Polemics, Christian Circus (or Christian Television)
Ephesians 1:3; 2 Timothy 3:6,7; Luke 17:1-6 · Randy Peterman · Jul 16, 2006
Polemics, No. 16
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826235647942

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

This morning we're going to talk about the Christian circus, or Christian television as it's sometimes called. I'm wearing a shirt. For those of you listening to the recording, or for those of you who can't see it, it says, I'm probably lying. I promise I will try not to lie to you this morning. But the thing is that if somebody was wearing a shirt like this, such as myself, would you be suspect? Would you look at them and say, hmm, Is what he's saying actually true, you know, this kind of indicates right off visually.

It's like a warning sign Hello, you know don't listen to this guy but There are quite a few people who go around doing and practicing the business of half-truths, lying, spinning, modification of information, some of them in the Christian television industry, so we're going to talk about that some. How many of you have spent any time watching the televangelists? Okay, a little bit.

I find it highly entertaining. It's funny, because I listen to what they say, and I'm like, wow. They'll open up their Bible randomly. It doesn't matter where they open it. I could totally see it's the Old Testament. They're like, turn with me to 2 Peter, and then they just start to recite whatever it is. And I'm like, wow. I got Ruth by turning here, but I mean, they're certainly not in 2 Peter, but it's impressive nonetheless. They recite the things. They're polished. They look good usually, or at least they try to look good. They have all the right lights and the right makeup and everything. It's impressive television. I'm sorry, what? White suits. Oh yeah.

There's all kinds of pejorative names that are used for the different televangelists and things that they do. I was joking around with my dad that the reason Robert Tilton, everybody know who Robert Tilton is? He's one of the televangelists that actually got caught in the 90s for some fraudulent behavior and we'll get there. He's one of the few televangelists that somehow doesn't have a double consonant like Benny Hinn has two N's in the last name and there's a whole bunch of them that they just somehow They escape, but I think it has something to do with the letter combinations in their name, and they get away with it. We're going to discuss the different networks briefly. We're going to talk about some of the superstars, if you will, of Christian television.

And then we're going to also look at some doctrinal things, because I think that's the most important part of this class. Briefly, television. has radically changed our culture in the United States. I think everybody in this room can agree that in their own lifetimes they've seen how television affects the daily lives of most of us. Art was saying for the ProQuest even, that's how we get a lot of our news. It certainly has affected politics, the politicians, how they look affects the way people vote, how they answer. it's had a major impact on our culture.

Christian people have been involved with television and Pat Robertson was probably one of the early blatantly Christian producers of content starting in CBN in 1961. CBN stands for the Christian Broadcasting Network and About two years later, TBN was started by the Crouches. Does everybody know who Jan and Paul Crouch are? Jan Crouch has very bright white hair and it reflects whatever color the lights are, so sometimes we call the lady the purple hair and things like that. And then PTL was actually started three months later after the Crouches.

And that was Jim and Tammy Faye Baker's organization. Many of you already lived through this. So you're like, ah, I was there. But anyways, so those are probably the three most well-known Christian networks. PTL, I think, is gone now since the scandals in the 80s. The most prominent network for today's broadcasting of Christian, if you will, in quotes, content is TBN. It's international.

I've got here a list of the continents. They're at least entirely or partially in North and South America and Central America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia. That's pretty much all the continents. Maybe they'll minister to the penguins or something, but they haven't gotten Antarctica yet. So TBN is the most prominent, and I've got a listing of some of their most famous, if you will, televangelists here.

Anybody heard of Kenneth Copeland? We're going to talk about him a little bit. How about Creflo Adollar? One of my favorite moments in television. Creflo Adollar is a guy, I believe he's out of Atlanta or Georgia somewhere, and I flicked on the channel, I was living in Texas, and I flipped through and Jessica wasn't in the room so I could stop.

She doesn't let me watch the televangelists, they get her all riled up. So I stopped there, and I watched for a moment, and he was up there on the stage and he said, God is going to heal somebody here of HIV, which would be awesome if God did, I'm not going to argue that. But a woman somewhere in the audience, the camera panned around, she just started screaming and flailing her arms and jumping up and down, and it was like, wow, I think she might have HIV. If no one knew in the room before, they know now. And it was one of those things where it was like only one person in the whole room reacted.

And she jumped up around and flailed around, and then he told his security guards to let her keep going, and they kind of carefully hauled her out of the room so the attention could go back onto Creflo Adollar. But he is definitely a showman. The guy wears vibrant, bright suits, and he's got a lot of flash and style in his delivery. So he's definitely one to watch if you like to be entertained.

