Cults Charlatans Chiselers

The evangelist Sam Jones always enjoyed sharing the following story. He said, I once knew a pastor who, upon taking charge of his church, was met by a delegation of the deacons previous to delivering his inaugural sermon. They said, now brother, you mustn't preach about fashion, because our fashionable members will be out to hear you.

And you mustn't preach about dram drinking or liquor selling, because several of our members who are liquor sellers will be out to hear you. And you mustn't preach about covetousness, because several of our millionaire members will be out to hear you. Well, what can I preach about? He asked in great perplexity.

About the Mormons, replied the good deacons. Give them blazes. There won't be a Mormon out to hear you.

Well, my message today, friends, is on the prosperity gospel, which is no gospel at all, and there won't be a charlatan out to hear me. Years ago, when I was an immature Christian, I got taken in by the prosperity gospel, which is also known as the health, wealth, and happiness theology. That if you sow your financial seed to a particular televangelist, then you can expect a harvest of financial prosperity and years of good health.

I got taken in by Oral Roberts years ago, as I regularly watched his TV appeals for money and his promises of health and wealth, and I became a financial supporter to his ministry. As a matter of fact, there's a brick somewhere on the campus of ORU that has my name on it for my charitable contributions at the time. I was unfamiliar with cults and charlatans and chiselers who preyed upon unsuspecting individuals, and when I say preyed, I'm spelling it P-R-E-Y-E-D, not P-R-A-Y-E-D.

I remember when I first became suspicious of Oral Roberts, it was when he declared that Jesus came into his room and sat on the edge of his bed and told him if he didn't raise eight million dollars by March of that year, God would call him home. Well, he didn't raise the money, and he lived on up into his 90s. I immediately stopped giving to his ministry, and after a couple of months, I received a handwritten letter from Oral Roberts asking me if he had done something to offend me.

Well, what offended me was the heretical philosophy of the prosperity gospel. The title of my message today, friends, is cults, charlatans, and chiselers. A chiseler is defined as a person who cheats or tricks someone, in other words, a swindler.

Prosperity preachers are charlatans who cheat you out of your money and your soul. Listen, friends, if a so-called minister on television says he needs a 63 million dollar jet, then you're nothing but a fool to support that chiseler. These prosperity predators prey upon lower-income families with the false promise of financial independence.

If you send them a sacrificial seed of faith of, say, a thousand dollars or more, they twist and pervert the scriptures to build for themselves a financial empire where they can live like a king off your sacrificial giving. Characters like Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, Joyce Myers, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, and Kenneth Copeland all preach another Jesus and the one found in my Bible. Prosperity theology teaches that Christians give in order to gain material compensation from God, and prayer is nothing more than a tool to force God to bless you with health, wealth, and happiness.

Listen, friend, if you've fallen into a cult that teaches heresy, that deifies man and takes the deity away from Jesus, then run for the hills and go find a Bible-believing church with a true God-called pastor who will preach Christ and Him crucified. Don't be a victim to a religious swindler who's only interested in trafficking into souls of men for their own personal gain. The apostle Paul warns believers to be aware of cults, charlatans, and chiselers in 2 Timothy chapter 4 which states, For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

These false teachers trafficking the souls of men, and if you're under their heretical teaching, then head for the doors, friend, and go find a space with an open Bible and begin studying what the Word of God really teaches. The real gospel is centered on a bloodstained Christ who died for sin, and to be a follower of that Savior, you must be washed in the blood and born from above. I don't care about your money, friend, but I do care about your soul.

Repent before it's too late.