God, Greed, and The Prosperity Gospel (Part 2 of 2)

God, greed, and the prosperity gospel. Today is part two of two of that topic with our guest, Kosti Hinn, right here on the Christian worldview radio program. The mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians, and to share the good news, the gospel, so that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

I'm David Wheaton, the host of the program. Our website is thechristianworldview.org. Just have the faith and sow a little seed, in other words, give money. Now, you've likely seen prosperity preachers, leaders like Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, and yes, Joel Osteen on TV preaching about all the good things God has coming your way, with some of those mentioned and others speaking in what I call gibberish, or tongues, performing healings, alleged healings, staged healings, as Kosti Hinn will tell you.

And manipulating those who want health and blessings. Now, I think it's easy for evangelicals to sit back and say, well, we're not part of that craziness. But as Kosti is going to tell us today, there is a prosperity gospel light that has permeated much of the evangelical church today. This prosperity gospel light takes place when the pastor only preaches on the positive attributes of God about his love and his mercy and his forgiveness and his compassion, and how Jesus is going to improve your life and help solve your problems. Rarely if ever mentioning some of the harder truths of Scripture about sin and sins consequences, about the call for repentance, turning from sin, the separation, the call to be separate from worldliness, the pursuit of holiness, the judgment of God, and actually the cost of following Christ. So today in part two of our interview with Pastor Kosti Hinn, he's the author of our current featured book, God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel.

We'll tell you how you can get that today for a donation of any amount to the Christian worldview. We're going to discuss how the prosperity message has influenced the evangelical church and worldview. And he's also going to talk about many other things regarding this movement, including how God opened his eyes to the true gospel. Just a couple of the first questions to him just so you have a little context for the rest of the interview today.

So let's get to the first segment with Kosti Hinn. The prosperity gospel is going to be best understood when you break down both the terms. So prosperity, of course, is the idea of material abundance, physical health, and overall well-being.

And when someone is prosperous, they have it all going for them. And then the gospel literally means good news. And for Christians, it's the good news about Jesus Christ, his death on the cross, his resurrection power, proving that he was and is the Son of God, and then his redeeming and buying of sinners and atoning for their sins and taking the wrath of God upon himself to pour out his love and save us from our sins, that he died for us.

And we repent of our sins, we trust in him by faith, and we're saved. That would be the gospel. However, if you were to take the terms prosperity and gospel and put them together, the prosperity gospel then is this, the good news about prosperity, that believing in Jesus and following him will result in you being healthy, wealthy, and happy. And prosperity preachers, well-known, big-name ones, will call this living your best life now, that God wants you to have it all now, and that, sure, he saved you from sin, and sure, you'll get to heaven one day, and sure, there might be some riches and rewards in heaven, but you can kind of take your spiritual debit card, so to speak, and swipe it by having enough faith and making a positive confession and believing like the prosperity preachers are teaching people to believe.

And unlock all those riches now and that they'll be dispensed. But this is not what the Bible teaches as foundational truth about being a Christian and, of course, the gospel. How big is this prosperity gospel movement, Kosti? Who are some of the main leaders of it? What are the churches it has taken over?

Give us some idea of the scope and the scale of it. Yeah, so some of your bigger-name prosperity preachers, and again, this doesn't mean that every one of them are just outlandish and as flamboyant maybe as my uncle or saying ridiculous things or falsely prophesying. There's a wide menu here, but you could have a spectrum from Joel Osteen to, of course, my uncle Benny, who wears the white suit and waves the white jacket, and Comedy Central does sketches on him because it's so funny, but it's sad. So that would be the spectrum, whereas Osteen is more controlled, he's very diplomatic, he's involved in celebrity culture in the world, Oprah just adores him. Osteen keeps the train on the tracks from a PR standpoint way better than my uncle does.

So if that was the spectrum, then in between that is every other level of it. You've got Jesse Duplantis, who again made national news because he was buying a fourth airplane, and I remember growing up going to his services. And Duplantis is known as the funniest preacher ever, and he would just make jokes the whole time and talk about faith and tell wild stories. He is a very wealthy man and uses the health and wealth message to get that. Then you've got guys like Kenneth Copeland, who cut their teeth serving men like Kenneth Hagen, who passed away in 2003. He was a big Word of Faith preacher, and Copeland claims now to be a billionaire. He was just on Inside Edition. Lisa Guerrero did a great piece talking to him about the airplanes, and he was saying how essential it is. At one point, he said he can't fly commercial because it's like getting into a tube full of demons, and there you're seeing things that, of course, Osteen would never say that. It'd be bad PR, but that's the spectrum. You have other people who live the high life like T.D.

