Brannon Howse: Oh, I have a treat for you today. Welcome to the program. Glad you're with us. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Justin Peters, but I found out about him two days ago, I believe it was, when I was at the website of gracetoyou.org, and they have a video clip of him. I was over there searching some of the sermons of Dr. McArthur on the new apostolic reformation, Peter Wagner, and up popped a video clip on Dr. McArthur’s website of a young man by the name of Justin Peters. And I watched the video and I was thoroughly impressed and thought, wow, this guy’s got really courage, biblical courage.
And so I reached out to him by e-mail, and he and I today spent over an hour probably, or close to an hour on the phone, and we’ve already booked him to be a keynote speaker with us in Branson, Missouri. And after you hear today’s program with him as our guest, you're going to know why. Justin Peters, welcome to the broadcast. Thank you for joining us.
Justin Peters: You're welcome, Brannon. It’s my honor to be here.
Brannon Howse: I wanna start out with a verse, 2 Timothy 2:25, “In humility, correcting those who are in opposition. If God, perhaps, will grant them repentance, so they may know the truth.” Verse 26, “And that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” The will of who? The devil. You know, that’s what we’re trying to do. As many of you know, I’ve been trying to warn some of these pro-family leaders for months now: Don’t get involved with these people. This is a trap. This is a snare. And that’s all we’ve been seeking to do is to warn them.
Justin, can you – maybe before we get into the whole word of faith movement, prosperity gospel, name it and claim it, which is one of your areas of expertise, can you maybe tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe why this is so personal to you when they talk about the fact that if you're not healed and you don’t have enough faith that – why that’s offensive to you? Can you maybe shed some light on the topic for our audience as to who you are, and why particularly you, in your certain situation, have been vocal on this? Would you share your heart on that?
Justin Peters: Sure, Brannon. I was introduced to the word of faith movement, the prosperity gospel, at age 16. I was born with a moderate case of cerebral palsy, and which means I walk on crutches, and I can do that for relatively short distances. And so I was born with cerebral palsy, and at age 16, a neighbor of mine who was heavily into this movement – but at age 16 I didn’t even know this was a movement, I just – I had no discernment whatsoever, but he came up to me and he said that God had spoken to him. He said, “Justin, God has spoken to me, and he’s told me that he’s going to heal you.” And he told me about a faith healer by the name of Nora Lamb, who was coming to my home town of Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the time.
And a long story short, he spent a lot of time with me and showed me a lot of scripture that seemed to support the teaching that it’s always God’s will to be healed, and at age 16 I just – as I said, I had no discernment, and – but I was completely convinced. And you know, I thought I had all the faith. And I went to this meeting, this healing crusade, in full expectations of being healed. And of course, I was not. I went to see a couple of other faith healers, RW Shambock and a couple others, in hopes of being healed, and wasn’t. And so that was my – that was first – that was the genesis of my interest in this movement. And – but God was gracious and, you know, preserved me through this, but over the years I’ve come to realize how profoundly un-biblical this movement is.
And a lot of people think that it’s just, you know, the kind of goofy stuff you see on Christian television, faith healing, you know, prosperity, Rolex watches, but it’s a lot more serious than that. It’s really cultic doctrine that’s been wrapped in Christian terminology. And so that’s what began my interest in it, and now I just have a burden for the truth of God’s word, rightly divided, and for those people who are falling prey to this false gospel.
Brannon Howse: And you've produced a series on this, it’s also available on DVD. And folks, you can watch a whole hour of basically an overview of his presentation on discernment and the need for discernment. We have posted a link to his video on our website at worldviewtimes.com, but you'll also find it if you go to his website, which is: justinpeters.org. And particular place they need to click to find the link to the one-hour presentation I’m talking about?
Justin Peters: Well, when you go to my website, there’ll be a screen that changes, it kind of scrolls through, and you'll see a link there that says, “Watch the video,” or “Watch an overview of a call for discernment,” and click on that and it’ll load up.
Brannon Howse: And you'll also find a link to it, folks, at our website: worldviewtimes.com. It said – the article posted last night says, “A message pro-family and Christian leaders must listen to before uniting with false teachers on October 6th, 2011, at the response.” And that will provide you a link right to the very video page of Justin Peters’ website, where he’s giving a presentation before a seminary and warning about this movement that we’ve been warning about, that comes in many different forms and names and personalities, and I hope that you will watch it. Now I wanna play some audio clips for you today. Today will be part one. Justin has graciously agreed to be with us on Monday as well.
