Justin Peters

Brannon Howse:         Welcome to the program, glad you're with us.  Justin Peters of justinpeters.org joins us today for part two of our broadcast on the word of faith movement, the name it/claim it, the prosperity gospel.  We were playing audio clips on Friday.  If you missed part one, it is available at our website at worldviewweekend.com, or you can go to worldviewweekend – you can go to worldviewradio.com, or I can go to brannonhouse.com, either one.  You'll find part one with Justin Peters, and today will be part two.  It’ll be posted up on our website tonight, sometime after about 5:30, 6:00, and then on our Facebook page as well, where many people are commenting.  And if you'd like to join the now over 6,000 people on our Facebook page, all you've gotta do is go to Facebook.com, type in Brannon, B-R-A-N-N-O-N, Howse, H-O-W-S-E. 

 

                                    It’s a fan page now, because we went over that 5,000 mark, so that’s confusing to some. You don’t have to request to be a friend.  You just click that you like the page, and then you're in and you can start to post your comments about what you're hearing and some great conversations going on in there on a wide variety of issues.  Welcome back to the broadcast, Justin.  Thank you for joining us.

 

Justin Peters:               You're very welcome, Brannon.  Good to be back.

 

Brannon Howse:         You and I have talked a lot over the weekend.  As you know, there – I am getting very positive feedback about our broadcast with you, by the way.  I hope you are as well?

 

Justin Peters:               Yes, I am.  I sure am.

 

Brannon Howse:         And I think you'll get a lot more as the week goes on, as our e-mail alert goes out tonight with our broadcast included in them to our nearly 200,000 people.  If you would like to, by the way, get our free e-mail newsletter, all you have to do is go to worldviewweekend.com, look across the top where you have all the little tabs and one will say “Alerts” or “E-mail Alerts.”  Click on that, put in your information, and you'll receive our free weekly e-mail, world view newsletter.  So Justin, we are excited.  I just talked to a pastor of a large church in northern Virginia, and he was saying, “I need to get this guy into my church,” because I had sent him the clips of your teaching and preaching, and asked him to watch it.

 

                                    And in fact, you received so many clips – or clicks, on your sermon that you gave, that we encouraged people to watch, that you actually exceeded your bandwidth, but that problem’s now been fixed on your website, so people can still now go, as of this morning, over to justinpeters.org and watch it.  But that tells us people are definitely interested in this message, aren’t they, Justin?

 

Justin Peters:               They are, Brannon.  It’s something that all of us have seen. You know, it dominates Christian cable and satellite television.  We all are either affected by it ourselves, or we have loved ones or family members who are.  So yeah, it’s definitely out there and people are very aware of it and very confused by it.

 

Brannon Howse:         Yeah, indeed they are.  Let’s go to one of our first clips. We’re gonna play a series of clips today, again, with Justin, and have him comment on them.  This comes from his own seminar, again that you can watch yourself, we’re just grabbing the audio clips of what is the video and playing it.  This is Joel Osteen.  Again, I see Joel Ostein – it looks like what would be Joel Osteen, one of his associate pastors, involved in the response.  And you're saying he’s kind of become the poster boy of the word of faith, prosperity gospel movement, correct?

 

Justin Peters:               Yes, that’s correct, arguably the most popular preacher on planet earth today, so yes, indeed.

 

Brannon Howse:         And there’s a guy named Nick Nielsen, youth and young adult pastor, Lakewood Church, Houston, Texas.  I guess there’s probably only one Lakewood church in Houston, Texas.  Wouldn’t that be Joel Osteen’s?

 

Justin Peters:               I can’t imagine it being any other church.  I mean, there may be another one by that name, but I’m sure that’s the one that it’s referring to. 

 

Brannon Howse:         Yeah, let’s go to the clip, Joel Ostein on Glenn Beck.

 

Joel Osteen:                Joel Osteen is the senior pastor at Lakewood church and he joins me now.  Hello, Joel, how are you, sir?  Hey, Glenn.  ___ __ ____, I mean, I got a lot of mail having you on.  People said to me, “Well, he’s denied Jesus Christ and the gospel.”  And I’m thinking to myself, “I’ve talked to him.  I know him.”  I mean, you're very rooted in the gospel.  Again, I don’t know.  I think some people are so – there are people that are just very passionate about what they believe, and they’re – they won’t stay open to anything else.  And you know, of course I believe in Christ as the savior and all, but you know, I think too, Glen, I’ve spent a lot of time in India, you know.  I’ve been with a lot of Hindu people.  They’re nice, kind, you know, people that love God as well.

 

Brannon Howse:         Oh wow.  Now didn’t he do this on Larry King?  Was this after he did this on Larry King, and then went on his website and tried to make it right?  Is he back to doing this again?  Because this was in January of 2009, according to your video.  Wasn’t the Larry King before this?

 

Justin Peters:               That’s the problem, Brannon, is yes, the Larry King interview that he got into so much trouble over was back in 2005, summer of ’05.  And he backtracked, you know, he said, “I’m sorry.  I was not as clear as I should’ve been,” because he took a lot of heat for it, and rightly so.  But that clip you just played was in 2009, four years later.  And he was even more explicit in the 2009 interview in Glenn Beck, with Glenn Beck, than he was with Larry King in 2005.  And you hear him right there, he states that Hindus are nice, kind people who love God as well.  There may be some nice, kind Hindus, but they don’t love God, because they don’t know God.