Paul and Jen Crouch, we already talked about them briefly for the Trinity Broadcasting Network. There's so much we could talk about each one of these people with some of their theology or some of the events surrounding their lives, but we're not going to do that yet. How about Jack Van Ampey? Anybody heard of Jack Van Ampey? He does a lot of prophecy videos and people get excited about those. I had to sit, because of my job, I actually had to sit through one of the prophecy videos that was produced by, I think, TBN, and I don't know if Jack Van Ampey was involved with it or not. It was painful. It was like wow. It was not well acted. The script wasn't good. The plot was highly suspect and I don't even know where their theological bounds were.

The rapture happened and the clothes were neatly folded up on the ladder that the guy was standing on. years ago was very fundamental and a Baptist and he had rallies that came around and I don't know what's happened to him, but he's sure fallen in love with the Roman Catholic.

Yeah, Jack Van Ampey, he's definitely prominent and he's made a big, big name for himself in prophecy videos. in other areas, I'm sure, but that's the area that I keep seeing his name associated with things. Now, how many of you, this is so hilarious, MC Hammer is the next guy I've got on the list.

Anybody heard of MC Hammer? Back in the, I think it was the late 80s, early 90s, he had a hit song called You Can't Touch This, and he wore these things that got named Hammer Pants, and they were these big poofy pants, and he would do his little rap thing, and he would dance around, and my dad has a funnier dance than I do. The thing is that M.C. Hammer now is a minister and so he's got his own show. M.C. Hammer, strangely enough, was actually a bat boy for one of the, I think it was the Oakland A's or the San Francisco Giants before he became a rapper.

But, you know, God works in mysterious ways. Next one on the list here is T.D. Jakes. Anybody heard of T.D. Jakes? He's a Oneness Pentecostal. That means he doesn't believe in the Trinity. So that's one thing about TD Jakes that sends warning flags up for me. TD Jakes has a massive, massive complex south of Dallas. I think it's southwest in Dallas.

Jessica, my wife, used to actually work for a company that duplicated videos for him. So she's been to this facility and says it's just stunning. The interior is fantastically decorated and amazingly done. T.D. Jakes is a very imposing, large man, and I can imagine that if I were to be in the room next to him, that I would look pretty wimpy next to him. And he dominates. When he's on the stage, he's got a very strong stage presence. And he actually, I think, has a bigger gap between his front teeth than David Letterman. Those are some features about TD Jakes there. And I'm not trying to make fun of TD Jakes. I'm just saying that when you see his face, you'll go, wow. That's not hard to floss. And the next person, I'm sorry. People listening to the recording, I apologize.

The next person on the list here, we've got Billy Graham. And he's definitely somebody that everyone in this group is familiar with on some level. Billy Graham. has actually been involved actively with various people that we're going to talk about, some of them. He's definitely more conservative so he doesn't embrace some of the more creative televangelists, I'll say that. But Billy Graham, his shows, his specials air on TBN.

But that's definitely a name you know. How many of you have heard of Ray Comfort? Ray Comfort is an evangelist, and he actually does a lot of evangelism training. Of all of the people on this list, I would say that possibly Ray Comfort ranks on one of the higher of my list for theological ideas. He doesn't teach a lot of crazy stuff, although he has more of a charismatic bent. So, again, you need to have discernment. He's one of the few people that I could say, wow, if you were to watch, you might learn some stuff from him that might be practical.

Benny Hinn. How many of you have heard of Benny Hinn? Benny Hinn is my favorite. I love Benny Hinn. How many of you have seen Emeril Lagasse on the Food Network? He's the guy that does that BAM thing. Benny Hinn and Emeril Lagasse are like the same on different networks.

I'm not kidding. They just control the whole audience. And everybody just oohs and aahs and does whatever they want. Because they have that control over their audience. Benny Hinn is an amazing guy. If you have a chance to watch him, it's brilliant. That Holy Laughter thing is what he initiated. That Holy Laughter thing. Oh yeah, he definitely played that up big time.

Our son-in-law, their company moved from San Juan Camposano up the road. big beautiful building and everything and took us over to see it. And I'm right next to the Benny Hinn big ministry with the six foot fence around with the barbed wire on top. I'm scared of somebody.

Benny Hinn is being watched by many many watchdog groups. They shred and destroy most of their garbage now because a lot of information was revealed by these watchdog groups going through their garbage and finding out things that Benny Hinn was not fond of them finding out. There's a lot of scandal things that are being purported or reported but not documented well yet. So when we go to Benny Hinn, I'm not going to discuss those scandals because they haven't been proved through yet. So just know that the guy is being watched closely.