Jakes and others, and they mix in and out of different circles. Paula White, who is Trump's advisor, and that's not a political statement by any means no matter where you land, she's a prosperity preacher. I think we all would rather the president have advisors that were maybe a little more conservative evangelicals, and I know he has some of those, but overall, Paula White represents a demographic of preacher that has multimillion dollar penthouses in New York that rides Bentley Maserati, Beamer Benz's, and solicits donations from people by twisting the Bible. Those are some of the names of the big preachers who teach this kind of thing, but then I would argue that we have a lot of prosperity gospel light.

You've got Coke and Diet Coke. You've got a light or diet version of it, and it's in a lot of American churches that maybe don't look like prosperity preaching churches, but they don't teach on suffering. They never want to offend people with the reality of the gospel, the idea of dying to yourself, the idea of sin, telling people they're sinners. Only giving everybody the good news is not really the gospel.

We've got to tell people the bad news. We want to admit that we're sinners and that we need Christ, and then the bad news makes the good news so good. So the prosperity gospel creeps in in a lot of ways, where even in churches where the pastor's not driving at Bentley, you might have the prosperity gospel there, because that pastor refuses to address sin, to deal with hot-button issues that the Bible is clear about, and also does not talk about suffering and the trials that are all but guaranteed, basically. You're listening to an interview with Costi Hinn today, the nephew of one of the most well-known prosperity preachers in the world, Benny Hinn, and he's talking about the prosperity gospel. And what he just talked about there, the prosperity gospel light, which is that keep it positive, talk about the positive attributes of God and Christianity. Jesus will add Jesus onto your life and things are going to be better to overcome your problems. Your marriage will be better and never talk about more of the harder truths of Scripture, sin and its consequences. This is really important to understand because you may look on TV, the televangelists and say, whoa, they're really wild out there.

We're never involved in that. But this be blessed Christianity, where everything's positive. You know, people are beat up six days a week. Don't make them feel bad on Sundays.

Keep it positive. This is so prevalent within the evangelical church today. But I'll tell you, you haven't preached accurately about who God is, who you are as a human, who Christ is, unless you tell, unless you explain the actual attributes of God. Yes, he's a loving, merciful and compassionate and patient and willing to forgive God. Absolutely.

We should celebrate that. But he's also, the Bible says, a holy, a just God. He is angry over sin. He will judge to hell those who reject his offer of the gospel, of offer of reconciliation. He's reaching out to offer that to every sinner. But if you reject that, this is a just God.

And the Bible says that he will justly send you to hell for rejecting his offer of reconciliation that he's offered through sending his son to die for your sins on the cross. This is so prevalent today in evangelical churches. Yes, you see it with Joel Osteen.

Everything's positive. Hillsong Church, same thing. This is a prosperity gospel, whether in its full form or in its lighter form.

But so many evangelical churches today have the same prosperity gospel light. Kosti is going to get much more into this after the break. We have a couple of new segments coming up with him. Just want to say that we are offering his book, God, Greed and the Prosperity Gospel, a very important book to read and understand.

It's his own story, so it's a very, very good read, but it has the doctrinal grounding of what is wrong with this huge movement that's going on across the world. You can order it from the Christian Royal View for a donation of any amount. It's a 224-page soft cover book.

Regular retail is $17.99. We're doing it for a donation of any amount to the Christian Royal View for a limited time. You can order online by going to thechristianworldview.org or by just calling us at our office at 1-888-646-2233.

That's 1-888-646-2233. Of course, you can write to us as well at Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. We'll come back much more with Kosti Hinn coming up. Also, just want to mention a current note here. I'm going to be speaking tomorrow, so that's on Sunday, July 14th, in case you're hearing this late. Sunday, July 14th, I'll be speaking, preaching actually at the service at Faith Bible Church at University of Northwestern St. Paul and their chapel on what is the gospel, what isn't the gospel. So that's tomorrow, Sunday, July 14th, 930 a.m., University of Northwestern St. Paul in their chapel at Faith Bible Church.