 

                                    And Joel Osteen is doing no one any favors by telling the world that Hindus who reject Christ as the savior love God, because Christ is the only way to God.  And I might also add, especially not the Hindus is he doing them any favors.  I mean, when a Hindu hears that, the most popular preacher in the world, oh, well, he says that – this Christian pastor says that I love God, too, so I’m good to go.  And you know, Brannon, it’s not that Joel Osteen doesn’t know the gospel.  I mean, he does know it.  And so, you know, he comes across as very nice, very humble, you know, and I think he probably is a nice guy, but the most hateful thing you can do to someone is to know the truth and not tell them.  And sadly, tragically, that’s what Joel Osteen is doing.  He will not – he just, seemingly, refuses to preach the true gospel. 

 

Brannon Howse:         And I would agree with you on everything you've said.  I’d also agree there are some very nice Hindus. 

 

Justin Peters:               Sure.

 

Brannon Howse:         I have neighbors that are Hindus.  I have people in the community that own businesses in our town that I know well that are practicing Hindus.  They are some – they are very kind, gracious people, law abiding, they make great neighbors.  You know, so that’s right, they’re very nice people.  But as I talk to them about what it is they believe, and shockingly, in some cases, I end up knowing more about what Hindus believe than they do [Laughs] – because I asked one of my Hindu friends, who knows what I do for a living, “What God to you worship?”  Hindus have millions of Gods.

 

Justin Peters:               Right.

 

Brannon Howse:         What God do you worship?  And so the question was almost shocking, that someone in America would ask them that question.  They seemed to be a little shocked that I would ask that question.  But yes, they have their little temple, their little shrine, and they pray to it, and they have – there are millions of gods in the Hindu religion.  So when Joel Ostein says, you know, they love God, well, which god are we talking about?  Because they have millions of gods.

 

Justin Peters:               That’s right, that’s right.  And –

 

Brannon Howse:         Here – you wanna say something before we play the next clip about that?

 

Justin Peters:               Oh, well, no, just that the most loving thing we can do for people is to tell them the truth.  If we know the truth, we must tell them the truth, and eternities are at stake, so it’s a mandate.

 

Brannon Howse:         Here’s a clip by Jessie Duplantis. Now, again, you see him on television all the time.  He’s probably one of the most popular, wouldn’t you say, on TBN?

 

Justin Peters:               Yes, he is, because he’s very funny.  I mean, you watch him, and he’s – you almost can’t help but to laugh at him, because he’s very comical, very entertaining, and that kind of makes him a bit disarming, because he seems like such a – you know, a nice guy, and fun loving and all that.  But also, when you really examine what he teaches, some of the statements that he makes, the claims that he makes, he’s also one of the most dangerous of the prosperity preachers out there.

 

Brannon Howse:         And we played a clip from him last Friday, something about the fact that you decide when you live and when you die.  That’s pretty – that’s paraphrasing, but that’s pretty much what he said, isn’t it?

 

Justin Peters:               That’s exactly what he said.  That’s right.  He said, “God has the power to take life, but he can’t.  He’s bound.  He can’t do it.”  So yes, very heretical.

 

Brannon Howse:         Well, this – let’s play this next clip by Jessie Duplantis.

 

Jessie Duplantes:        He said, “I chose you.”  He said, “No one else wanted you, but I need you, boy.  I need you, Jessie.”

 

Brannon Howse:         Does God need us?

 

Justin Peters:               No, Brannon, he does not need us.  This is from Jessie Duplantis’ sermon: Close Encounters of the God Kind, in which he claims that he went to heaven, which is another topic of discussion in and of itself.  But when he was in heaven, Jesus supposedly told Jessie, “I need you.”  And it’s not just Jessie Duplantis.  Just yesterday I think it was, I heard Kenneth Copland telling his audience, “God needs us.”  Vinnie Han says that God laid his hand on his shoulder and said, “I need you.”  God does not need us.  He is the alpha, the omega.  He spoke all things into existence.  He has need of no one and no thing.  God loves us, but he does not need us. 

 

                                    And when you hear of a preacher, or whoever they may be, saying things like, “God needs us,” that is profoundly heretical and profoundly arrogant.  God loves us, but he does not need us.  We need him. And so any message that says that God needs us is a different gospel.

 

Brannon Howse:         I’m talking with Justin Peters of justinpeters.org, that’s Peters with an S on the end, justinpeters.org.  He is – he has cerebral palsy, as he announced to us in his first interview with us, and that is how he kind of got into this, taken as a 16-year-old to a faith healing, and – went to several of them, was not healed.  As an adult then he went into the ministry, went to seminary, did some research.  Actually, did you not do your position paper, or one of your major papers in seminary on the word of faith movement?

 

Justin Peters:               I did, Brannon.  I wrote my master’s thesis on Vinnie Han and the word of faith movement; sure did.

 

Brannon Howse:         And then, of course, this has lead him to now being, I think, the premier expert on this, if not certainly one of them, and he comes at it from a very unique perspective, because he has gone to so many of these revivals, quote, “revivals,” or healing meetings.  Of course, the word revival – I’m more concerned – I agree with Vance Havner.  He says, “I’m concerned about a false revival.”  Let me give you a – in fact, I came across this in one of Vance Havner’s books yesterday, Playing Marbles with Diamonds, because my friends, I’ve written an article.  It’s more lengthy than most of my articles, but I had no choice.  It’s called: Why I believe Christians should not participate in Governor Perry’s “The response.” 

 

                                    It’s on our website at worldviewweekend.com.  We’ve also put it on our Facebook.  And I’ve never written an article that has so many hyperlinks in it.  You are gonna find tons and tons of hyperlinks documenting who the players are in the response, who the people are that are behind it, who are the leaders, who are the endorsers, what to do they believe, how really I believe the religious right has now openly embraced the word of faith/new apostolic reformation movement.  I give you all the documentation you need.  And in there you will find, toward the end of the article, a quote by the late Vance Havner, and he said, “I am more afraid of false revival than of no revival, a false revival with a false gospel, false evangelists, false converts, false joy.  It will seem so genuine that it would deceive, if possible, the very elect.  Many church leaders will endorse it.”  Sound familiar my friends?