His ministry is officially based out of Grapevine, Texas, which is where Abby, our first daughter, was born. But his home, his $6 million mansion, I think it is, is in Southern California. But he flies God's private jet back to Texas when he needs to. It's God's jet, everything's God's. It's God's Mercedes Benz SUV he drives, and they're God's expensive sunglasses and leather jackets and everything else. Just like in our lives everything's God's only we might have a more orthodox view on it being God's.

The last name we've got on this list is Zola Levitt. Now he passed away earlier this year. Zola Levitt would probably rank up high next to Ray Comfort as well as being theologically more sound. He was a lot less into the crazy doctrine but he was definitely more prophecy oriented. He's got a Jewish, a Messianic Jewish ministry that he formed that is probably going to still go on for a while under his name. But now that he's passed away, I don't know how long that's going to last. I don't know if they'll continue to rebroadcast recordings of Zola Levitt.

Again, you want to have discernment anytime you're watching anything on television. That's the truth of our lives in Christ, is that we measure the truth of Christ with whatever we're hearing or seeing. But you look down this list of names, and quite frankly, there's only a few of them that I can say, you want to have discernment when you watch that person. The rest of them, you just dismiss it. Don't even look at it. Don't watch it unless you're going to look for humor, like your comedy station that you normally watch is broken or something.

Just as a side note there, I guess a televangelist has been estimated to bring in between, and this is a big span, 1 billion and 2.5 billion dollars a year. Okay, that's a lot of money. If you think about how much money various industries bring in, that's a pretty massive industry. Each one of these televangelists, not each one of them, but many of them, will make in excess of millions of dollars in a year. And the ministries themselves will bring in sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars a year. So there's a lot of money to be made. It's not a lightly viewed industry. TBN is actually based out of Irving, Texas.

I have been right next to their building. I've looked at it. It's a former office building that they've spruced up with a bunch of styrofoam and fiberglass to make it look more like the White House. I'm not kidding, it's got columns and it has a nice fountain in front of it. It's beautiful, but it's all fake.

It's a movie studio, or not a movie studio, it's a television studio, and that's where they produce a lot of their content, where they sit up in their golden thrones and talk about religiously spiritual things without ever getting into the truth. There's a video that I I will mention, I don't know if I recommend it, it's called God Stuff.

And it's put out by a group that is a watchdog group. And it's just video clips from the televangelists saying various things. And there's one segment in there that shows various televangelists swearing on the stage. And it was broadcast. So it's kind of amusing. But there's one of Paul Crouch, who's Mr. TBN, just up there. He's dropping a few words that are less than edifying up there. But televangelism is a big industry. There's a lot of money to be made doing it. Because why? Why is there money to be made doing it? because people will listen. They're entertained and they'll send in their money. It's tax-free, that's right.

Some of these people are under investigation for tax fraud because it's very questionable whether or not they're genuine ministries. It's hard to justify hundreds of thousands of dollars in automobiles as a ministry expense when they're all $80,000 to $100,000 cars and not maybe a $25,000 car or a $50,000 car. These are top dollar high-end cars. I actually read a report that outlined possessions of the various televangelists and most of them have multi-million dollar mansions and very expensive cars. It's kind of hard to say that the money's all going to a good cause and a good ministry when, you know, When you're driving that kind of luxury, and it's all coming from donations, it's a bit questionable. Now, that's not true. Some of them sell books, which do earn a big amount of revenue. But moving on, let's take a look at some common errant doctrines that are part of the televangelist shtick.

The first one, this is probably the most prominent, is word of faith. How many of you have heard of Word of Faith? Alright, some of you have heard of Word of Faith. Word of Faith is a movement or an idea, sometimes it's pejoratively called name it and claim it or blab it and grab it. This teaching states that a righteous person will have faith to speak out the blessings they want and God will be obligated to give them those things due to their righteousness and faith.

Benny Hinn said, the reason people lose their healing is because they begin questioning if God really did it. you need to claim it and hold on to it. If, for some reason, that healing that you thought you were going to have doesn't come about, what are you going to do? Oh, it's your fault. You didn't have enough faith. Because if you name it and claim it, and you have enough faith, it's going to happen. Oh boy, isn't that lovely?

There was a gal in Carson City, Nevada, where I grew up as a teenager, who got a severe cancer. She actually went to Benny Hinn, and Benny Hinn prayed for her, said she'd be healed. Guess what? She's with the Lord now. She got healed in a very serious way, but it was not the way Benny Hinn had indicated. A large sum of money somehow made it into Benny Hinn's bank account from that transaction. That's pretty sad. You want to pay these people for healing, I guess.