Hope you can join us for that. Okay, much more coming up today on the Christian Royal View radio program as we continue to discuss Part 2 of God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel. I'm David Wheaton. You're listening to the Christian Royal View. The Prosperity Gospel is a prominent false gospel that God offers health, wealth, and prosperity if you just have faith and give money. Kosti Hinn grew up on the inside of the prosperity gospel movement.

His uncle is world-renowned prosperity preacher Benny Hinn. Kosti saw it all, the manipulation, staged healings, luxuriant lifestyles, and perversion of scripture before God opened Kosti's eyes to understand sound doctrine and believe in the true gospel. Now a pastor, Kosti has written an important book entitled God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel, which chronicles his own experience and gracefully points the reader to the truth of scripture. For a limited time, you can order this 224-page softcover book for a donation of any amount to the Christian Royal View.

Normal retail is $17.99 without shipping. To order, call 1-888-646-2233 or visit thechristianworldview.org. David Wheaton here to announce two events this coming September. First, on Sunday, September 15th at 7 p.m. at Grace Church Eden Prairie is the Christian Royal View Speaker Series event on how social justice is impacting the church and the gospel featuring Daryl Harrison, an insightful and biblical teacher and writer on this important-to-understand topic.

No cost, no registration. Then, the next day on Monday, September 16th is the Christian Royal View Golf and Dinner event at Woodhill Country Club in Wazeta, Minnesota. You can register for golf, which includes dinner, or register for the dinner event only.

This is always a special day and evening. Again, the Speaker Series event is Sunday, September 15th, and the Golf and Dinner event is Monday, September 16th. To find out more, call us at 1-888-646-2233 or visit thechristianworldview.org. To think biblically and then live accordingly, that's what we strive to do each week on the Christian Royal View radio program and then take what we learn from scripture and apply it to every aspect of life. Today, we're talking about God, greed, and the prosperity gospel, Costi Hinn. He's a pastor, he's the author of the book we are offering today, God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel. He's also the nephew of Benny Hinn.

We have a couple of powerful segments coming up with him where he says some very insightful things, so let's get straight to the interview with Costi Hinn. I want to go from tongues to healings because healings is a huge part of it as well, too. And you see this influence in the evangelical church today, don't put God in a box. And I absolutely believe that God does still heal, but he doesn't endow men and women with the same gifts that he gave to the apostles to heal. You write about this in the book, you say there's a big four or a short list of reasons why God didn't heal people to prosperity people, this is what they would say. These are the reasons, the explanation they would use for why someone wasn't healed. Number one, they had made a negative confession. They had used negative words about their physical condition that hinders your healing. Number two, they hung around negative people. They allowed the negative words of others about their physical condition to hinder their healing. Number three, they didn't have enough faith. They didn't believe or they didn't give enough money to prove that they really trusted God and that God would heal them. Number four, they had touched the Lord's anointed. They had spoken against or opposed a man of God who was so-called anointed. Talk about the healing aspect of this. Kosti, you had seen this, you had been at these huge ministry events with your uncle Benny. People are falling over and falling into what you call catchers on stage. What are we to make of that whole spectacle?

It was a show and is a show. It does not resemble the New Testament picture of healing. It does not resemble Christ's work on earth or the apostles' work on earth. Nowhere do we see any type of model with respect, of course, to contextualization. I know people would say, well, nowhere do we see lights being used.

I get that. So aside from all of the modern upgrades to church technology, nowhere do we see Jesus structure a service the way that faith healers do. Nowhere do we see two to three hours of mind-numbing music to warm everybody up to this hypnotic state. Being told Jesus is going to show up, Jesus is going to touch you, you're going to feel electricity, you're going to feel warmth. Nowhere do we see Jesus lining up those who have maybe been healed on his left and his right. Nowhere do we see Jesus use the disciples to vet the healings to make sure that they're really good for testifying.

Nowhere do we see small scale, I had some ringing in my ears or some pain in my neck. We don't see Jesus healing that way. We see Jesus healing real organic diseases. We see him raising the dead in a moment with a word.

We don't see Jesus slaying people in the spirit and putting on a show and having everybody sing songs in between. We don't see Jesus staying in one place and saying, I've got to create an atmosphere for healing or my Father won't move. There is a power to Jesus and his healing ministry. There's an authority, there is an instantaneous way that he healed.