 

                                    “Many church leaders will endorse it.  Other good people will be afraid to oppose it, for fear that they might be fighting against God.”  Before we go to the break here, Justin, do you know how many people have e-mailed me and have told me – although the response has been 99.9 percent overwhelmingly positive – the few that I’ve heard from how I am opposing God?  Vance Havner predicted that those who stand up against the false revival will be told they’re fighting against God.  I’m sure you've been told the same thing, haven’t you?

 

Justin Peters:               Oh, yeah, absolutely, and that’s one of the – that’s kind of one of the straw arguments against brining any criticism against false teaching.  They’ll say, “Well, you know, okay, if these people aren’t really of God, they won’t last, but if they are, we shouldn’t criticize them, because in doing so you'll be criticizing God himself.”  And it’s really a red herring that can be completely refuted by scripture.

 

Brannon Howse:         Well, let’s refute it by scripture when we come back.  My guest is Justin Peters.  We also have lots more clips to play of Kenneth Copland, Vinnie Han, and others.  You don’t wanna go away.  We’ll be right back with my friend, Justin Peters, who’ll also take your calls in just a little bit.  Thanks for listening.

 

[Commercial]

 

Brannon Howse:         Welcome back to the broadcast.  My guest today is Justin Peters of justinpeters.org.  We’ve booked him to come and be a keynote speaker in Branson, Missouri, in April of 2012.  I hope you'll mark your calendars now for the last weekend in April.  I also hope you'll check out our website at worldviewweekend.com and find out about our free conferences.  May I say, we really need your help.  If you know of people in those cities and states, would you e-mail them and tell them about our conference?  As you know, we have chosen not to use advertising outlets available to us because of the fact that I am continuing to – wanting to have the freedom to speak out against what I believe is an un-biblical prayer event coming up with Governor Perry and other Christian leaders on August 6th.

 

                                    And so more than ever we’re gonna need your help in getting out the word about our conferences.  And so, if you would like to do that, we sure would appreciate it.  And you can find out where our conferences will be this fall at worldviewweekend.com; they’re free and they’re one night.  And you can also find out about our Branson, April, 2012 conference which, again, Justin Peters, lord willing, will be there in person.  We don’t – we say “lord willing,” because none of us have a promise of tomorrow, but we have made our plans, and we’ll follow the lord to see what he wants to do.  Again, Justin’s website is justinpeters.org.

 

                                    Before we went to the break we talked about the fact that some will say that we’re fighting against God, and you said you can refute it from scripture.  Will you do that, please, Justin?

 

Justin Peters:               Sure, Brannon.  This is – whether people realize it or not, they’re – by using that line of argumentation, they’re paraphrasing the advice of Gamaliel in Acts 5.  For context people can read this, but basically, in a nutshell, the apostles were going about doing signs and wonders, they were preaching the gospel, and were arrested and then delivered, by God, out of prison.  And they went right back out and started preaching the gospel again.  And so the Pharisees got together, lead by Gamaliel, who was Saul’s instructor before the Damascus road experience, but Gamaliel was Saul’s instructor and he got together with the Pharisees and this counsel and he said – Acts 5:38-39, he said, “So in the present case, I Gamaliel say to you, stay away from these men and leave them alone.  For if this plan of action is of men, it will be overthrown.  But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them, or else you may even be found fighting against God.”

 

                                    And so a lot of people will take Gamaliel’s advice, and they’ll say, “See, well, you know, if these people aren’t of God, then they won’t last.  But if they are, we shouldn’t criticize them because, in so doing, we’ll be criticizing God himself.”  Well, that’s really – they think that that’s good advice, but it’s not good advice, number one, because Gamaliel was not a believer. Okay?  He was a not regenerate man in Jesus Christ. He was lost.  So to follow Gamaliel’s advice is to follow the advice of a lost person, which of course, not a real good idea when it comes to matters of spiritual importance. 

 

                                    So that’s the first thing.  But also, Gamaliel’s advice may sound really spiritual, but it doesn’t even pass the logical test.  It doesn’t pass the common sense test.  Because if Gamaliel’s advice were good advice, then we have to ask the question: Why do we still have Mormonism?  Why do we still have Buddhism?  Why do we still have Islam?  Name your favorite false religion, Jehovah’s Witnesses, you know, they’ve been around for hundreds, some thousands of years.  Clearly, they’re not of God, but yet they’re still here.  So it doesn’t even pass the common sense test.  So it may sound real spiritual to say at first, but when you analyze it from scripture, Gamaliel’s advice is not good advice.

 

Brannon Howse:         On the response endorser’s page I have printed out in front of me, I see one of the guys that’s gonna be there, at the very top, endorsers of the response, you'll find at: theresponseusa.com, that’s the website for this event, August 6th, which I am not in favor of – and again, I’ve written an article about it, why I believe Christian’s should not participate in Governor Perry’s: The response.  You'll find it at worldviewweekend.com or worldviewtimes.com or on our Facebook.  But at theresponseusa.com, under the endorsers of the response, a guy’s listed here named Che Ahn, senior pastor of Harvest Rock Church.  I just stumbled on him this weekend when I was watching and writing this article and putting in this article links to a video of Todd Bentley’s installation service, as I guess a prophet, and C. Peter Wagner was the one overseeing this.