So the Word of Faith movement is really positive. That's why they talk about claiming these things. Sometimes it's called health and wealth as well because the idea is that you're just going to claim and pray for your finances and your physical well-being and you'll be better because you're righteous and holy. Yes, Art? Does Benny Hinn claim the healing for himself or does he credit God for it? We're going to go into some of Benny Hinn's doctrine in a little bit and I'm going to answer it then because I think it'll be very clear where he claims the source of the power comes from. It's a very good question.

The next one here, the 10% tithe. How many of you are familiar with the 10% tithe? A lot of churches actually teach this, but I consider it to be very problematic. How much of your money is actually God's money? All of it is. Alright, where does the 10% tithe come from? Does anybody know? It's a Jewish law, and where did that 10% go to? It went to the temple for the Levites. Guess what?

There were more taxes on top of that. The 10%, that was God's for the Levites, and then you've got to pay more taxes on top of that. The teachers often ignore that. They usually go with, oh, that was your tax for God's work, and that was how it went, and you should give 10% for God's work.

The truth of the matter is that you could give more than that if you wanted to. If the Lord has blessed you, and you were an Old Testament Jew, Give more to the temple. Go ahead. It's God's stuff. Give it to them. The 10% was like the minimum. That was if you're the poor person and you've barely got anything, give 10%. Everybody else was requested to give more if the Lord had put it on their heart to do so. So the 10% tithe was an Old Testament concept.

And when we are stewards with our money, which is a totally different class, so I'm not going to go into stewardship really, but when we're stewards with our money, we have a responsibility to give to the Lord's work as He makes it clear in our hearts. That may be 2%, that may be 22%, that may be nothing this month because the Lord is giving you just what you need this month. Whatever it is, that's between you and the Lord.

But these televangelists say, listen, you're poor, you're needy, send in your faith money. Because faith is an important thing to have, right? Well, the next item on the list It's going to talk about faith, and let's look at what they say faith often is, because that's really radically different from the way the Bible describes faith. The next thing is that faith is a tangible object. It is a thing that we possess. And it's not something that is on or off, in the sense that I have faith in God or I don't have faith in God, which is the way the Bible describes things. They describe it as almost like a container.

Like, I have my faith bowl, and I need more faith so that God will answer my prayers. So I gotta have more faith. Lord, give me more faith. I need more faith so you'll answer my prayers. Well, it seems like a funny prayer to pray for more faith if you don't have enough faith to get the other prayers answered.

It's a little cyclical, but they teach faith is something that you must possess on some level and have some volume of. We're going to take a look at Luke chapter 17 in a little bit, that Christ actually addresses that issue specifically. So they teach that faith is something you need to have. Why is that a powerful thing for them to teach? Can anybody think of why that would be powerful?

If you are responsible for claiming your blessings, remember, because you're going to name it and claim it, And the only way that God is obligated to give you those blessings is if you're righteous and you have faith. Then if you don't have enough faith, then God is not obligated to provide those things.

Well, you might need somebody else to step in and fill the gap. Like maybe a televangelist who might actually kind of want to check for that little ministry service he's providing. Okay, so faith being enough volume, that's pretty important. Now, why are these people able to step in and fill that void for you in your life? The reason is the next thing on the list. Imagine that.

Those in charge have a special anointing. If you're a televangelist, God has given you an anointing. That's a common word they use. It's from the Old Testament. Do you remember? Anointings took place. They anointed Saul to be the king of Israel. He was anointed and he was anointed to be the leader of the nation. And these people were anointed to lead you spiritually. Isn't that wonderful? Now, the anointing leads to three specific things that are important.

First of all, we can't question their authority because they're anointed. So if I question Benny Hinn's authority, then I'm probably the fraud because I was the one questioning God's anointing. That's easy to keep people under your control, isn't it, when you can just dismiss anybody just by saying, oh, that person is a fraud because they're questioning God's anointing. So the first thing is don't question God's anointing. The second thing is that we can't question their interpretation.

When they go and open God's Word and they start spewing out things that are really hard to prove from the text that they're reading out of, you can't question it. Why? Because they're God's anointed. They have a special measure of the Holy Spirit, if you will, that gives them special insight that you can't have. So that's why you've got to come through them, the truth channel. It's not necessarily God's word. You've got to have that special anointing.

And you can't question their lifestyle. I think that's really important, especially when you might be driving a Yugo and they're driving a Lexus. It's like, wow, I can barely afford the payments on the Yugo, and you want me to send in $1,000? They live exorbitant lifestyles, and they just cannot be questioned because they have God's anointing. So it's pretty important.

So you are the responsible party for the failure of your prayer requests, unless you can somehow give them money. But even still, if you send them money, if it still fails, it's just because you were weak. And you can't question them. I mean, that's a pretty good position to be in.