It’s gonna take us two days to get through this, and even then we may not get through it all. But I wanna play some video clips that Justin has pulled out and put in his presentation, and he said, “Go to that video, Brannon, and grab these quotes, and let’s play them and then comment on them.” So let’s get started. But before we do that, how would we – the new apostolic reformation, word of faith movement, prosperity gospel, name it and claim it, are these just different names for the same movement?
Justin Peters: Basically, Brannon. There is some distinction. The word of faith movement is more commonly known as the prosperity gospel, or the health and wealth, name it and claim it gospel, the doctrine that says it’s always God’s will for a Christian to be wealthy, it’s always God’s will for a Christian to be physically healed, and if you do get sick, physical healing is guaranteed as long as you have enough faith. So almost – not all, but almost everything that you see on Christian television is this word of faith theology, prosperity gospel.
And the new apostolic reformation movement is kind of a splinter group off of this. They are everything that the word of faith movement is, but they get even more heavily into what’s known as dominion theology, their belief that it is their God-given duty, mandate, to basically Christianize the world and present for Christ a completely Christian world, a Christian society for him to return to. So there is a little bit of a distinction, but there’s – they’re essentially the same thing.
Brannon Howse: Well, let’s also give out a word of caution to some of our friends who maybe – and I’m getting, by the way, great e-mails from Pentecostals, Pentecostal pastors, assembly of God members, ___ ____ God pastors, saying, “Brannon, keep going, we are in agreement.” We need to make a clear distinction here between some who would be called charismatic and those who would be word of faith. Is there a distinction that needs to be made?
Justin Peters: There is, Brannon. By the strict definition of the term, if you're a charismatic, given the strict definition of the term, that simply means that you believe that all of the spiritual gifts, including the signed gifts such as tongues and healing, are still in effect today. Now you can be charismatic and not go into word of faith. Now it is a slippery slope, but to be fair there are what I refer to as clear thinking charismatics. There are people who can take a charismatic position and put on the brakes and not go into word of faith. So what I say in my seminars and my teaching, all word of faith are charismatic, but to be fair, not all charismatics are word of faith.
Brannon Howse: Yeah, I think that’s a very important point to make in order to be fair, of course, to many of our listeners, who we wanna be fair with as well. All right, let’s play this first clip we have. This is Gloria Copland talking about how you need to command the weather. Here’s Gloria Copland.
Gloria Copland: You know, you're the – you're supposed to control the weather. I mean, Ken’s the primary weatherman at our house, but when he’s not there I do it. And you can see what’s happening out there. It shows just like they have on – at the weather – like on the news. I mean, he’s got the computer that’s got the current weather on it and all that for flying. So sometimes I’ll hear something, I’ll hear the thunder start, and maybe he’ll still be asleep, and I’ll say, “Ken, you need to do something about this.” [Laughter] And knowing that – but you are the one that has authority over the weather. One day Ken and Pat Boone, when we were at Hawaii at their house, and we were – they were setting outside, and there was a weather spout out over the ocean.
And that’s like a tornado, except it hits the water. And so they were sitting there and they just watched it, rebuked it, and it never did anything. One day, I was in the airplane, in the back, and my little brother was in the back with me, and Ken was up front flying. And we were not in the weather, because we don’t fly bad weather, but we could see the weather over here. And I looked out the window and that tornado came down just like this, down toward the ground. And Ken said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. You get back up there!” So this is how I learned how to talk to tornados. I saw this. And that tornado went [Makes repeated whooping noise], even while I was watching. And my little brother was not a devout Christian at that time, and that was really good for him to see.
So you're the weather man. You get out there – or the weather woman, whichever it is, and you talk to that thing, and you tell it, “You're not coming here. I command you to dissipate! And you get back up there in Jesus’ name!” Glory to God. That – I won’t charge you extra.
Brannon Howse: Wow. You wanna comment on that before we go to our first break? The music starts any second, but you wanna get started and we’ll comment more on the other side of the break there Justin?
Justin Peters: Sure, Brannon. If this is true that Gloria Copland and others in the word of faith movement can control the weather, then might we ask where she was when hurricane Katrina came into town? Might we ask why she doesn’t, right now, talk up some rain to some people in drought stricken countries in Africa? It’s just – it’s absurd on its face, but this, unfortunately, is the face of Christianity in much of the world today, and there’s another point I wanna make about that clip when we come back.
Brannon Howse: Hold it right there. All right, let’s do that. Justin Peters is my guest, website: justinpeters.org.