 

                                    And of course, C. Peter Wagner’s picture was on the endorser’s page, which I have in front of me, but now has been pulled down.  I didn’t find it the other day.  But while I was watching that video clip to put a link into my article, I noticed this gentleman that looked a lot like Che Ahn, and he got to the mike and started speaking.  And I thought, “Wait a minute. That looks like the same guy over here on the endorsers page.  Was he actually at the Todd Bentley installation service, and one of the speakers to install Todd Bentley?”  And then I went over and I put in, Che Ahn, and his name is C-H-E and then last name is A-H-N, and Todd Bentley into YouTube, and sure enough there is him being introduced as the senior pastor of Harvest Rock Church, or at least the pastor of Harvest Rock Church, and he is talking about the coming prophetic wave.

 

                                    So this event now has even more people that I believe are a part of this new apostolic reformation involved than I even realized, until you start putting some of their names into search engines and realizing what they really believe.  Do you know anything about Che Ahn, pastor Che Ahn?

 

Justin Peters:               I do, some, Brannon.  He is one of the high profile preachers in the NAR, the new apostolic reformation movement, and indeed he was there at Todd Bentley’s commissioning service in 2008, taking part in it, endorsing Todd Bentley.  And Todd Bentley, for those who are listening who do not know, is one of the absolute worst of the worst.  I mean, this is a man who I don’t even think is mentally stable, for a million reasons, but Todd Bentley is absolutely one of the worst of the worst, claiming visitations from female angels, which don’t even exist in the bible, astral projection, being sucked out of his body, being operated on in heaven, strapped down to an operating table and he was cut open with a miter saw.  I mean, this guy is just – he’s loony tunes.

 

                                    Claiming he kicks elderly women in the face, per instruction by God mind you, kicking elderly women in the face with his biker boot.  And here’s Che Ahn and Bill Johnson and Rick Jointer and C. Peter Wagner endorsing him, commissioning him as an apostle.  So any man that would endorse and commend somebody like Todd Bentley, huge red flags, huge, huge red flags.

 

Brannon Howse:         And so here is Che Ahn at the endorsing of the response.  I don’t know if he’ll be there or not, but he’s on the website as of now.  Was Rick Jointer at the installation service of Todd Bentley?  It sure looked like him standing back there with his white-haired beard.  Was that Rick Jointer?

 

Justin Peters:               Yes, it was.

 

Brannon Howse:         And of course, what’s shocking is that pro-fam – at least one or two pro-family leaders have recently gone on in the last few months to be on his radio – I guess a broadcast.  He has Morningstar TV.  I don’t know if it’s just internet or what it is.  And then reportedly to speak at, you know, a function for him, according to their website.  I don’t know, again, why pro-family leaders would wanna hang out with Rick Jointer and they would wanna invite Che Ahn or Cindy Jacobs.  There really seems to be, in the last couple of years, a convergence, to use the new age term, a convergence going on where the religious right are willing to partner up with the word of faith/new apostolic reformation, in an attempt to, I guess, win the culture war.

 

                                    But again, I don’t think God can bless this, from the scriptures.  And I think – in fact, this will not only help America, I think it will hurt America.  I think it will greatly increase the judgment of God onto America.  Would you agree or disagree?

 

Justin Peters:               I completely agree, Brannon, completely agree.  Because what’s happening, there is a convergence, the convergence that you speak of, it is happening.  I see it everywhere you look.  And people are compromising the gospel in the name of political expediency, power, trying to bring about changes that we would all find commendable in and of themselves. But to do that they’re compromising the gospel. They’re sacrificing sound doctrine in the – at the altar of pragmatism.  And God just will not honor that.  He cannot honor that.  He holds – Psalm 138:2, he holds his name and his word above all things, above all things he holds his name and his word. 

 

                                    And when we partner with false teachers, false prophets, you know, we’re compromising the gospel, and he will not honor that, and I think, in fact, will judge us for that.

 

Brannon Howse:         I notice a freedom federation website that has the names of many pro-life groups, pro-family groups, and then again a lot of the new apostolic reformation people.  So there’s another avenue where they’re uniting.  I see the supernatural gatherings of James Robeson that has a lot of names of a lot of people, well, of a few people I respect, but then it’s got people like Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copland, Creflo Dollar, and many others that are listed on here, that they were a part of what was, I guess – what – according to jamesrobeson.net website was some kind of spiritual gathering, where they were attending and getting together to talk about what to do with the country.

 

                                    Again, another example of what it seems like the religious right, pro-family, Christian conservative, Christian activist leaders uniting with, you know, the word of faith, name it/claim it, prosperity gospel crowd.  Have you see that list as well, and were you – we’re not gonna name any names today, because again, I wanna give these guys a chance.  Some of them maybe showed up and didn’t realize what they were going to, to say, “Woops, I shouldn’t have been there, or didn’t realize.”  But I’m sure some of the names shocked you that you saw on the list with the word of faith guys, who really have made it known they’re not in agreement with those guys. 

 

                                    So I don’t know if they got there and were shocked to see who was in the room or what, but you've seen the list, right?

 

Justin Peters:               Yes, I have, I have, and I’m sure, for some, that was the case, that they just weren’t aware of who was gonna be there.  And so – but yeah, and this has happened before with other men that I greatly respect.  They’ve kind of been sucked into something.  They weren’t fully aware of what was going on.  So I’m sure that’s the case with some, but yeah, there – many of the people that are part of this are, by the biblical definition of the term, they’re false teachers.  And you know, I fear that what’s happening, Brannon, is that we’re compromising the gospel, and we’re trying to bring about change that’s good in and of itself, like I said, but we’re using very earthly, human means to do so. 

 

                                    And really, we’re trying to fight a battle with spitballs, when we could be bringing out – bringing to bear the big guns of the gospel.  If we stand for the gospel, stand for the word of God, rightly divided, that’s the power of God.  And so, we’re really being ineffective.  We’re using spitballs when we should be using the big guns of the gospel and the word of God.