It kind of sounds like some of the cult leaders. Not a big surprise, but I think it really comes down to some of them are operating like cult leaders. I read an exchange between David Koresh. Do you remember David Koresh from the Branch Davidians in Waco? I read an exchange that was a transcription of a conversation he had with one of the FBI agents, and he was speaking with just blatant arrogance as the Christ on the earth. and he was speaking with confidence as if he were Christ on the earth saying, I have special message for you, you need to listen to me because I hold your soul in my hands, basically. And the televangelists don't use that language but they speak with the same sort of confidence. It's very frightening if you think about the kind of control they wield in people's lives. Okay, next we're going to take a quick run through of some prominent televangelists. This list is really short because there are a lot of them. Down here off of Quebec and Orchard off of 225. I'm pointing the wrong direction, but just pretend that I know where I'm going. I'm like, wait a minute, that's north. Is that north? I'm really disoriented.

That's Marilyn Hickey's ministry, and she is a televangelist. She is a very wealthy woman. She's got a very nice facility there. But we're not even going to talk about her. How about that? Because she doesn't rank. She's on the lower levels. Interesting you talk about her. Her husband is also a minister. You never hear about him. I don't even know who he is. I've never heard his name. I've met both of them. Yeah, but in some of the cases the gals are more dominant than the men, but we'll get through the list here. She's the boss. Oh yeah. He wears his collar on and so forth. Not a Catholic collar. No, but it gives him a spiritual feel to him.

First one we want to look at, because he's probably one of the earliest names in televangelism, would be Pat Robertson. Everybody's heard of the 700 Club? Because that was definitely It's actually the longest running religious variety show on television. It's been running for over 30 years now. It's been a while. The 700 Club has been around.

He's a charismatic Southern Baptist minister. And when I say charismatic, I don't mean that he's bubbly. He is that a little bit, but he's actually theologically charismatic. He's ordained, but he's not an active minister. As he got into politics, he actually put down his ministerial ordainment because he realized that that was going to be a conflict of interest and that people were going to take it wrong. So he actually put that away himself. which is a respectable thing to do.

Robertson has started many different religious institutions including CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network, Regent University, IFE, which is a family television content company. They made cartoons and stuff. They actually got bought out by Fox and then Fox sold it to ABC or Disney.

As well as, after losing the 1988 election to George Herbert Walker Bush, started the Christian Coalition. So those are all some names that you may recognize. But Pat Robertson was definitely an important mover and shaker in the early parts of Christian television as well as currently still being a prominent face.

You probably have heard some of the things that he said recently that have caused all the non- Christian people to get their feathers pretty well ruffled. Talking about taking out various political leaders, that's a really good way to win friends and influence people. Talking about assassinations. I've got a quote here from him. You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and Methodists and this, that, and the other thing.

Nonsense! I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. We talked about ecumenicalism last week, and you know that I think that ecumenicalism is probably a bad idea. Us ignoring doctrinal differences is a poor choice, but I wouldn't go so far to say that any of those groups has the spirit of the Antichrist by themselves. There are believers within each one of those camps, even if we don't agree theologically on some of the doctrines.

That definitely right there put him on the watchdog list. A lot of people really started to keep track of him. after he started to make really bold statements that were highly suspect. I don't think you can find that in scripture, but of course you really can't question it.

In 1988 he ran against George Walker Bush, we already talked about that. His platform when he did run for the presidency included removing the Department of Education and stopping the government funding of services like Amtrak. So he's hyper-conservative compared to the Republican Party, which is moderately conservative. So he was very far right.

And of course, billing himself as the religious right, that's a big hot word today. But I think Pat Robertson definitely helped to create a focus and awareness of that demographic, if you will, politically. And it causes a lot more division as well, but we won't go into that.

On a personal level, my mom used to listen to him and thought he was wonderful. They called her about once every ten days to see if she wanted to update her prayer requests. Oh, update her prayer requests! How wonderful! Keep sending your donation and we'll update the prayer requests. What a wonderful opportunity.

So Pat Robertson is definitely somebody that has a lot of influence, even though he's not running the most prominent broadcasting network for religious content. The next on the list, and this is actually short, but we talked about it a bit longer earlier, was the Crouches, Paul and Jan. They started TBN in 1973, and I've seen it to the top.

It's now in multiple languages on multiple continents. They have things translated into Spanish, they have things translated into Italian, they have things translated into various European languages, and certain things also into Asian languages. They're definitely international and they definitely have the widest viewership by far. We already talked that they were all over.