And he healed with a word and he healed with power and he was and is the Son of God who can still and does sovereignly heal in that same powerful way. But what you're watching is a produced television program in which the vice president of television and marketing basically has a hotline to my uncle and other people. And the discussions are the same as maybe we would discuss the service order in our world. Hey, when are we going to do announcements and when do you guys want to invite the elders up to lead communion? And should we play that video of the family who adopted that baby and then put out a table in the lobby for other families to get involved if they want to adopt children? Or are we going to do the orphan sponsorship and the bulletin this week? You know, the way we would plan our church services and announcements is the way that we would plan how we're going to produce the television program.

And my uncle and others had specific situations that they were looking for that were good for TV and others that were not. And that leads to the question, if we're leading and operating genuine healing ministries, why are we editing things? Why are we vetting? Why are we trying to produce? Shouldn't we simply be going around like Jesus doing good, healing all those who were oppressed by the devil, all those who are sick, all those who have ailments?

Shouldn't we with a word simply command? I could be if I have the gift of healing or I'm going to say I'm just a sample of Jesus. I'm literally just like him, which is something my uncle and many others have said. Shouldn't I from my couch be able to speak the word through the phone and have somebody get up out of the hospital or off of a operating table? I believe the answer to that question is yes, I should. If I'm operating in the power of the most high God filled with the Holy Spirit and armed with a gift, I ought to be able to use it with that power and that authority and then humbly glorify God.

That's not what is happening. Costi Hinn with us today in the Christian Real View. He is the author of God, Greed and the Prosperity Gospel. He is the nephew, you may recognize his last name, the nephew of Benny Hinn, one of the most world renowned faith healers and prosperity gospel preachers. You write about an account of the church of your father who is also into the prosperity gospel movement. I'm not sure if he still is.

You can maybe explain that. But when you were growing up, he was. Your dad and your uncle were. You talked about that your church had good attendance, but on the first Sunday of every month was the healing service for Sunday night. And the church was packed for that. And you'd say, these weren't people from our church. You say they were the desperate churchgoers from around the city who couldn't get healing at their Baptist, Presbyterian or Lutheran churches.

And so they came to us. I read that and that gave me great pause to think about how this prosperity movement, how is it impacting the evangelical church? You have people from non-prosperity churches coming to your church thinking they're going to get healed and so forth. And how is the prosperity gospel movement, how is it pressuring the evangelical church today to not really push back against it? Because there's money to be made from donors and so forth who believe in this prosperity movement. Yeah, that's a loaded question and I'm happy to try to address it from a couple of different angles.

Let's talk the money first. There are a lot of evangelicals now, conservatives, who won't touch this issue. Or, and by not touch the issue, I mean, or they won't call out somebody who's preaching it. And it's because bookstores have their books. And it's because they go to certain conferences and they partner with some of these people. There is a ton of money to be made. And also, underneath the money being made, there's an audience to be won. If they don't play nice with these type of preachers, they can't tap into their audience.

The audience means money, the audience means book sales, the audience means popularity, notoriety, what have you. Bigger churches. We also are in a tolerant age where tolerance has gone from. I had a great pastor friend, one of our guys here at the church, just say this in a sermon he preached a couple weeks ago. He was talking about tolerance and he made a great point. He said, tolerance used to be rejecting ideas, but not people. It was tolerating the person, but nobody would say you're intolerant for not tolerating their position.

You were allowed to disagree. And evangelicalism has come to this place where, I'm not trying to be rude when I say this, David, but the only term I can think of is it's like a mushy middle. It's soft and it's lukewarm. And so I would call it the mushy middle of evangelicalism. It's the part of evangelicalism that refuses to take a hard-line position. It refuses to call out what must be called out. It refuses to lose anything for Jesus' sake and his gospel's sake. It tries to play the middle.

And we know when Jesus writes and speaks to the seven churches in the book of Revelation, what is one of the indictments? You've become lukewarm. You're neither hot nor cold and I'm going to spit you out. I would rather people go cold than stay lukewarm. I'd rather them swing over and say, hey, leave these guys alone. Let God judge. I agree with them.