 

Brannon Howse:         And in addition, we’re giving credibility to false teachers –

 

Justin Peters:               Absolutely.

 

Brannon Howse:         Which can be eternal consequences for some who then fall into this teaching and think, “Well, it must be okay, because X, Y, and Z leader is with these guys, so these guys must be legitimate.”  And then they end up with what I believe is a false Jesus and a false gospel.  Agree?

 

Justin Peters:               Absolutely, I do agree.  Whether they mean to or not –

 

Brannon Howse:         Or not, yeah.

 

Justin Peters:               When they’re on the same stage with false teachers, they give their implicit endorsement.  And somebody who is not – who does not know the ins and outs of the word of faith movement, of the NAR, they’re very confused by this.  And they think, “Oh, well, Rick Jointer must be okay.  Todd Bentley must be okay.  Kenneth Copland must be okay.  Because here they are with these others.”  And so it’s very confusing.  And so we have to be very careful.

 

Brannon Howse:         Here’s Kenneth Copland.

 

Kenneth Copland:       People that get all upset at preachers who preach prosperity never have taken the time to pray and see if God wanted them to prosper financially, for some reason or another.  God needs you saved.  He needs you full of the Holy Ghost.  He needs you well.  And he needs you strong.  And he needs you rich.

 

Brannon Howse:         Wow.  He needs you rich?  He needs you saved?  Does God need people saved?  I mean, I know that the bible says that God desires that no one should perish, but all should come to repentance, but does God need me to be saved?  Does God need people to be saved?  And certainly, does he need people to be rich?  That’s the question I wanna ask of Jessie – Jessie? – Justin, sorry Justin – Justin when we come back from the break.  His website is: justinpeters.org – justinpeters.org.  We’re playing really sound clips of a full presentation.  He does this in – what? – three parts?  Is it three full parts, Justin?

 

Justin Peters:               Yeah, three primary sessions with an introductory session, so technically four, but yeah, three primary sessions.

 

Brannon Howse:         And you'll come in and do this entire seminar for a church.  You know, they wanna book you to come in and speak and do this seminar for them.  They would find out more details at justinpeters.org.  Correct?

 

Justin Peters:               That’s correct.

 

Brannon Howse:         All right.  We’ll be right back.  My guest, Justin Peters.  Thanks for listening [Dog barking in the background] as Autumn is alerting someone’s at the front door.  [Laughs] We’ll be right back.

 

[Commercial]

 

Brannon Howse:         All right, welcome back.  My guard dog laying outside my office, I got her to quit barking.  [Laughs] Welcome back to the program.  Glad you're with us.  Justin Peters of justinpeters.org, Peters with an S on the end, is our guest.  All right, we’re gonna play a clip by Vinnie Han, but first we’ve gotta address the statement by Kenneth Copland, “God needs you saved.  God needs you well.  God needs you rich.”  Oh my, first of all, does God need us saved?  I know he desires us to be saved, but does God need us saved?

 

Justin Peters:               No, he doesn’t, Brannon, and the fact of the matter is God could vaporize all of us right now and he would be just fine.  You know, he doesn’t need us at all.  And you know, does he need us rich?  No, he doesn’t need us rich.  If you – one thing I say in my seminar, if you have to add an adjective to the gospel, whether it’s the prosperity or the social gospel, then you've automatically got a different gospel.  There are no adjectives to the gospel.  It’s just the gospel.  And if the gospel that you're preaching works in the United States of America but it doesn’t work in Zimbabwe, or if it doesn’t work in North Korean, or if it doesn’t work in Sudan, then there’s something wrong with your gospel, because the true gospel works for all people in all places at all times, in every economic status.

 

                                    And you know, Brannon, we’re not saying here – I’m not saying that everybody has to be perfect, because I’m not perfect. 

 

Brannon Howse:         Right.

 

Justin Peters:               You know, I’m not saying that every preacher must be sinless.  None of us are sinless, me included.

 

Brannon Howse:         Me included.

 

Justin Peters:               But – absolutely, so you know, we’re not nit-picking over these issues, or even over minor theological points, but the issues of the word faith movement, the NAR, they go to the heart of the gospel.  The gospel is being distorted.  This pit – the sewer – the poor, the sick, and the widows and the desperate are being exploited.  So we have to take a stand.  It’s our biblical mandate to do so.

 

Brannon Howse:         In fact, you sent me some pictures today, very heartbreaking.  I’ve asked you to see if you could write an article and include the pictures.  I know you have a lot of pictures like this over the years, because you've been to how many Vinnie Han revivals, or recruit – or healing meetings?  How many?

 

Justin Peters:               Oh, I think it’s up to 13 now.

 

Brannon Howse:         Wow.  And you've been to some of Kenneth Copland’s?

 

Justin Peters:               Yep, yep, been to Kenneth Copland meetings.  Just went to one, actually, Southwest Believers Convention, and heartbreaking to see all these people come in, in wheelchairs, blind people coming in with their seeing eye dogs, parents bringing in their severely retarded, severely crippled children, and they leave in the very same condition.  Your heart truly breaks, has to break. 

 

Brannon Howse:         Well, you sent me some of those pictures today, and it is very sad, because these people, I guess, are told, well, they didn’t have enough faith, that’s why they’re not healed.  So they leave thinking, “Oh, wow, I’m not a very good Christian.”  Or what was it John Hagie said?  If you're right with God, you can speak someone in the hospital to be well?  So these poor people leaving with, you know, their seeing eye dogs, or some of them leaving in wheelchairs who are horribly handicapped, and you can just see the pain in their face in the pictures that you took.