[Commercial]
Brannon Howse: Welcome back, glad you're with us. World View Weekend Radio. My name’s Brannon House. By the way, thank you so much to all of you who are e-mailing me, telling me you're praying for us, encouraging us, giving me Bible verses. So many scriptures being in e-mailed to me, and in context, may I say. Thank you! And I’ve responded to, I would think, almost all of you, unless of course, I responded to you and it went into your spam box, but I try to respond to everyone that does e-mail, and thank you so much. If you, by the way, are liking this broadcast, again, it’s just one of literally hundreds, now to the point of 1000 or more, that – you know, this broadcast won’t be dated a year from now, two years from now.
If the lord has not returned, this broadcast will still be relevant, and we’ll still be dealing with these theological and doctrinal issues. And if you wanna have access to a lot of these kind of broadcasts, that’s what we have the situation room for. Now this broadcast will be up on our website tonight, and on our Facebook page, and it’ll be available to anyone that wants to listen to it, free of charge, for 14 days. We wanna make it available to everyone we can without any cost for 14 days. After that it does roll into our situation room, which is how we largely support what we do, is through people that are members of our situation room. And you can join for a nominal fee at situationroom.net – situationroom.net. You'll see a red button that says, “Log In.” That’s for members. And you'll see a button that says, “Register,” that’s for people who wanna join.
Hope you'll consider doing that: situationroom.net. My guest today is Justin Peters. His website, I hope you’ll go there and visit it and watch the entire hour of this presentation, this sermon that he delivered with these sound clips, at justinpeters.org. You'll also find links to it at our website: worldviewtimes.com. I posted it yesterday. Justin, you wanna make a comment about Gloria Copland saying we control the weather?
Justin Peters: Yes, Gloria Copland saying that we can control the weather, and what I say in my seminar, who else does that remind you of? Does it remind you of someone who one day was in a boat with his disciples and a storm came up, and he spoke to the storm and calmed it? You see, the word faith movement denigrates the deity of God. They demote God to make him look more human than what he is, and then in return they deify man to make us look more like God than what we really are. They ascribe to man attributes and powers that reside solely with God, and so they blur that distinction between God the creator, and us, his created, and that’s a very, very dangerous line to cross.
Brannon Howse: Well, and of course, the new apostolic does that, as they talk about them becoming the manifested sons of God, or omega children, or –
Justin Peters: Right.
Brannon Howse: New breed, or whatever, that they will conquer death, they will – and the curse of sin. They’re taking on – saying that they will become as God. In fact, that leads me to another clip. Creflo Dollar, who you see on television a lot, he has said the following, and I want you to comment on this after he tells his audience that we are little Gods.
Creflo Dollar: Now, in verse 26 and verse 27 God now submits himself to this principle of everything producing after its own kind. And in verse 26 and 27, let’s read it out loud – ready? – read: “And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, and the image of God created he – him, male and female, created he them.”
Now that’s interesting, because if everything produces after its own kind, we now see God producing man. And if God now produces man, and everything produces after its own kind – if horses get together, they produce what? And if dogs get together they produce what? If cats get together they produce what? What if the godhead gets together and says, “Let us make man,” then what are they producing? They’re producing gods. Now I gotta this thing real hard in the very beginning, because I ain’t got time to go through all this, but I’m gonna say to you right now, you are gods, little G’s. You are gods because you came from God, and you are gods. You're not just human. The only human part about you is this physical body that you live in.
Brannon Howse: Wow. Justin, please comment and set us straight, theologically, on this issue.
Justin Peters: Yeah, this is a standard doctrine, Brannon, of the word of faith movement, the prosperity gospel, the little gods doctrine. Creflo Dollar takes Genesis 1: 26-27, where God says man – that he created man in his image. And Creflo Dollar somehow extrapolates that to the teaching that we are gods, we are just like god. And this is staple word of faith doctrine. The faith preachers teach that when Adam was created, he was created to be an exact duplicate of God; not a little like God, not a lot like God, but another Yahweh. And when Adam sinned, which brings up all kinds of questions, if he was Yahweh and he sinned, but when Adam sinned he lost his deity, transferred his deity or his legal authority to Satan, the real Yahweh God was kicked out of planet earth, and then according to the word of faith theology, when a person gets saved, he regains what Adam lost, he becomes God again, just like Adam was before he fell.
And this is profoundly, profoundly heretical. When the bible says that God created man in his image, that means that, as human beings, we are the pinnacle of God’s creation, and we have the potential, the capacity, through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ through repentance of sin and personal faith in Christ, to know God. And none of the other created order has that privilege, that ability, but we as humans do. That does not mean we are gods. The bible is very clear, there is only one God. God is a jealous God. He will not share his glory with another. And yet, the word of faith movement teaches this, and this really is at the core of why they hold to financial prosperity and the physical healing, because according to their system, if you're a Christian, you're a god, and a God cannot be poor, and God certainly cannot be sick.