The Crouches have homes around the United States, but their ministry is based partially in Irving, Texas. They also have a ministry base in California, because, I mean, why not? It's a write-off, or it's a non-profit organization, and you need to minister to those liberal Californians just as much as you do the Texans.

Here's a quote from Mr. Paul Crouch next year. If you have been healed or saved or blessed through TBN and have not contributed to the station, you are robbing God and will lose your reward in heaven. Wow, I sure wish Paul had written something like that so you could actually document it. Oh wait, it is Paul, but it's just Paul Crouch. The thing is that when you make statements like that, there's no scriptures to back that up. You can't prove that.

Your rewards in heaven are for money. Is that what it is? No. Your rewards for heaven are for serving the Lord. And those works that are beneficial, that are going to gain rewards, as Ephesians 2 says, are going to be ones that God has already planned for us to do. So, the guy's a bit of a manipulator. So that's Mr. Paul Crouch. Jan Crouch is his wife.

She's full of gusto. If you ever turn on TBN and you see her there, she's probably crying. Or was five minutes ago. She does a lot of crying. I think that she probably is on a lot of mood enhancing substances. That's opinion, by the way, for the recording. I'm not saying that she is. But she's got to be on some kind of hormone therapy to be able to cry like that. I mean, I've never seen anybody who can cry just boom. It was like, wow.

Maybe she's like, never mind. Okay, I'm ad-libbing and that's not right. Next on the list is Jim and Tammy Baker, the founders of PTL. Everybody remembers PTL, they had a scandal in 1988. Tammy Faye was the crier as well. I think they had competitions. They probably had to have an IV to keep them hydrated. I shouldn't say that stuff, I'm sorry.

They had some financial and sexual scandals come out in 1988. Jim Baker had to serve five years in prison for wire fraud and was released in 1993. While he was in prison, Tammy Faye decided she'd had enough of his silliness. After four years, I don't know, maybe she was still getting some financial kickback or something, so she waited until 1992 and divorced him.

Tammy, at least recently, had a radio show and has done some non-Christian television work. She was actually on one of those reality TV programs where there's Tammy Faye Baker, some ex-porn star guy, an ex-rapper guy who used to be competition with MC Hammer, and some other people who I forget. And they were all on this reality TV show where they lived together and was trying to see how they could cohabitate and see if they would not kill one another. So Tammy Faye Baker did radio, has done some television work. Jim actually has his own new show and has remarried a gal by the name of Lori. He's definitely cut back on some of the things that got him in trouble for sure.

Jim Baker is a personal friend of Billy Graham. I don't say that to bring Billy Graham under question for being a friend with Jim Baker. We can all be friends with people who have faults and problems. I know I do. But that was definitely one of the things that actually helped get Jim Baker back going because the Graham family actually bought him a house after he got out of prison to get him back on his feet. I thought that was rather generous. So that's Jim and Tammy Faye Baker briefly.

Next on the list is Kenneth Copeland. This guy is a a walking heretic in my opinion. We've got a quote here from him that should be just really encouraging. He's based out of Fort Worth, Texas. Having been in Fort Worth and lived there for four and a half years or in that area, it's amazing.

You will see a lot of people that get influenced or by influenced I'll say negatively because They don't want to hear about Christianity because they've seen all the junk around them. They've seen all of the frauds. And you go to them with the gospel and they're like, oh, no. I'm a Christian, but I'm not a born-again Christian because I'm not doing what they do. That's ridiculous. So it really is a turn-off and it's a big problem. They say that they're making a positive impact on people's lives, but I don't think that that's a fair statement.

Copeland has been accused of various heretical teachings, including claiming Christ suffered in hell for three days for the believers, as well as Adam being God and flesh in the garden. The first one, have any of you heard that? That when Christ died, he literally went to hell for three days? That's a really hard one to prove by scripture. That requires some, what's called, eisegesis.

You put your own ideas into the text and kind of force them on it. And Adam being God in flesh in the garden. I've got a quote there on the next page at the top of page three. This is all a copy of home. It's a copy of the mother planet, which sounds ironically Mormonistic.

And Adam is as much like God as you could get. Adam in the garden of Eden was God manifested in the flesh. So Christ was God manifested in the flesh, but so was Adam. Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, Adam was born of the dirt. the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.

So it's a bit tough. I've got the reference right there for where that came from, but Kenneth Copeland is definitely, definitely full of creative ideas that are not biblical. So if you were wanting to watch him, you would want to put on your discernment hat and be very careful that what you listen to from him didn't actually get into your brain theologically, because you could probably be dangerous.