 

                                    And not only do they have to leave, having been let down because they were expecting something, you know, when they arrived, that’s why they went there, but then I guess they leave thinking, you know, maybe I’m not even saved because I’m not right with God.  Do you think that goes through the minds of some of these people?

 

Justin Peters:               Oh, without a doubt it does, because it’s the only conclusion you can draw.  If you begin with the premise that physical healing is always God’s will, and a person prays for that healing, some people pray for it for decades and the healing does not come, then you're left with the question: Who’s fault is it?  And by definition, it cannot be God’s fault because he’s perfect.  So guess who’s left?  It’s the sick person’s fault.  Doesn’t have enough faith.  Has unconfessed sin in his or her life.  Or maybe hasn’t given enough money to the ministry, hasn’t sewn a big enough seed, or maybe he’s not even saved.  So it happens all the time, all the time.

 

Brannon Howse:         And the pictures that you sent me today, I looked at them, and I forwarded them to a few friends, and they just really make you wanna weep.  It’s so – your heart goes out for these folks, and you feel like they’ve been so taken advantage of and emotionally damaged.  And you know, for really, I think, my opinion, greed.  Would you say that’s what motivates a lot of this is just flat out greed?

 

Justin Peters:               A lot of it, Brannon, a lot of it.  Read 2 Peter 2:1-3, the King James says that these false teachers will make merchandise out of you, and that’s exactly what is happening.  They’re making merchandise out of sick and hurting and desperate people.  They’re multi-multi-multi-millionaires, and a lot of their money, the private jets that they fly in – Jessie Duplantes boasts that he’s about to get his fourth private jet – I mean, the amount of money we’re talking about is almost incomprehensible.  And a lot of that comes off of the backs of poor people, of sick people, of widows at home who can’t get out of their house, and their church is what they see on television. 

 

                                    That’s where a lot of this money is coming from, from the most vulnerable and the most desperate among us.  And the bible is not very friendly at all to those who would exploit the hurting and the widows and the desperate people, not at all.

 

Brannon Howse:         And you're saying, again, those who are part of the word of faith movement, and the new apostolic reformation, are really preaching from the same theological base, correct?

 

Justin Peters:               Oh, yes, absolutely.

 

Brannon Howse:         So you understand, listening audience, why it makes me and Justin and others very grieved when we see people that we think should know better uniting in a service with them, like the response, where I believe – and you don’t have to agree with me, it’s my opinion – but I believe, based on my study of the bible, that they’re uniting with false teachers, and therefore why it breaks our heart, why we grief, it’s sad.  It’s really, really sad.  Because I believe many of these people in the word of faith, new apostolic reformation, I believe – I really believe from my study of the bible and of what they’re saying, that many of them are embracing really cosmic humanism, new age.  You are gods. 

 

                                    Or as we played a clip last week, Creflo Dollar, “You are little gods.”  A lot of these leaders would never unite with Oprah, or any – or Shirley McClain, and they would think that was horrible if you did that, but why then would they even wanna give even one second of credibility to people I believe that are embracing really cosmic humanism, new age Gnosticism in a different form?  Would you agree with that statement, or am I just totally off base, Justin?

 

Justin Peters:               No, you're absolutely right.  I teach in my seminar that the origins of the prosperity gospel are really not Christian at all.  They can be traced back directly to the metaphysical cults, such as the new age movement, such as Gnosticism, such as Christian science.  And so what we have today in the word faith movement, the NAR, the prosperity gospel, is essentially cultic doctrine that has been wrapped in some Christian terminology to make it more acceptable to people, to kind of fly in under people’s spiritual radars.  So absolutely, and there’s a nexus, there’s a lot of common ground between the new age movement and the word faith/NAR.  It’s basically the same heresy, it’s just packaged differently for different audiences.

 

Brannon Howse:         And that’s the religious Trojan horse I’m writing about in my new book and producing on DVDs, that people who’ve done radio shows and interviewed people and, you know, agreed that the new age is dangerous, but yet are embracing these people, I believe are embracing the same thing, just in a different package.  Here’s a – talk about a new gospel, as the new age call it, listen to this definition of the gospel by Benny Hinn.

 

Vinnie Han:                 If the gospel doesn’t have – if the gospel lacks – if the preaching of the gospel lacks signs and wonders, it’s an empty shell.

 

Brannon Howse:         Wow.  And they’re big on signs and wonders.  John Wimber, C. Peter Wagner, the new apostolic, they’re huge on signs and wonders.  So if we don’t – and doesn’t the bible say in Matthew: It is a corrupt generation that seeks after signs and wonders?

 

Justin Peters:               Exactly, Jesus’ own words.  He says that.  And you heard right from the horse’s own mouth, Benny Hinn says that unless miracles, signs, and wonders accompany the gospel, then the gospel in and of itself has no power.  And that is heresy.  Romans – I mean, we could cite a number of verses, but just one, Romans 1:16, Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.”  What’s the power of God unto salvation?  The gospel is.  You know, a lot of people who hear me, or they were just made aware of me think, “Oh, Justin doesn’t believe that God heals people today.”

 

                                    And in fact, I got an e-mail this morning from someone saying that I teach a dead gospel.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I do believe God still physically heals people today when it is his will to do so.  But that having been said, is that the power of God?  No, no, the gospel is.  That’s the power of God unto salvation.  If God were to heal me of my cerebral palsy, and he could do it without breaking a sweat, that miracle would pale in comparison to what he did for me when he saved me from himself.

 

Brannon Howse:         Amen.