And so most people, when they see this stuff on TVN, the Inspiration Network, and whatnot, they’ll see the prosperity, they’ll see the Rolex watches, they’ll see the healing, but what they don’t realize is that those are just offshoots of a much more serious core theological problem with the movement. And –
Brannon Howse: This is – go ahead, I’m sorry.
Justin Peters: Yeah, and just to follow that up, it’s interesting, think back to what the first sin was, the temptation back in the garden.
Brannon Howse: Right, yeah. You'll be like God.
Justin Peters: Was to be just like God.
Brannon Howse: Yeah.
Justin Peters: Yeah. And now the prosperity teachers are teaching the very thing that lead to the whole fall in the first place. They’re teaching it as truth. And so it’s shocking, it really is shocking.
Brannon Howse: And I think, Justin, this also then fits in with the new apostolic crowd, which is, again, a splinter group of the word of faith, that says they’ll take dominion back, Genesis 21:26-28, they’ll grab that legal authority back from Satan. And then they go on to talk again about becoming the manifested sons of God, becoming God incarnate, sinless, able to raise the dead, judge the world, judge the church. So you see that same theology coming through in the new apostolic reformation, with that concept. Would you agree with me?
Justin Peters: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, there’s definitely a direct connection there, and the word of faith movement and the new apostolic really are not far at all apart on their theology, it’s just the NAR puts more emphasis on it, a bit more militaristic about it. But yes, it is the same. It’s the same core teaching. It’s just packaged a little bit differently, but the same core teaching.
Brannon Howse: So if you're uniting with some of these word of faith, new apostolic folks for an event of prayer and fasting and repentance, repentance, prayer, fasting, a time of repentance, how are they going to get anything done when many of these people are worshiping, I believe, a false Jesus, and representing a false gospel? How is God gonna honor this? How are they gonna come together to repent when they’re doing something they should be repenting of to start with, which is embracing false teaching and the evangelical and pro-family leaders uniting with false teachers? I mean, how can you repent while you're in the middle of repenting for something you should – you know, they’re there to try to repent, but they should be repenting for what they’re doing in the first place with their unequally yoked spiritual enterprise. Agree or disagree?
Justin Peters: I agree. I agree, Brannon. And one thing that I teach in my seminars is that the greatest threat to Christianity does not come from Islam, it doesn’t come from Buddhism, it doesn’t come from groups that are considered outside of the church, it comes from within the quote/unquote “church.”
Brannon Howse: Amen.
Justin Peters: From wolves in sheep’s clothing. And one of the things that makes this so confusing for people is that some of what they teach is right. You know, I’m not saying that everything that they teach is wrong, but that’s what makes it so dangerous. Some of it is right, but there is enough error and enough heresy mixed in with it that it corrupts the whole thing. And the bible tells us Satan disguises himself how? As an angel of light. 2 Peter 2, Peter is writing and he says, “False prophets arose among the people. There will be false teachers among you.” And he says, “They will secretly introduce destructive heresies.” And false teachers aren’t gonna come to us flags waiving, guns a blazing, saying, “I’m a false teacher.”
They’re going to secretly introduce it. And they’ll have some truth, but they’ll mix in with that truth error and heresy to fly in under our spiritual radars. And because we’re living in a day and age when discernment is so profoundly lacking in the church, most people don’t – they don’t catch it. They don’t know their bibles well enough to catch it, quite honestly. We’re living in a day and age in which a lot of people, many Christians, they at some level know what they believe, but they don’t know why they believe it, and they’ll claim fidelity to the word of God, but they don’t really know the word of God. And so when these destructive heresies that are cloaked in some truth, secretly introduced, they fly right in, you know.
Many Christians, they’re trying to keep the immorality and the false religions like Mormonism and Islam and all these things, trying to keep them out of the front door, but they’re letting just as destructive heresies – welcoming them right in the back door, and they don’t even realize it.
Brannon Howse: I agree. Let’s go to another clip, Benny Hinn. Here we go.
Benny Hinn: We pray. When we pray, we give him legal right to perform it. Yes. Let me define prayer for you in this show. Prayer is man giving God permission, a license, to interfere in earth’s affairs. In other words, prayer is earthly license for heavenly interference. God can do nothing on earth, nothing has God ever done on earth without a human giving him access. Always looking for a human to give him power of permission. In other words, God has the power, but you got the permission. God got the authority and the power, but you got the license. So even though God can do anything, he can only do what you permit him to do.
Brannon Howse: Wow. That is heresy of the highest level. And Justin, these are some of the people they’re going to unite with, these are some of the philosophies represented at this August 6th prayer event with some of these new apostolic word of faith people, and they’re praying. How far above the ceiling do you think their prayers are gonna go, Justin?
