God, Greed, and The Prosperity Gospel (Part 1 of 2)

God, greed, and the prosperity gospel. That is the topic we'll discuss today right here on the Christian Worldview Radio Program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

I'm David Wheaton, the host of the program, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Well, thank you for joining us this weekend as we discuss God, greed, and the prosperity gospel. You know, it's a big business, complete with tens of millions of dollars in, quote, revenue, charismatic leaders with worldwide influence and luxuriant lifestyles, and a message that God will make you healthy, wealthy, and prosperous if you just sow a seed of faith, i.e.

money. The show, in person or on television, is as well-crafted as a Broadway production, complete with manipulative speakers working the stage, emotional music to entrance the audience, staged healings and miracles, claims of direct revelation from God, speaking in gibberish, what they call, tongues, quote, anointings of the Holy Spirit, promises of, quote, breakthroughs over whatever is troubling you, et cetera, et cetera. The prosperity gospel movement runs a wide gamut, including less charismatic leaders like Joel Osteen, pastor and author of Your Best Life Now, title says it all, to the white-jacketed charlatan Benny Hinn. Others like Oral Roberts and Creflo Dollar and Jesse Duplantis and Kenneth Copeland and Reverend Ike and Kenneth Hagen and Joseph Prince and Paula White are all other well-known prosperity preachers. So this weekend on The Christian Real View, Costi Hinn, the nephew of Benny Hinn and author of the new book God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel, joins us to talk about his first-hand experience growing up and working in the prosperity gospel movement and how he was saved out of it.

But before we get to Costi, here's a clip from Justin Peters' ministries about what prosperity preachers preach, courtesy of SO4J Productions, and you can watch it on YouTube. You know, you're supposed to control the weather. We don't fly bad weather, but we could see the weather over here. And I looked out the window, and that tornado came down just like this, down toward the ground, and Ken said, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus, you get back up there.

And that tornado went whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Did you notice how she says that she and her husband, Kenneth, they can control the weather, but they don't fly in bad weather? If it is true that Gloria Copeland can control the weather by the words that she speaks, and by the way, it's not just Gloria Copeland. Many of the faith preachers claim to be able to do this.

Jesse Duplantis? I mean, many of them do. Every year, thousands of people are killed in weather disasters, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods that cause mudslides, wildfires. Where are they? They can't do what they say they can do. They're liars. These people are not Christian. As these programs are airing, I'm speaking something into existence. They teach that we can do the exact same things that God can do. We can speak things into existence, create our own realities with the words that we speak, with the words of our faith. Dear friends, only God can speak things into existence.

That is not an ability that you and I have. You know, of course I believe in Christ as the Savior and all, but you know, I think, too, Glenn, 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.

No. Hindus do not love God because they do not know God. How can you love someone who you don't even know? And dear friends, Joel Osteen is doing no one any favors by telling the world that Hindus love God, especially not the Hindus. He continues to deny that Jesus is the only way to be saved, and so Joel Osteen is a false teacher. He is a false prophet. See, Jesus was man until God touched him and put the spirit of the living God on the inside of him.

And that's encouraging today. No, that's heretical today. That's heresy.

Jesus was just a man until God touched him, put his spirit on the inside of him. That's heresy. And if you've never prayed in tongues, if you follow my instructions, the anointing is here to do the rest.

I can't do it for you, but I can tell you how to pray in supernatural languages. I know you don't know what to say. Make little nonsense syllables up there, not nonsense, but they're the first words coming out of your spirit. Do it faster. I said faster. I said faster. You can do it faster than that.

If I had a gun in your wrist, you'd do it faster. If this is something for which the Holy Spirit gives us utterance, why in the world would it ever be necessary to teach people how to do it? And then I began to look up through the gate, and I could see this kind of pinnacle in the middle of the city. It's kind of a hill high and lifted up. There's a river flowing down the side of this, well, it's the river of life, and it's coming down the side of this mountain or hill, if you will, and at the top of that is the brightest light I've ever seen. And I know who that is. It's the Lord high and lifted up.

This is his city. The title of your book is 90 Minutes in Heaven, and you can't remember whether or not you saw God? 3 John 2 says, Beloved, I pray that you might prosper in every way and that your body might keep well even as I know your soul prospers and keeps well. So we see right there that God wants us to be healthy.

Can everybody say God wants me to be healthy? This is not a theological statement. This is not a doctrinal statement. It's not a statement of teaching. It's not a didactic, not a teaching statement.

It's simply a common greeting to a letter. Nothing more and nothing less. And the faith preachers know it, but they don't want you to know it because it just happens to fit their theology. Jesus placed your and my sickness and diseases, infirmities, upon Jesus, and He bore them 2,000 years ago. If He already paid for your healing, how can you doubt that you are healed? Andrew Wommack just taught that healing is provided for in the atonement, and he, of course, appeals to Isaiah 53, 4 and 5.

