MacArtur: Health and Wealth Preachers Shameless Frauds

I woke up Monday morning and as I proceeded to go about my day I was overcome with a sense of heart-felt gratitude that I couldn’t contain myself so I grabbed my cell phone and posted this comment on my Facebook status,

“I'm particularly grateful today for having been delivered out of the aberration and sometimes down right heresy that is W-F theology. Why many preachers continue to remain silent on this issue baffles me. I just hope it's not because they are cowards."

I arrived at home very and was ready to call it a day, but I brought my MacBook Pro to bed so I could briefly browse before going to sleep and by God’s providence I came across an article (Thank you Caron Totty Strong!) by John MacArthur entitled A Colossal Fraud. If you know anything about “Jmac” you know he is no coward. He’s never cowered to speak clearly and truthfully no matter the circumstance. His appearances on Larry King Live have surely demonstrated this. In his article MacArthur begins by pointing out that Bernie Madoff’s $18 billion 20-year ponzi scheme pales in comparison to the more “diabolical fraud” that is “prosperity” teaching MacArthur goes on to write,

“Someone needs to say this plainly: The faith healers and health-and-wealth preachers who dominate religious television are shameless frauds. Their message is not the true gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing spiritual or miraculous about their on-stage chicanery. It is all a devious ruse designed to take advantage of desperate people. They are not godly ministers but greedy impostors who corrupt the Word of God for money's sake. They are not real pastors who shepherd the flock of God but hirleings whose only design is to fleece the sheep. Their love of money is glaringly obvious in what they say as well as how they live. They claim to possess great spiritual power, but in reality they are rank materialists and enemies of everything holy. There is no reason anyone should be deceived by this age-old con, and there is certainly no justification for treating the hucksters as if they were authentic ministers of the gospel. Religious charlatans who make merchandise of false promises have been around since the apostolic era. They pretend to be messengers of Christ, but they are interlopers and impostors. The apostles condemned them with the harshest possible language. Paul called them "men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain" (1 Timothy 6:5). Peter called them false prophets with "heart[s] trained in greed" (2 Peter 2:14). He warned that "in their greed they will exploit you with false words" (v. 3). He exposed them as scoundrels and dismissed them as "stains and blemishes" on the church (v. 13).

Thank God for MacArthur and other real men who have a backbone to speak up about these wolves who continue to ravish the flock of God. I highly encourage you to read the rest of the article here.