Who are you, Costi? I'd rather that than this middle road of, well, we don't really know and maybe some good things are happening and I don't really want to call it out. I'm going to stay in my lane. That's not God's will. So evangelicalism has been swooned by power, popularity, money, and the image that comes when you project this sort of tolerance. So that's one. And then two, I think that there is a lack of biblical literacy and biblical teaching even in our own camp or our own conservative circles.

And so let's point the finger at ourselves for a moment. We have to do a better job ensuring that people are biblically literate and that they are growing in discipleship. They are being counseled and rooted in the church so that they don't go and get blown around by every wind of doctrine. You know, Ephesians 4, we're to equip the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. And the result of all that, Paul says, to the church at Ephesus is that we will no longer be tossed to and fro. We stop being children spiritually. So I think you do have in our circles a lot of conservative evangelicals that think because they're a church member on the rolls that they're saved and because they go to church once in a while that they're good. And that's not the case. We need to be living, giving, serving, loving, singing and growing and being sharpened in our faith. You're either growing or dying. There's no middle ground.

Going forward or going backwards. I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being practically delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things. Just mark when they're born. That's Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. We ought to never become indifferent to the slaughter of the innocents taking place in our country. This is why we are offering a DVD series entitled Life is Best that will equip you to stand for life and against this injustice. In this two DVD set are 13 episodes that address all the facets of abortion from the worldview battle to what you can do. For a limited time, you can order the Life is Best DVD series for a donation of any amount to the Christian worldview.

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A lot to do there. You can find out about our speaker series event and our golf and dinner event back to back days, Sunday, September 15th and 16th. Find out more about that at theChristianworldview.org. We'll talk more about that later in the program, but we want to get to the final segment here with Costee Hinn as we continue talking about the prosperity gospel.

I want to read from page 24 of your book, God, Greed and the Prosperity Gospel. You say, my grandfather, Costee, however, was not in his same name as you, was not impressed with Benny, his oldest son. That's your uncle. Your grandfather would say to him, out of all my children, you won't make it. This crushed Benny's young heart.

He would think, yes, I will make it. To this day, my uncle Benny has made it clear that his father's words wounded him. It motivated his desire for success in life. At the root of all of this family drama lies one thing, a father who wanted his son to work hard and make an honest wage and a son who felt rejected by his father and set out to prove him wrong. That's talking about your uncle Benny.

That was a very interesting part of the book. Talk about your uncle's motivation. You obviously know him well. Does your uncle actually believe what he's doing?

Do you think at night when he closes his eyes and goes to sleep that he has any thoughts like, this is really just a big game I'm playing. I'm enriching myself. I mean, not just enriching myself, but this to the tens of millions of dollars.

You go into this in the book, I won't get into all of it, but it's enormous wealth off poor people and people all over the world. What do you think your uncle's motivation is and what do you think he thinks about what he's doing? Yeah, it's difficult for me on one hand to speculate. It also on the other is easier because just being around him all those years. So I'll comment to what I can. The motivation certainly is there to prove something and to make something of himself.

My grandfather has been dead a long time, but within the family these are normal conversations or have been. So to let people in on that background is important because they need to understand that preachers like this are human beings too. And not to excuse him, but to understand him is important. At the root of it is a man simply trying to make himself an empire and prove to his now deceased father, my grandfather, that he made it in the world.

So that's one. As an immigrant, that's important. That is something that immigrants today desire the American dream to make something of themselves, and that is important and valuable as long as we're doing it honestly and with integrity. On the flip side, the Bible says in 2 Timothy 3.13 that in the last days evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. I think it's both. I think my uncle has and is both deceiving people and also is self-deceived. He's told the stories, although they've changed many times, he's told the same type of stories for years. He has been doing the same thing and believing or saying the same things for years, and I think after a while sociologists and psychologists and philosophers and everybody else under the sun will agree with this. It's been proven. If you tell the same lie over and over and over again, you can condition yourself as a human being to believe it, and that complicates things because my uncle may hold a position that says, absolutely, I'm telling the truth as I'm talking to you.

