denotes someone or something for whom or which the evangel serves in some manner as such a significant and distinguishing characteristic that it can be referred to as an identifying mark, making “evangelical” an adequately descriptive label for purposes of identification. Something or someone can be labeled as evangelical because the evangel is so prominent and notable a feature of the person or thing (including ideas) as to stand out sufficiently as a means of characterization that allows us a means of classification and differentiation (comparison and contrast). Accordingly, to be an evangelical is to be identified with the gospel (the evangel), and that identification should be to us a most-coveted and highly-prized badge of honor and distinction: glorying in the Cross and bearing the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (Evangelicalism, False and True by Joseph P. Braswell, October 1998)

In the article from which the above was excerpted, the author discusses the term ‘evangelical’, tracing the term back to the Reformation, the gospel message around which the term revolves, as well as characterizations of true and false evangelicalism. It is well worth the read, and perhaps a bit of discussion.

While looking for a particular quote attributed to Martin Luther, among the many articles in which I found the quote, I found this in an article by Reverend Roland F. Ziegler, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary:

“The doctrine of justification defines who God is: He is the one who was in Christ reconciling the world; He is the one who justifies through faith in Christ (Rom. 3:26). Therefore any concept of God that denies this and believes in a god who has to be reconciled by what man does is idolatrous, even if it manages to include Christ in its scheme: ‘Whoever falls from the doctrine of justification is ignorant of God and is an idolater. Therefore it is all the same whether he then returns to the Law or to the worship of idols; it is all the same whether he is called a monk or a Turk or a Jew or an Anabaptist. For once this doctrine is undermined, nothing more remains but sheer error, hypocrisy, wickedness, and idolatry, regardless of how great the sanctity that appears on the outside.‘ Therefore the doctrine of justification is rightfully called the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae, the article with which the church stands or falls. . . .’When this article stands, the church stands, when it falls, the church falls.’ (In XV Psalmos graduum 1532-33; WA 40/III.352.3)” (Emphasis added)

The highlighted portion of the above paragraph contains the quote I was looking for. I included the remainder of the section of text from the article because it also includes this statement:

‘Whoever falls from the doctrine of justification is ignorant of God and is an idolater. Therefore it is all the same whether he then returns to the Law or to the worship of idols; it is all the same whether he is called a monk or a Turk or a Jew or an Anabaptist.’ (Emphasis added.)

That we are justified (saved) by faith alone, without the addition of any sort of work by man, was indeed one of the famous ‘five solas’ of the Protestant Reformation (see below), however the debate is not merely a Catholic v. Protestant one. Whether we add to faith the ‘accumulated merits’ of men and call justification a ‘process’; or a person’s ‘autonomous’ decision to choose Christ, asserting that obtaining faith itself is a ‘process’ that begins in man’s ‘natural’ intellect, haven’t we committed the same error?

Just asking……

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The “five solas” is a term used to designate five great foundational rallying cries of the Protestant reformers. They are as follows: “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture Alone); “Sola Gratia” (Grace Alone); “Sola Fide” (Faith Alone); “Solus Christus” (Christ Alone); and “Soli Deo Gloria” (To God Alone Be Glory).

. . .if we could discuss the ‘thorny’ issues in scripture and then ask GOD “What’s YOUR point?”

Well, we don’t always, and more often than not we end up all about OUR points. So in the interest of ‘peace and unity among the brethren’ we just don’t talk about those ‘divisive doctrines’, and pat ourselves on the back for getting along so well!

Somehow I think God loves it when we talk about the thorny issues, or he wouldn’t have put those polysyllabic words in His book.

He just wants us to ask “God, what’s YOUR point?”

If  the Holy Spirit reigns in our hearts and we ask God the right question, we will all arrive at similar answers. Not the same exact ‘words’ but close enough to achieve unity of Spirit. He doesn’t argue with Himself, we argue with each other.

The history of the church seems to tell us that real Spirit unity is an impossible dream – not impossible to Him, but impossible with us.

So what’s the problem here? Must be US!