The guy has a lot of tapes and videos that people can purchase from him through his ministry that allow him to make an incredibly large amount of money. He's got a big tape ministry, and a lot of these televangelists do. At the world's largest Christian bookstore, which is ironically right behind the TBN headquarters, I've been in there multiple times, They have a section where you can buy tapes and videos and stuff, and you'll get a six video series from one of these guys, and it's $145 or something like that for six tapes. How on earth could it cost that much money to copy and duplicate six tapes? It's highly suspect to me. It seems like it's a bit overpriced, but you can't question God's anointed.

That's Kenneth Copeland. His wife Gloria also works with him on his television program often. Next on the list here we've got Jimmy Swaggart. Now he's gone now. I mean he still has a ministry but he keeps getting caught doing things one ought not do. Jimmy Swaggart was a prominent singer and televangelist. In 1988, along with Jim Baker's scandal, Swaggart admitted to meeting with a prostitute. Actually, it's kind of funny, the guy that pinned him to get him to confess to meeting with a prostitute had been kicked off of his televangelist thing because Jimmy Swaggart pointed him out for being with a prostitute.

I guess turnabout's fair play or something because they both got caught in it. Swaggart, it was estimated in the 80s at the peak, was getting $150 million a year in ministry income total. That was coming in for his ministry. That'll pay for a lot of whatever, you know 150 million dollars He wasn't getting all of it because he had to pay his phone answers and his television cameraman and stuff But it was a nice pretty penny next guy.

This guy is infamous a movie Shoot Steve Martin movie. I can't think of the name of it off the top of my head was actually based on the life of Peter Popoff and It was about a televangelist who was doing fraudulent things. But in the end of the movie, the televangelist actually has a kid get healed that wasn't involved with him and so it changes his heart. In real life, Peter Popov is still doing what he was doing.

It was discovered he was defrauding attendees at his meetings where his wife would transmit via a secret hearing aid, a hearing device. She would broadcast via shortwave radio prayer requests that people had filled out on cards as they were coming into the building. And he would go, oh, God has a word, and I think that it's, you know, whatever, and it would be that, you know, Bertha, I think God's going to heal you from a heart attack, or whatever it is, you know, and only I've known Bertha, and she lives down the street from me, but in Peter Popov's situation, that's not the case. He was getting these cards, and his wife was just reading it on a microphone to him in the back. And so he got caught and had to do some jail time. But he's out and he's serving the Lord again on television. When you're anointed, you just really can't mess with it. So in 2004, a couple years ago, he was reported to make over half a million dollars as president of his ministry. That's pretty good money. That's a lot more than I make. Maybe I should get into television.

That's what it is. Next on the list here, this guy is my personal favorite. I actually want to get a shirt made with this guy. I do, because I have a picture of him kneeling on some prayer requests that people had mailed in, and he's got a really intense look on his face. You have to watch him. This guy's face, it's unreal. You can't make cartoons this expressive. This guy's got the most expressive face. He's squinting his eyes real big, and he's kneeling down on the prayer things, and underneath it says, got milked.

Robert Tilton was caught having his mail forwarded from his Dallas-based ministry headquarters up to Oklahoma, I believe it was in Tulsa, but don't quote me on that, where employees of this company were opening the letters, removing the checks, putting them in one pile, taking everything else and putting it in the garbage.

So you can send in your prayer requests. We'll be praying for them. I have staff praying for your prayer requests all the time. As long as you send in the money, we care about that. Anything else goes in the garbage. So he was caught doing that. I believe it was Tilton that was quoted as saying, and I used to have a recording of it, and I can't find it. I wanted to be able to source it.

But it's Tilton asking his audience, does God deserve a house with a circular driveway? And your response would be, yes, because God deserves that. Does God deserve a Porsche? Yes! And he asked me to drive it. So Robert Tilton, he is just brilliant. He was good. I definitely recommend it. And that's the time to ring her already. I've got five minutes to scream through this. There's a couple other people. Benny Hinn, I have to read these quotes. It's just amazing. Benny Hinn, one of the most exorbitant spenders within the televangelist movement. He has claimed to have raised the dead, healed many various diseases, and has suggested that viewers hold up ailing body parts to the television screen to receive healing, if they have faith. I'm not even going to go to the jokes that could come out of that, holding body parts up to the screen. That could be embarrassing. Tilton disappeared for a while. Oops, sorry.

Benny Hinn actually has made some false prophecies, which are fun, like he prophesied Fidel Castro's death in the 90s. Everybody remembers that happening, right? Oh wait, Fidel Castro is still in charge in Cuba. We may have, let's see, here's another one.

We may have two years before the rapture. Can I be blunt with you? I don't know if we have two years left. I'm going to prove to you from the word tonight that we have less than two years, and this is the most perfect clause, unless the Lord changes his mind. You can't argue with that. God's going to return in two years. I mean, he could have said two minutes and then said, unless God changes his mind, he's going to prove it to you.