Justin Peters: Well, yeah, not above the ceiling at all, Brannon, because this is – you know, we’re not talking about minor issues. We’re not talking about differences on peripheral issues of faith. On these kinds of things we can all have differences. And you know, these issues that we’re talking about go to the heart of the gospel, and they’re preaching a different gospel. They’ve got a different Jesus. They’ve got a different view of God.
Brannon Howse: Hold right there. Different Jesus, different view of God. We’ll be right back with Justin Peters of justinpeters.org.
[Commercial]
Brannon Howse: Justin Peters is my guest. His website is: justinpeters.org. Justin Peters, with an S at the end. Right Justin? With an S at the end?
Justin Peters: That’s right.
Brannon Howse: Justinpeters.org. And you can hear this entire presentation on his website. We’ve also linked it to our website off our home page at worldviewtimes.com. And you'll see it as a – it says something about – it was posted on Friday – something about a message that all pro-family Christian leaders should listen to before uniting with these kind of folks on the August 6th prayer event. By the way, again, folks, if you appreciate what we’re bringing you here, and you say, “Man, I’m hungry for more teaching like this,” I hope you'll check out our website in the situation room, situationroom.net – situationroom.net. Also, our training institute August 5 and 6, and we have a family rate, husband and wife and two of your young people can attend with you for one price, and you can drive in. And most of you, from around the country where you’re at, essentially located in Memphis, for many for you to be able to get to by car.
I hope you'll do that and join us. Not yet too late to do that, to join us, to register for the training institute, August 5 and 6. You’ll find all the details at worldviewweekend.com – worldviewweekend.com. Justin, before the break, you said these people are preaching another Jesus and another gospel, and that their prayers aren’t gonna go past the ceiling. But someone might say to me, “But Brannon, we’re a pro-family group. We really aren’t a theological organization. We’re just a pro-family group that’s concerned about Christian activism in the culture war. So we don’t really get into the theological and doctrinal debates that you do at World View Weekend.” Is that a legitimate excuse?
Justin Peters: No, Brannon, I don’t think it is, because without a solid theological platform, without a solid biblical footing, then all of these other efforts just lead to moralism. And I’d encourage our listeners to listen to a sermon by John McArthur, the deadly dangers of moralism. So it’s one thing to have a quote/unquote “moral nation,” but that is entirely different than having a Christian nation. And if Christians would spend 10-percent of the time preaching the gospel and taking the gospel out to the highways and the hedges, 10-percent of their time doing that is what they spend on, you know, trying to get effective legislation passed – and I’m – you know, I’m not saying I’m against it, I’m all for that – but if we would focus our attention on the gospel, which the gospel is the power of God and the salvation, then we wouldn’t even be having these conversations about gay marriage and abortion, because you know, the power is in the gospel, not in all these other efforts.
And so we cannot – as believers, we cannot in good conscience join hands with people who may share our views on moral issues, but do not share commonality of belief in the true gospel. We just cannot do that as bible believing Christians.
Brannon Howse: Would you agree with me – would you agree with me that what is happening on August 6th, the response of, you know, prayer, fasting, and repentance, which again, you have to understand what is the purpose of prayer for some of these people, and again, how can you be there repenting for sins when you're involved in a sin, I believe, of uniting with false teachers – but would you agree with me that really what these folks are doing, whether it was those who united with Glen Beck last year, or these people uniting this summer with these false teachers, this is not gonna bring revival and healing to our land. It will only hasten the judgment of God, particularly because of the way the church is embracing false teaching. Would you think – would you agree with me that this is only gonna increase the judgment of our nation, not decrease it?
Justin Peters: I think it will, Brannon. In fact, I think that the – the fact that these false teachers are so prominent in quote/unquote “Christianity” today is, in and of itself, a judgment from God.
Brannon Howse: Wow.
Justin Peters: God – absolutely – God is giving people exactly what they want, just as he gave the Israelites what they wanted. He is giving people today what they – people are not – 2 Timothy 4:3, Paul says the time will come when people will no longer endure sound doctrine but will heed to themselves teachers who tickle the ears. Most people, sadly, aren’t interested in sound doctrine. They’re interested in having their ears ticked. And God’s giving them exactly what they want. See, you know, I go to these meetings, I go to the prosperity meetings, the healing crusades, and one thing that I’m struck by is that you look down at these thousands and thousands of people, and they’re not there to worship the true God. They’re not there to learn the word of God, rightly divided.