God told me. He's been saying that God told him for so many years that he may not even know the difference anymore between a thought in his head that's his own and what it means to tell people you heard the audible voice of God. So it is vital for people to understand that it's both. Many people are self-deceived, and many people are being deceived and being led astray. So I think my uncle knows there's things he's done that are wrong and sinful and deceptive that need to be repented of. I also think there's some things that he'll defend saying that he did that and he believes it was real, so we'll all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

And in that, I would say, we are to judge rightly every teacher by his words against Scripture, 100%. That's clear in the Bible. However, his final destination and the end result, Christ will have the final say. And I do hope and pray that my uncle will repent. He's had a public ministry and has been in sin and deception publicly. Therefore, I believe, much like Zacchaeus, there needs to be a public display of repentance and a public pleading and a public celebration even of repentance and restoration. I believe that is clear in the Bible.

I don't believe in hiding behind closed doors and saying, oh, we're all sinners, you know, I made some mistakes too, and now I've worked it out with the Lord. When we hold a public office before God's people and we deceive, we must engage in public repentance and let the Lord restore. Even if that means a lot of loss for ourselves, our soul has been won. I want that for my uncle, I want that for my other family members who are following in his footsteps and inheriting his ministry. That is my heart in all of this.

Yeah. Costi Hinn with us today in the Christian Real View, the author of God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel, an excellent book. He takes you behind the scenes of participating in and his eyewitness accounts of what it's like to be in this midst of this health, wealth, and prosperity movement. Final question for you, Costi. You came out of this by God's grace, and that just humanly speaking must have been very, very difficult to do just from your own human motivations.

Here you're in this empire of this money-making machine as you go around the world and millions of people would come and donate and so forth. This is just unbelievable to read about, actually, because I'm reading your book. Tell us the story of how you came out of this, what was going on in your mind, how you understood the Gospel, how your wife played into that.

Give us a snapshot of that story. People can read about it in the book, but just tell us how God saved you out of this. Yeah, it was through his word, no doubt, the understanding of the true Gospel and Jesus' healing ministry and his sovereignty, and he used people along the way. So a quick 3.2-minute sermon would be, you've got the coach, you've got the girl, and you've got the pastor. My coach at Dallas Baptist University, where I played baseball after working for my uncle, was a disciple-maker, and he began to talk to me about the sovereignty of God and talk to our team about it.

And we memorized Bible verses and went through different studies, and the sovereignty of God started leaking in, albeit I was confused a bit because the idea of God being sovereign really messed with my theology because I thought I was in control with my faith and my offerings and my anointing, but that messed me up. And then God brought my wife along, and we tried as a family to fix her. She didn't speak in tongues. She didn't come from our background. She drove a Toyota Yaris.

I drove a Hummer. She worked as a server at a restaurant. I had only ever been a prosperity preacher worker. Her family was blue-collar.

My family was prosperity gospel, wealth, and royalty. So she comes along, and the Lord really used the things that happened with her. There were things that we tried to get her to do and make her have and make her become that weren't working. And I began to wonder, you know, what's wrong with her?

But then soon I began to question, what's wrong with our beliefs? And she had gone to my uncle's services, my dad's. We had tried to get her to speak in tongues and get the anointing on her life. We had tried to get her to revere all of the leaders that were leading us, and the Lord really used her to ask me some tough questions. And we went on that journey together and then ended up at a church plant where a pastor, Tony Wood, one of my best friends still today, started helping me along, asking questions as well.

And then the Lord really took hold of our church, our lives, everything. And I preached a sermon one Sunday, and Tony gave me a MacArthur commentary, and I preached John 5, the healing at the pool of Bethesda, and made a few observations that Jesus healed one man, he healed them immediately, and the man didn't even know who Jesus was. So I thought, well, Jesus didn't heal everybody. Jesus didn't heal with a show. He did it immediately.

There was no process. And then the man didn't know who he was. How did he even have enough faith to get healed? And I began to study right there the passage and realized that Jesus' sovereign power and healing is what the Bible teaches, and that we cannot turn his healing ministry into a formula for monetary gain. My entire world came crashing down.

This is the Cliff Notes version, but all the rest of it's in the book. And I was saved. I repented of my sin. I turned to Christ. He won victory in my heart, and I committed to preaching the true gospel since that day.

And other dominoes fell, of course, after. But that's really the short version of how his word, the truth, and faithful people were used to change my life. Yeah, well, thank you for sharing that. God just, it's just miraculous conversion. All conversions are miraculous, but yours is particularly amazing considering what kind of human motivation you had to stay in that world with the lifestyle and the money and everything else. So just thank you for sharing your story in this book. Not only is the book your story, but it's also a theological analysis of what's wrong with the prosperity movement and what is the true gospel. And I really highly commend this book to listeners today. God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel by our guest Costi Hinn. Costi, thank you for coming on The Christian Rule of You, all of God's best and grace to you. Thank you, David. Appreciate you, brother. All right, hope you enjoyed the interview with Costi Hinn and gained from that. Again, you can order his book, God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel.