“But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.” – James 1:14 (emphasis added)

The scene is a courtroom. a lone criminal stands before the judge, awaiting the judge’s verdict. The judge looks down from behind his bench and makes the pronouncement. Sir, you have been found guilty of all charges. Considering the nature of your crimes, you are hereby sentenced to die by hanging, on Monday next, at high noon, in the public square. The sound of the gavel is deafening to the stunned ears of the criminal.

After the criminal is dragged screaming from the courtroom, another man rises from the gallery an approached the bench. The man speaks.

“Your honor, if it pleases the court, I volunteer to take that mans place on the gallows. I desire to take his punishment, and that he be set free. If you decide to accept my offer, he must be set free, its the law, you honor – your law. My offer applies for crimes already committed as well as for any future crimes he might commit in the future.

Complete silence engulfs the courtroom, for never before has such an extraordinary thing happened, that an innocent man would voluntarily die for a heinous criminal. Silently the judge considers the strange man’s offer. Finally the judge renders his decision.

“Although that criminal surely deserves to die, and knowing that he will most certainly commit more crimes, in order to demonstrate the mercy of this court, Sir, I accept your offer.”

“Bailiff, take this man away to consider his fate and see that the criminal is set free. The decision of this court is final!”

The guilty man was not told of the stranger’s offer, or of the judge’s decision. He remained in his prison cell until the day of execution. Just when the prison guards were to have come to his cell and dragged him to the gallows, no one appeared! “What has happened?” he asked silently.  That afternoon he was informed of all that had transpired, including the fact that his penalty had been paid and an innocent had taken his place. The requirement of the law had been met and he would to be set free.

At first he thought he was surely dreaming! An innocent man had offered himself in his place? How could it be possible? the reality finally settled into his heart when the heavy prison doors were opened and he  heard the words “Go. You are a free man . It’s the law.

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So it is in the matter of the salvation of the souls of men, except God, our judge, was not approached by a stranger offering himself as a substitution for our sin, the Father sent His own Son to bear our just punishment. He declared that his own Son’s death would satisfy the law’s requirement that all sin must be punished by death. We must then face the question “If the penalty for the sin of all men has already been paid in full (and we hear if frequently), how can it be that all men are not saved?” How can any man be called before the judgment seat of Christ and when the penalty for his sin has already been paid? Wouldn’t that be, in legal terms, double jeopardy?

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Disclaimer:

The author of the above presents the allegory (I use the term loosely) and the question merely to encourage applying the ‘Berean’ principle to what we hear from men in matters spiritual, a fuller understanding of God’s sovereignty in our salvation, and a deeper appreciation of the vastness of the love and mercy of our God.

It’s such a profound subject that many sincere Christians who are brave enough to discuss it end up fighting over it, while others run for the door if the subject is brought up. The Bible teaches both. We mere mortals, whose wisdom is foolishness to God, tend to think about it in terms of God’s Sovereignty sort of ‘leaving stage left” and man’s responsibility ‘entering stage right’. Maybe that’s not the case at all. Perhaps in the mind of God they operate in complete harmony, but our simple minds can’t get there from here. Could it be that there is a finite point in time where our responsibility enters the scene (we are finite beings, after all), but God is totally and completely sovereign throughout?

We live in what is often called the age of post-modernism. Truth is relative, we are told. Cultures change, people change, and the old ways of thinking need to keep pace with the changes. If churches want to survive in this post­modern age, then they must adapt or die (that is ‘religious speak’ for, ‘Re­interpret the Bible to fit with the thinking and practices of the day – whatever they are’). Sadly, tragically, many churches have bought into this satanic strategy and manipulated the gospel to sit easily with the spiritual and moral aberrations that cover the face of our nation – and the whole world.