They’re there for what they’re being told God will give them, prosperity, healing, you know, your best life now. So they’re really not interested in serving the master. They’re just wanting to feast on what they are being told is on the master’s table. And so I think, and I’m convinced of this, that the fact that there are so many false teachers among us is, in and of itself, God’s judgment on us, on the church.
Brannon Howse: I agree. I agree. I see one of the guys on here who’s taking part in this response is Pastor John Hagee. I also see, of course, Cindy Jacobs and Mike Bickle and others, but I also see a guy named Nick Nielsen, youth and young adult pastor, Lakewood Church, Houston, Texas. I guess that that’s Lakewood Church, Houston, Texas, that has to be the Lakewood Church of Joel Osteen. So what would you say about Ostein and Hagee? They’re taking part in this. They’re part of your documentary, are they not?
Justin Peters: They are, they are. Joel Ostein is kind of the poster boy, I guess, if you will, of the prosperity gospel today. He is arguably the most popular preacher on the planet right now. Certainly he’s the pastor of the largest church in the United States of America, and Joel Ostein does not preach the gospel. I can honestly say, in my years of watching him, I have never once heard him clearly present the gospel. Now he’ll give you this little – right at the tail end, this little quote/unquote “sinner’s prayer,” just kind of, like, throw a dog a bone, but there’s no mention of understanding of what sin is, the gravity of sin, the holiness of God, the meaning of repentance, faith in Christ, none of that.
It’s just, you know, say this little ditty after me and you're in. You know, that’s not the gospel. Joel Ostein, by his own definition, by his own admission rather, does not preach on sin. I mean, he’ll tell you that. He does not preach on sin. Well, how can you preach the gospel if you don’t preach on sin? The gospel has no meaning. You see, the goodness of God and the mercy of God makes no sense to us unless we first understand the wrath of God, and it’s the wrath of God that makes mercy so precious.
Brannon Howse: Amen.
Justin Peters: But Joel Ostein completely skips that, and –
Brannon Howse: Tell me about Hagie.
Justin Peters: Yeah, John Hagie is also prosperity. Now I agree with a lot of what John Hagie says. I think he’s certainly got a lot more right than Joel Ostein does. But John Hagie is going further and further into the word of faith movement, heavily into positive confession, heavily into guaranteed prosperity, guaranteed healing. These are all standard word of faith doctrines. And he also joins hands with all of the big word of faith preachers; Vinnie Han, he endorses Vinnie Han, he endorses Kenneth Copland. Jesse Duplanes is one of the absolute worst of them, Brannon. I mean, Jesse Duplanes is just awful.
Brannon Howse: Well, I tell you what, you just set me up perfectly, because I have a clip from you of Jessie Duplanes. Here it is.
Justin Peters: Okay.
Jessie Duplanes: I’m gonna say something gonna knock your lights out. God has the power to take life, but he can’t. He got the power to do it, but he won’t. He’s bound. He can’t. He says death and life is in the power of who’s son? Yours. You ready for this? You want something that’ll knock your lights out? You choose when you live. You choose when you die.
Brannon Howse: Oh, wow. And you can hear the folks in the auditorium that you're presenting this to groaning. Please, tell us why that’s wrong.
Justin Peters: [Laughs] Yeah, well, I mean, Jessie says that God has the power to take life, but he can’t, he’s bound, he won’t. Well, I think that would come as a real surprise to King Herod. I think that would come as a real surprise to Uzzah who reached up to steady the ark and God struck him dead. I think that would come as a real surprise to everyone who was alive on the face of the earth, except for eight people, you know, and that whole flood thing. But God is the one who gives life. God is the one who takes life. And it’s just the height of arrogance to say that God can or cannot do anything. God can do whatever he wants to do.
Psalm 115:3, “Our God is in heaven. He does whatever he pleases.” And so it’s the height of arrogance to say God can’t do things, and we have the power to do things that only God can do. So it’s profoundly un-biblical. And you know, if people knew the word of God, if they would just pick up their bible and read it and study it, so much of this would just go away, because it’s profoundly un-biblical on its face.
Brannon Howse: So the pro-family and, quote, “Christian leaders,” that are embracing with the new apostolic and these word of faith teachers and this spiritual enterprise, do they not know the word of God? Do they not care? Or do some of them know the word of God but are choosing popularity or access or a bigger base by which to bring into their fold of their e-mail list and donations? Are they more interested in winning the culture war, and so if they can get warm bodies to go vote and sign petitions – I mean, what do you think is the motivation of some of these Christian leaders that you would think would know better? You think it’s just they don’t know the word of God, or they’re choosing to ignore the word of God?