It's a, it's a 224-page softcover book. Normally retails for $17.99 without shipping. You can get it for a donation of any amount to the Christian Rule of You radio program. Just go online, thechristianruleview.org. You'll see it right there, or you can call us in our office, 1-888-646-2233. We'll give out that information again. We have much more coming up in the final segment, including your phone calls.

What struck you about this interview with Costi Hinn, what he said? Our studio number is 1-877-655-6755. That's 1-877-655-6755. David Wheaton here to announce two events this coming September. First, on Sunday, September 15th at 7 p.m. at Grace Church Eden Prairie is the Christian Rule of You Speaker Series event on how social justice is impacting the church and the gospel, featuring Daryl Harrison, an insightful and biblical teacher and writer on this important-to-understand topic.

No cost, no registration. Then, the next day on Monday, September 16th is the Christian Rule of You Golf and Dinner event at Woodhill Country Club in Waseda, Minnesota. You can register for golf, which includes dinner, or register for the dinner event only.

This is always a special day and evening. Again, the speaker series event is Sunday, September 15th, and the golf and dinner event is Monday, September 16th. To find out more, call us at 1-888-646-2233 or visit thechristianworldview.org. The prosperity gospel is a prominent false gospel that God offers health, wealth, and prosperity if you just have faith and give money. Costee Hinn grew up on the inside of the prosperity gospel movement.

His uncle is world-renowned prosperity preacher Benny Hinn. Costee saw it all, the manipulation, staged healings, luxuriant lifestyles, and perversion of scripture before God opened Costee's eyes to understand sound doctrine and believe in the true gospel. Now a pastor, Costee has written an important book entitled God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel, which chronicles his own experience and gracefully points the reader to the truth of scripture. For a limited time, you can order this 224-page softcover book for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview.

Normal retail is $17.99 without shipping. To order, call 1-888-646-2233 or visit thechristianworldview.org. God, greed, and the prosperity gospel. That's been our topic today here on the Christian Worldview radio program. I'm David Wheaton, the host.

Our website, thechristianworldview.org. Just encourage you to go to the website to subscribe to our free weekly email. When you get that, then you also get the short takes that come out every week. They're kind of the highlights of the program. So you'll get some of the three or four of the answers that Costee gave from this week's interview.

You get that almost every week that comes out. You can get the audio of past programs at our website. You can order resources like the one we're offering today.

You can support the ministry. You can find out about events coming up like our speaker series event with Daryl Harrison on social justice on September 15th here in the Twin Cities. And that event, by the way, for out-of-town listeners, we're also going to be streaming it live on Facebook again so you'll be able to see it. And also our golf and dinner event the following day, Monday, September 16th at Woodhill Country Club in Wazeta, Minnesota. So find out more about these events.

Get engaged with them. It's just a great way to get your worldview sharpened to interact with our listeners. And we really enjoy these every year. Okay, let's just play, I want to just play one soundbite, pull one soundbite out of that interview with Costee again. I made the point earlier, and he made the point first, about how the prosperity gospel, the message of it, there's sort of a light version of it within the evangelical church.

I want to play that soundbite and just spend a little more time on that. I would argue that we have a lot of prosperity gospel light. You know, you got Coke and Diet Coke.

You've got a light or diet version of it. And it's in a lot of American churches that maybe don't look like prosperity preaching churches. But they don't teach on suffering. They never want to offend people with the reality of the gospel, the idea of dying to yourself, the idea of sin, you know, telling people they're sinners. Only giving everybody the good news is not really the gospel. We got to tell people the bad news. We want to admit that we're sinners and that we need Christ.

And then the bad news makes the good news so good. So the prosperity gospel creeps in in a lot of ways where even in churches where the pastor's not driving a Bentley, you might have the prosperity gospel there because that pastor refuses to address sin, to deal with hot-button issues that the Bible is clear about, and also does not talk about suffering and the trials that are all but guaranteed, basically, for anyone who follows Jesus. I just cannot say how important what he just said is about how this worldview, this false gospel, this only positive view of God in Christianity is so unbiblical and how much it is in the evangelical church today.