 

Justin Peters:               When he saved me from his own wrath.  The greatest miracle of all is that of salvation.  I mean, I know many people, I’ve come in contact with several over the last years of traveling, people who suffer far, far worse than I’ve ever even dreamed of suffering, I mean, terrible suffering, and yet they love the lord.  They remain faithful to him.  They praise him.  That’s the power of God on display.  Not somebody getting up on stage and saying they’ve been healed of a ringing in their ears, or as I saw just a few weeks ago at Copland’s meeting, being healed of athlete’s foot.  That’s not the power of God.  The power of God is the gospel, that’s the power of God.

 

Brannon Howse:         Let’s go to a clip by Benny Hinn, another one by Benny Hinn.

 

Vinnie Han:                 I never get sick.  You know what?  You know what happened to me one day?  I’ve gotta tell you.  I was as sick as a sick dog with a cold.  Yeah, yeah, I get sick, too.

 

Brannon Howse:         Well, wait a minute, I thought he just said he doesn’t get sick.  Didn’t that first clip – didn’t he say he doesn’t get sick, and then in the second clip he says, “I get sick, too?”  Is that what I just heard?

 

Justin Peters:               You heard it right.  You heard it right.  The problem with these people, they’ve been on television for so long, I mean, they can’t even – they can’t keep their stories straight. But you know, the fact of the matter is, Brannon, is that all of these prosperity preachers, they get sick just like the rest of us common folk do.  As Gloria Copland was teaching in her, quote, “healing school,” that’s the name of her address, you know, she does this ever year, her healing school, to read the verses of scripture that she uses as proof of healing, to be able to read those versus she has to put on eyeglasses.

 

Brannon Howse:         Oh!  [Laughs] So she hasn’t healed her bad eyesight?

 

Justin Peters:               No, no.  So she doesn’t – apparently doesn’t have enough faith to be healed of a little nearsightedness, but she expects all these people with crippling arthritis, with Down’s Syndrome, people who are blind, children that are dying, literally, she expects them to have enough faith to be healed.  And yet, she’s up there wearing eyeglasses so that she can read her bible.

 

Brannon Howse:         Do you remember Earnest Ainsley?

 

Justin Peters:               Oh, yeah.

 

Brannon Howse:         I was a kid and I would turn the TV on as a child in northern Virginia, outside of DC where we were living, and Earnest Ainsley would be on in his white suit, and I think he had a speech impediment, too, didn’t he?

 

Justin Peters:               Yes.  Yeah, he did.

 

Brannon Howse:         And he – my dad always said, “Why didn’t he heal himself?  You know, if he can heal everybody, why doesn’t he heal himself of his own speech impediment?”  Whatever happened to Earnest Ainsley?  He was – boy, he was one of the first ones back in the early ‘70s, wasn’t he?

 

Justin Peters:               Yeah, he was.  In fact, it’s funny you should mention him.  Oh, it was probably two months ago or so I saw him on TV, and he’s – he is aged.  He’s well up in years, but he – there he was, I mean, still doing what he’s always done.  I was really surprised.  I actually thought maybe he had died, but he –

 

Brannon Howse:         I would, too.  But you know what?  The only reason I think he’s alive is, to be honest with you, my opinion, I think the only reason he’s alive is God giving him a chance to repent and come to Christ.

 

Justin Peters:               Yeah.  And you know, Brannon, that brings up a good point. I would love nothing more than to wake up tomorrow morning and read where Vinnie Han has repented. 

 

Brannon Howse:         Amen.

 

Justin Peters:               Kenneth Copland has repented.  And they’ve abandoned this false teaching, and they’ve abandoned their exploitation of the sick.  I would love for my seminar to be irrelevant, to not have to do it.  But sadly, it is still necessary, and what we read from scripture is that the spiritual climate, the state of the church, is not gonna get any better.  I don’t see any evidence in scripture for this great, massive, worldwide revival.

 

Brannon Howse:         No.

 

Justin Peters:               It’s just the opposite.  It’s gonna get worse and worse.

 

Brannon Howse:         And a falling away from traditionally held biblical truths, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.  And from such people – entering into spiritual enterprises, and from such people turn away.  You mean don’t unite at a prayer event?  Nope, don’t even unite to pray, because they’re not really probably praying to the same Jesus, same God, according to their own theology, if you listen to it through the grit of scripture.  1-800-, the phone lines are now open.

 

[Commercial]

 

[Audio clip]                 Don’t understand why God healed him and he won’t heal me.  Could it be, by some stretch of the imagination – oh, probably not, but could it be that it’s your fault and not God’s?  [Laughs]  Oh, yeah!  Say it!  Oh, yeah!  [Laughs]

 

Brannon Howse:         Oh, listen to that laugh.  That, to me, in my opinion, is evil.  Can you imagine someone sitting in the back of that room in a wheelchair, someone sitting there with their crutches, and he’s saying to them, “The reason you're not healed is it’s your fault. [Mimics audio clip speaker’s laughter] Say it with me: Oh, yeah!”  Justin, if that isn’t, you know, cruel, I don’t – that’s cruel in my opinion.  What do you think?

 

Justin Peters:               Oh, it is.  It’s the height of cruelty.  I mean, he all but – he and his wife all but make fun of and ridicule sick people. And well, that’s real easy for him to do, because he’s not in a wheelchair, you know.  He’s not crippled.  And he goes home to a palatial house, you know, and his private jets, but leaves all these other poor people behind to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives.  So yeah, it’s the height of cruelty.

 

Brannon Howse:         Let’s go to one last clip before we go to the phone lines.  This is Vinnie Han.

 

Vinnie Han:                 It’s as easy to get healed as it is to get forgiven.  It’s as easy to receive physical healing as it is to receive forgiveness for sin.  It’s just as easy to get healed.  Healing is as easy as salvation.  Do not complicate what is simple.  Say it with me: It’s as easy to get healed as it is to get forgiven.  Healing should never be separate from salvation.