Justin Peters: Well, Brannon, you know, I can’t comment on their motives, but it would be – I think you'd be hard pressed to say they don’t know the word of God. I think many of them do. It’s just that they have succumbed to the allure of pragmatism and what works, that’s what we’re gonna do. You know, if it works, let’s do it. If it gets results, let’s do it. And they just – I don’t know if they willingly ignore, or just are – deceive themselves of the dangers of holding hands and yoking up with nonbelievers and people who preach a different gospel. So I don’t think you can say they don’t know it.
You know, I mean, you would certainly think that they do, but – or the desire of results and the – and maybe even well intentioned desires to get good results, you know, they’ve – they’re eschewing the biblical warnings about false teachers and false doctrine. And you know, I’ll say – I’ll point the hand – I’ll point the finger at myself. Seven, eight, nine, ten years ago, even less than that, I mean, just some years ago I was really wrapped around the gears with politics and current events and –
Brannon Howse: Yeah, same here.
Justin Peters: You know, and wanting to – kind of wanting to affect change for the good, affect what I thought was Godly change, biblical change, and doing it through the avenues of government and legislation and all this. And – but we’re getting the cart before the horse. You see, the power, the real power to affect change is not through government. The real power to affect change is through the gospel.
Brannon Howse: Amen.
Justin Peters: The gospel is the power of God and the salvation. And so people are really getting the cart before the horse here, and they’re putting so much effort into something that, in and of itself, doesn’t even have any power.
Brannon Howse: I agree, and I’ve had to change my focus a few years ago as well, so I think you and I come from the same background and the same realization, which is one reason maybe why you and I are both so passionate about what we’re saying, because we realized the error of our own past on biblical focus.
Justin Peters: Right, right. Yep, absolutely, absolutely. So you know, if you really wanna see the power of God unleashed, if you really wanna see change, then focus on the Gospel. Go out on the highways and the hedges and preach the gospel, because that’s the power of God, not these other things. That’s straw ____ __ ____.
Brannon Howse: And of course, these other things here are also setting up and giving credibility to false teachers with their false Jesus and false gospel, which sadly then means that these people are giving credibility to folks that will lead others straight to hell. That’s a lot of responsibility. We’re gonna open up the phone lines: 1-800-347-9829, comment or question. When we come back from the break we’ll get to your calls. 1-800-347-9829. 1-800-347-9829. Justin – his website is justinpeters.org, justinpeters.org. And he’ll be with us on Monday for part two, because we have a lot more clips to play. But we wanna get to your calls: 1-800-347-9829. I’m Brannon House. This is World View Weekend Radio on VCY America. We’ll be right back.
[Commercial]
Brannon Howse: World View Weekend Radio, Brannon House here, my guest is Justin Peters. His website is: justinpeters.org. Here’s a clip by Paula White.
Paula White: We really begin to understand that, when Jesus Christ paid the price, the first thing that happened after he said, “It is finished,” is the veil was rent from top to bottom, signifying that no man could do that, but the price that was paid was there’s now no separation, so that we have direct access in the holy of holies. We understand, according to Hebrews, that Jesus is our high priest, and he’s the first of many brethren. Which means I now come into a priestly anointing. So I now can – I now come into a priestly anointing. [Second speaker] Jesus is not the only begotten son of God. He is not. I am a son of God. [Paula White] He’s the first fruit. [Second speaker] You're the – he’s the first fruit. He’s the first bard of many. And Jesus is not the only begotten son of God.
Brannon Howse: Oh wow. Jesus is not the only begotten son of God? And again, why would evangelical, pro-family leaders unite with this movement? And they would say, “Well, Paula White’s not at this event. Jessie Duplantes is not at this event.” Yes, but many of the people who embrace the same, I believe, heresy are at this event. Wow. Comment on that. Jesus is not the first begotten, the only begotten son. Comment, Justin!
Justin Peters: Yeah, well, my thought is: Have you read John 3:16? I mean, you know, it doesn’t get much more clear than that. And to teach that Jesus is not the only begotten son of God is absolute heresy. For those of us who are Christians, we’ve been adopted – we’re children of God by adoption, but there is only one who is begotten, and that’s Jesus Christ. He is the only begotten son of God, and to deny this is to flat out deny one of the fundamental tenets of historical Christianity. This is a different Jesus. And if they preach a different Jesus, they preach a different gospel.
Brannon Howse: Amen to that. I agree. Let’s go to Maryanne in Pennsylvania. Maryanne, you're on with Justin Peters of justinpeters.org. Go right ahead, Maryanne.