Prove. Absolute. Buy in. Send your money now. Maybe. You know, it's... That's highly suspect. So I would say that Benny Hinn is clearly an open theist, like we talked about in one of the previous classes. I'm going to read another quote to you that's just classic.

Adam was a super being when God created him. He had dominion over the fowls of the air, which means he used to fly. Well of course, how could you have dominion over the birds and not be able to do what they do? Adam flew into space with one thought. He would be on the moon. We've spent way too much money for NASA. I mean, Hal devoted major parts of his life to that.

So Benny Han definitely qualifies as a televangelist of the extreme sort. Real quick, let's take a look at Ephesians 1-3. I said we'd go over that section in Luke, but we're just out of time. So Ephesians 1-3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. For the believer, where is our blessing?

It's in heaven. And who's it through? It's through Christ, not the televangelists. Not through having five ounces of faith or five pounds of faith. We've been given every spiritual blessing in heaven. Do we get earthly blessings in life? Yeah, they happen. They happen, but they happen because all human beings, by being on this earth, the Lord gives them life. That's a blessing. He gives us breath. He sustains us. When we're here on this earth, great. For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. Our mindset should be heavenly-oriented, Colossians 3. Set your mind on things above where Christ is seated in the heavenlies. Second Timothy 3, 6, and 7.

For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women, weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now, I'm not going to point out the woman focus of this statement because there's men that send in the money too. But it seems highly prophetic for Paul to have written, coming into the homes. We've got the televisions in our homes and we just turn it on. Actually, probably we don't flip a knob anymore. Now you just push a button and it turns on.

But it comes into the homes and the people listen and they don't know the truth. They don't understand it and they never come to know the truth. They just keep listening to the guy asking for money and they just keep sending it. He said it's going to do something for me and it hasn't happened yet, but I haven't got enough faith, so I need him.

The thing Luke 17, 1-6 addresses is false teaching. Christ says it would be better for a person who is a false teacher to drown in the ocean with a millstone around their neck than to lead people astray. I'd say that's pretty serious. Christ is saying, let's not be teaching false theology and bad doctrine.

And then his disciples say, we need more faith. And he says, hey, if you've got faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain. Because faith isn't about volume. It's about who you're having your faith in. God is the one that is doing those things. Your faith is in God, not a person or you having enough.

And I always have to cut things off earlier. I did want to make one last statement, especially for those listening to the recording. I'm not saying every person that claims to be a Christian that comes on television is going to be spewing lies. They don't all need to be wearing a shirt that says, I'm probably lying. But we need to have discernment as believers. But the same thing goes for what you hear Sunday morning at the pulpit of any church you walk into, including this one. Check God's Word. Look at God's Word. What does it say? What is the person saying it says? Do they match up? So, anyways, that's probably the conclusion.

There's so much material. We could go over hours and hours. I wish I had that video. We could have sat here and watched it. You would laugh and laugh and laugh at the junk that these people are spewing out. Yes? Robert Schuller. Ah, the Crystal Cathedral. I kind of left him out. He has probably been more conservative in his statements.

He and Joel Osteen fall along the success by good living, almost positive karma type message. They don't use that term by the way, but it's like Christianity with the if you do good, good things will happen to you kind of thing mixed in. Yeah, positive living, definitely. Yes?

I was wondering how would you evaluate Charles Stanley? Charles Stanley is one that I would actually consider to be pretty safe. Always discernment, but Charles Stanley tends to be a more conservative a biblically-based teacher. He's had some issues, got divorced in the last, I think, five or ten years ago, which caused some people to, you know, oh, divorce, you're all, you could never speak truth ever again, which I don't think is a true statement. He's definitely safer, if you will. Definitely motivational in his content, but biblical more than most other televangelists.

There's a lot of them, and you could flick through the channels and keep finding people. I kept running into people and going, oh, I need to talk about that person. I can't. Kenneth Hagen is on the list. T.D. Jakes actually isn't on my longer list for us to go into, but T.D. Jakes is very, very influential right now, as is Creflo Adollar. And there's a bunch.

Jessica used to work at that video duplication company, like I said. And they made copies and copies and copies for just anybody. If you had a religious organization, they seemed to duplicate for them. Let's close in prayer briefly, because I am way over time. Heavenly Father, we come before you and ask that you would just continue to direct our hearts and minds in your word as we go into the main service. Thank you for your truth. Thank you for your word. And we just pray that you would give us all discernment and have us be like the Bereans. as we go forward and study your word. In Jesus' name, amen.