The churches in Galatia had become influenced and infected by false teaching. They were apparently buying into teaching that denied that we are justified before God by faith alone, in Christ alone. This, probably Judaistic, teaching was saying that faith in Christ was not enough to bring us into salvation. These false teachers were saying that in addition to faith in Christ you must also submit to the Jewish ‘boundary markers’ of circumcision and kosher food laws. Yes, faith in Christ, but not faith in Christ alone. How does Paul respond? Dramatically and decisively: ‘I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – not that there is another one . . . But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.’ Wow! And in case anyone thought he was being unnecessarily extreme, Paul repeats himself: ‘As we have said before, so now I say again (it is my considered judgment): If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.’ There is only one gospel; anything else is a satanic perversion and needs to be exposed as such.

James Denney (1856-1917,Scottish theologian and preacher)has made this point better than most;

If God has really done something in Christ on which the salvation of the world depends, and if he has made it known, then it is a Christian duty to be intolerant of everything which ignores, denies or explains it away. The man who perverts it is the worst enemy of God and men; and it is not bad temper or narrow-mindedness in St Paul which explains this vehement language, it is the jealousy of God which has kindled in a soul redeemed by the blood of Christ a corresponding jealousy for the Saviour.

Martin Luther was persuaded of this: ‘Would to God this terrible sentence of the Apostle might strike a fear into their hearts that seek to pervert the Gospel of Paul; of which sort at this day (the more it is to be lamented) the world is full.’ However, we live in an age of ecumenical dialogue and of doctrinal compromise. What appears to matter is that everyone’s viewpoint is appreciated and tolerated. How differently the apostle Paul viewed things. A few years ago, The Times religious correspondent Clifford Longley, wrote some perceptive words on this issue. He compared the ‘wetness’ of the churchmen of the present with the passion of the Reformers,

Evidently, there was something about this subject which caused hot tempers . . . salvation was perhaps more highly valued then, or damnation more feared; it mattered enormously which was the road to one, which to the other.

Here, surely, is the crux of the issue: Has our Lord Jesus done something by his sinless life, sin-bearing death, and resurrection that has secured God’s salvation for judgment-deserving sinners? If he has, then is it any wonder Paul writes as he does? Is it really any wonder that he calls down God’s curse, his eternal anathema, on those who seek to turn men and women away to a ‘different gospel’, that is no gospel at all? Paul is not being narrow-minded or unthinkingly intemperate in his choice of language. He is writing as a man who is passionate about the glory of his Saviour and about the eternal good of sinners.

Paul’s language is a reminder to us that we must ever be guarding the gospel. If someone had told me 20 years ago that some ‘evangelicals’ would soon be teaching that God does not know everything (Open Theism), that Scripture is not infallible (we must not deny Scripture’s humanness!), and that our justification before God rests, in some measure on our good works (the so-called New Perspective on Paul), I would hardly have believed it. But we live in spiritually and theologically confused times. It would only be too easy, for the sake of a peaceful life, just to go with the flow, to keep our heads down and reconfigure the gospel to suit the tastes of the world around us. To do this, however, would be to deny our Saviour, and to call down on our heads God’s holy anathema. This is not an appeal for us to be belligerent or offensive, or cantankerous. We are always ‘to speak the truth in love’. But love can, and needs at times to be, willing to risk the wrath of man to proclaim the truth of God.

There is only one gospel. It has been ‘once for all delivered to the saints.’ It is not susceptible to change. It must, of course, be preached and witnessed to relevantly and engagingly, not parroting the ways of past generations. But it must be proclaimed as God has revealed it in his infallible Word. The Bible has a word for this – it is called being ‘faithful’. May the Lord enable us to be faithful ‘in good times and in bad times’. The glory and honour of our Lord Jesus demands it; the eternal good of men and women requires it.

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Ian Hamilton is minister of Cambridge Presbyterian Church, north of London.

The above articles was published by Banner of Truth Magazine.

“. . .as  it is written: ^ “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12 (ESV)

“The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” – Psalm 14:2-3 (ESV)

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins. . . But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. . .For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” – Ephesians 2:1, 4-5, 8-9 (ESV) 

“But GOD,”

If Lazarus, when he was raised from the dead, had been asked to sing about the experience, and had to choose one of the following, which song would he have sung?

a. “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus”

b. “Amazing Grace”