Maryanne: Hi. I just wanna make a comment. I heard Dr. Dobson on the radio today. I never listen to him, but I just happened to turn the radio on and he was on, and he was pushing this thing, telling people to get there any way you can; if you have to drive, fly, take a bus, whatever. And his wife, Shirley, was on saying, “Oh yes, and whoever attends this, we’re gonna be blessed. God’s gonna bless the country.” I don’t think so.
Brannon Howse: I think, quite frankly, you may find that not – the opposite of blessing will occur. I think that the bible is very clear that this is a violation of God’s word, and that doesn’t bring blessing at all. Let’s go to Renee. Thank you for your call, Maryanne. Let’s go to Renee in Wisconsin. Renee, you're on with Justin Peters. Thank you, Renee, for calling.
Renee: Yes. I’ve recently been aware of 10,000-beats – or I’m sorry, 10 billion beats, and it’s an even that’s going on September 17th and the 16th. Around the world they have all these maps – they have a website if you wanna look at it, just Google 10,000-beats – 10 billion beats. And they’re trying to beat the drums on that date and do, like, a positive thinking, positive intervention, and they’re – it’s an all-call to all different religions, Christian, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever religion you are, witchcraft, whatever you are, to get together and get on the beach and kind of think your way into a better world. You know, they acknowledge there’s the end times and the rapture, earth changes and so forth –
Brannon Howse: So basically, the New Agers are trying to unite with others, and this is exactly what we see, I believe, with people like Barbara Marks Hubbard, and Alice Bailey. There’s an overwhelming connection between these groups where I think they’re dealing with pagan spirituality, and I think this is how these two groups can merge. Let me play a quick clip here for you _____, because this is John Hagee, who is on the website of being a part of the response. You mentioned him a while ago, Justin. Listen to this clip by John Hagee.
John Hagee: When you walk into a hospital room and your friend is there, a member of your family is there, you have the power to say, “In the name of Jesus, I rebuke that disease,” and the God of heaven will heal that disease, when you are right with God in heaven.
Brannon Howse: Justin, you wanna comment on that? Because this guy’s taking part in this event, and you know, there are a lot of people probably listening today who have terminal cancer, who may be thinking, “Well, maybe I’m not right with God. I’m about to die because I can’t get healed.” I would imagine this is very, very distressing to them to hear a pastor like John Hagee say this.
Justin Peters: Precisely, precisely, Brannon. You take what John Hagee just talked, and this is not a nice way to ____, but you extrapolate that and you say, “Well, okay, somebody hears that and they’ve got cancer, they’ve got a sick child. You know, they’ve got crippling arthritis,” whatever it is. And when they hear that and believe that, as a believer, they have the authority – you know, they can take authority over the sickness, they can command sickness to leave. Well, they do that, and they try to do that, and they have the faith, they think, but it doesn’t happen. Then they’re left to wonder, “Well, what’s wrong with me? You know, am I in sin? Do I not have enough faith?”
And I can’t tell you, I’ve been doing these seminars for six years, and I could – I’ve gotten thousands of e-mails from people who’ve contacted me and told me that they’ve been devastated by this movement. They’ve been made to think the reason that they’re not healed is they don’t have enough –
Brannon Howse: Enough faith.
Justin Peters: They don’t love their child enough. [Audio breaking up]
Brannon Howse: You're breaking up, there, Justin. Let me go to Margaret real quick. Margaret, in Georgia, go right ahead. You're on with Justin Peters. Go right ahead, Margaret.
Margaret: Hi, thank you. I wanna thank you both for being diligent and sticking with the word of God. And even though you are having a lot of people push against you, stay firm. I believe, looking at this whole response deal, is that you've got a lot of people going there trying to pump themselves up, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ. It’s to flatter themselves. And you have Perry, who is doing nothing but using these people to move his campaign.
Brannon Howse: I believe you're right, Margaret.
Margaret: You know, he’s gonna be stepping in.
Brannon Howse: I think he’s using the church, and the church is being used, again, because the church is more committed to reclaiming the culture than they are defending the gospel, and he’s using the church, I believe. Thank you, Margaret, for your call. Justin, we’re about out of time. You wanna comment before we come back Monday for part two? What is the message you want them to take away from today’s broadcast?
Justin Peters: Well, I want people to know that we’re not talking here about differences on minor theological issues. But when it comes to things like your view on the nature of God, the nature of man, the person and work of Jesus Christ, the atonement, on these issues there’s no room for compromise. There’s no room for debate. As believers, we must all unite in stalwart defense. So we are to speak the truth, speak that truth in love, Ephesians 4:15, “Speak the truth in love.” Because there are a lot of people that are being lead astray by a false gospel and –
Brannon Howse: Amen to that. Thank you, Justin, for being with us. We’ll talk to him, part two, on Monday.
[End of Audio]