 

Brannon Howse:         Oh my, healing should never be separate from salvation?  Before I go to the phone lines, Justin, that would make some believe, then, if they haven’t been healed, they’re not saved.  Would you think that is what he’s saying?

 

Justin Peters:               Absolutely, that’s exactly what he’s saying.  So if you're sick, if you're still in your wheelchair, not only do you not have enough faith, well, you're probably not even saved.

 

Brannon Howse:         Oh, how sad.  Let’s go to Carl in Wisconsin. Carl, thank you for calling in.  Go right ahead, you're on with Justin Peters.

 

Carl:                            Hey, may the holy spirit of God bless your ministries.  I went to a word of faith church and there was a couple that was there and they had a troubled pregnancy.  Now they fasted and prayed over this pregnancy, and when the baby was born it died quickly.  And I called the pastor up and I said, “Hey,” I said, “Are you gonna call them up and tell them that they don’t have enough faith?”  I said – he says, “Well, it sounds like you got a problem with them.”  I said, “No, actually, you prayed for that baby and it died.”  And he said, “Let the baby’s death be on me.”  I don’t know any pastor, let alone any man that would ever make a statement like that.

 

Brannon Howse:         Carl, thank you for your call.  It is disheartening the spiritual – what I think is spiritual abuse that goes on with many people, and it is really, really heartbreaking, not to mention the horrible testimony this gives to the world.  And believe you me, there are lots of secular websites out there who I don’t agree with, with what they say 99 percent of the time, but there are secular websites out there who are not friendly to Christians at all, but they are stunned and they’re mocking pro-family Christian leaders for uniting up with people strutting around getting a word from God, and all this craziness, and they’re stunned by it, and it makes them disgusted.

 

                                    And I – and that’s shocking that I agree with some of these groups that actually don’t like Christians, but at least – even the unsaved world knows there’s something not right about this, and what a mockery it makes of the gospel, and what a bad testimony it is for Christians who unite with him, I believe.  Let’s go to Scott in Wisconsin.  Scott, welcome to the program.  Thank you for calling in, Scott.

 

Scott:                           Hi guys.  I just wanted to testify what these word of faith pastors have done for me. I was nearly shipwrecked listening to them, and my faith was just about destroyed.  I was looking at going back to Wicca, which I’d come out of.  And I was absolutely distraught and thinking that God hated my guts.  And luckily I came across Hank Hanegraaff Bible Answer Man, and this was back in the mid-‘90s –

 

Brannon Howse:         Yes.

 

Scott:                           And he was preaching against these people.

 

Brannon Howse:         Yes, he was.

 

Scott:                           And these wicked scumbags are just destroying people’s faith right and left, and I almost became a casualty that denied God and left him and fell away.

 

Brannon Howse:         I’m so glad you didn’t, Scott. I don’t agree with Hank Hanegraaff eschatology and a few other things, but you're – Hank did do a very good job exposing a lot of this back in the ‘90s with a lot of these clips.  And Scott, praise the lord that you realized that this is, I believe, false teaching, a false Jesus, a false gospel, and that you came to understand what the real gospel is, and that you did not go back to the Wicca religion.  Thank you so much, Scott, for your testimony.  Let’s run over to Paul from Kentucky.  Mr. Paul, welcome to the program.  Thank you for calling in, sir.

 

Paul:                           Hey, Brannon and Justin, just wanna thank you once again.  May the grace of God be with you, and I hope the __ ___ scriptures I gave you was able to use them, because me and you have the same study bible, Brannon.  I don’t know if you knew that or not, but –

 

Brannon Howse:         No.

 

Paul:                           Well, we do have the same study bible.  I had a ____ pastor that gave me a study bible, John McArthur, and I thank God for him.  But the reason I was calling in, when I came to salvation, after I came – a year later, I had to go to jail.  And you know, in prison they have what they call jailhouse religion, and I was studying with an evangelist who was studying to be an evangelist, and he was getting stuff from Kenneth Copland, Gloria Copland, all of those – Creflo Dollar, all of them, and I almost got caught up in that prosperity, name it/claim it.  But they are sending bibles to those people, going into the ministry, you know, the jailhouse, and going in and establishing their ministries there.  That’s where they’re building their program of false religion, giving false hope.

 

                                    And you know, also John Hagie, I wrote to him of what gave him the right, and other women, Paula White ____, what give them the right to preach the gospel and use scripture ____ ____, but I never heard back from him, and now I know why.

 

Brannon Howse:         Paul, thank you for your call.  Let’s run real quick and get one more call in here before we have Justin wrap it up for us.  Let’s go to John in Wisconsin.  John, welcome to the program. Go right ahead. 

 

John:                           Hi.  Looking back at the ___ ___ ____ coming out with evangelicalism and the advent of that, and going into new evangelicalism you see a lot of believers who have never picked up ____ book and read it to find out – you know, really study what the ____ church did.  And you see a lot of people are just weak, and they’ll go to ecumenical services and so on and so forth.  How – you believe – or what are your thoughts on new evangelicalism actually being a conduit because of weak believers?

 

Brannon Howse:         Oh, absolutely.  I write in my book, Grave Influence, that the neo orthodoxy really which denied the cross and so much more laid the foundation for the neo-evangelicals, the emergent church in so much.  If you get Grave Influence, you'll see I write about that a great deal.  Good insight on your part, John from Wisconsin, thank you for calling.  Justin, thank you for being with us.  I know you're gonna come on next week on a totally different – another topic related to how these guys take scripture out of context to get you to send them money.  Thank you, Justin, for being with us.

 

[End of Audio]

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