I just see it all the time. There's never, hardly ever, any mention of sin and the consequences of sin, an accurate portrayal of the attributes of God. Yes, he's a loving and graceful and merciful God, but he's also a God of justice and judgment and anger and wrath over sin. The gospel makes no sense, by the way, if you don't explain both sides of God.

And the hard truths of Scripture makes no sense. I mean, we talk about being saved. Okay, well, saved from what?

If it's all positive, what do you mean? Saved as the idea of being rescued from something like you're in peril. You need to be saved. Well, you need to be saved from what? From your bad behavior?

From what? No, you need to be saved from God's wrath, from God pouring out his wrath on you over your sin. And so when this prosperity gospel light comes into the church, it's really a false gospel. You're not accurately representing who God is and how he's revealed himself in Scripture. You know, just to say from 2 Timothy 3, verses 12 through 15, why this is so wrong, that, you know, add Jesus to your life.

Listen carefully. Forget the extreme versions of the prosperity preachers, but just listen carefully to how someone, any speaker, any parachurch leader, when they do these events or wherever you're hearing them, listen on the radio, how do they explain the gospel? Is it a gospel of, oh, you just have to add Jesus to your life or just believe in Jesus?

Is that it? Or is there a full explanation of who God is, the holiness of God, the justice of God? Is there an accurate representation of who you are, that you are made in God's image and God loves you, but you're a sinner, you've sinned against him and there are consequences to sin? The wages of sin is death.

Is there an accurate representation of who Christ is, that he's the son of God, that he came and was born of a virgin, he lived a sinless life, and he died on the cross to pay the penalty you deserve to pay for your sin? And that the response to this is not just believe in Jesus, the demons believe in Jesus and shudder. It says in Matthew 7 that, Many will say to me, Jesus said on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and your name cast out demons and your name performed many miracles? And then Jesus says, And depart from me, I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness. This is very, very serious to do this prosperity gospel light because it changes and perverts and actually corrupts the true gospel.

All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 2 Timothy 3 verse 12, But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood, Paul talking to Timothy here, you have known the sacred writings of scriptures which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. There's an accurate representation of who God is. Go to the Word. We should be as explicit as the Word is about God, about us, about our sin, about the gospel as the Bible is.

No more, no less. I don't want you to go out there and emphasize just the hard truths more than the love and grace of God. We should try to emphasize it just as much as Christ did and just as much as Paul did and Peter did in scripture.

Emphasize the things they emphasize to the point they emphasize it and with the same tone they emphasize it. Well, if you missed any of the interview today with Costee Hand, there's actually two parts to it. You can go to our website, thechristianworldview.org.

It's all there. Sign up for our weekly email. You'll get the short takes right into your email inbox every Sunday. Don't forget about our two events coming up in September, the speaker series event, no cost, no registration. For that, Darrell Harrison is going to just, you're going to really enjoy him.

He's really insightful on the topic of social justice. Talk about another topic that's really infiltrating and just all over the evangelical church, that's it. We need to be able to think biblically about that one. That's Sunday, September 15th, 7 p.m., Grace Church, Eden Prairie, no cost, no registration, Facebook Live.

Find out more at thechristianrealview.org. The next day is our annual golf and dinner event, Monday, September 16th. You don't have to be a golfer, although if you are, it's one of the best courses in the state. It's a great place to play 18 holes of golf. It also includes the dinner event if you're a golfer. If not, you come for the dinner event only.

A lot of people like to do that. We're going to have a special interview with Darrell Harrison that evening. We'll have a personal interview with him. That event is Monday, September 16th.

We'll tell you more about that coming up in the coming weeks. Also, just a reminder to be speaking or preaching tomorrow at Faith Bible Church. That's at the University of Northwestern in St. Paul in their chapel. That's Sunday, July 14th, 930 a.m., speaking on what is the gospel, what isn't the gospel. We may talk a little bit about social justice and the prosperity gospel as well, too, so come on out to that. We do live in a changing and challenging world, but there is one thing we can always hope in and should always trust in. Jesus Christ and His word are the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Have a good weekend, everyone. and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call us toll-free at 1-888-646-2233 or write to us at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to The Christian Worldview. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.