And so let's look at the context of the passage. It becomes very clear to us when we read the very next verse. Very clearly, the primary context of Isaiah 53 is not physical healing. It's spiritual healing. Not healing from sickness and disease, healing from sin. We see that from these two words, transgressions and iniquities. Yet how many times have we heard Benny Hinn or Andrew Wommack or one of these prosperity preachers say, by his stripes, we are healed.

So you ought to be physically healed. I'm going to stand up in faith and I'm going to sow an Isaiah 54, 17 seed of fifty four dollars and seventeen cents. Let's go to the phone. Do it right now.

Go to the phone. When this was written, there was no Chapter 54, verse 17. And yet you see prosperity preachers do this all the time based on Isaiah 54, 17 or some other verse that they like that that happens to fit their theology. And they are counting on their followers and their listeners being biblically illiterate so that they can fall for their schemes. These people are charlatans. Do I believe that God wants to bless us?

Yes. But when you go to the conferences, you ask people to give money. So you say do it cheerfully. Because the Bible says give and it shall be given unto you. See, giving is a major part of the whole Christian document. Do you believe that if someone gives money to the ministry, that more will come back to them? Yes.

Absolutely. I think that's what they mean by prosperity gospel. But do you worry at all that sometimes your message will be heard by someone in the most dire circumstances?

This is sort of roulette wheel, a sort of gamble with God. OK, well, I can't pay the rent, but I'll give it to Joyce and we'll see what happens. Do you worry at all that that happens? Well, I totally know. I don't worry about that. Joyce Myers says, no, I totally don't worry about that.

Well, I'm sure she doesn't, but she should. Because right now, even as we speak, there are thousands of people all around the world who are watching T.B.N. and Daystar and Laseya Broadcasting and the Word Network and all these things. And they are hearing this endless drivel of saying, you send us your money and God will give you a harvest. And there are people at home, they are poor, they are sick, they are desperate, they have sick children. And so in desperation, they get out their checkbook or they get out their credit card and they send in money to these multimillionaire preachers who fly in private jets and who live in multimillion dollar homes.

Jesse Duplantis, for example, lives in a 35,000 square foot parsonage. But when your wealth is gained off of preying upon the hopes and fears of hurting and sick and desperate people, there's a lot wrong with that. When your wealth is gained off of distorting the gospel of Jesus Christ, there's a lot wrong with that. Principle 4, you determine the size of your harvest when you sow your seed. Do you need a big harvest? Then you sow lots of seed. Do you need a big harvest? Then you sow lots of seed.

So if you have cancer or if you have a sick and dying child, you at best dig deeply. Because the bigger miracle you need, the bigger monetary seed, you'd better sow. Dear friends, sowing and reaping is a biblical concept.

It is. But more often than not, when the Bible talks about sowing seed, the seed to which it refers is itself. So if you want to sow some seed, by all means, I heartily encourage you to do so. Sow this seed into the lives of people and watch God bring a harvest. Okay, when God restored the truth of healing, the devil put a signpost that said, have a seed.

When God restored the truth of prosperity, the devil put a signpost that says, have a seed. And the church back off from the truth. We should not back away from the truth.

And you can tell how powerful the truth is by the amount of controversies against the truth. What he's saying is that those people who actually care about the real gospel, who care about sound doctrine, who have a love for good theology, who rightly divide the word of truth and warn people about the appeal to fallen human desires, he is saying those kind of people, those are heretics. They're heresy hunters. They're legalists. They're Pharisees. But no, the people to whom he's referring that put up these signposts, these warnings about the appeal to health and wealth are actually the remnant of God's faithful people who care about sound doctrine and who want to teach people the truth.

Friends have frank and open conversations with each other. I've done that with the Lord. I've had the Lord say, Jesse, I've had God come tell me, he said, this is what I'm going to do. I've had the Lord say, what do you think about this? God has asked me for my opinion. God asks Jesse Duplantis for his opinion? Really?

Is that not shocking? Pray tell, Jesse, continue. Finish your thought. I said, well, Lord, since you asked, maybe I'm doing it. He said, no, we can talk frankly.

What do you think? I said, well, I don't think you ought to do that. He said, why you don't think I ought to do that? I said, well, you know, I know you know people more than I do, but you know, Lord, if you just let me, let me do a little bit more work on this individual, I think we can get them to you. He says, OK, go ahead.

Do what you have to do. And I tell you what, the Bible says he who wins souls is wise. Yes, and he who thinks he can counsel God is a fool.

Very true. That clip from Justin Peters Ministries, Costi Hinn, the author of God, Greed and the Prosperity Gospel, coming up after this first break of the day on The Christian Worldview. 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 Worldview 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.

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Our website is thechristianworldview.org. Our topic today is God, greed, and the prosperity gospel. This is part one of a two-part series with our guest Costi Hinn. In the first segment there, you heard some of the luminaries of the movement, from Gloria Copeland to Benny Hinn to Joel and Victoria Osteen to Sid Roth to Don Piper to Joyce Meyer to Andrew Womack to Rod Parsley to Joyce Meyer. I mentioned her before. John Hagee to Joseph Prince and to Jesse Duplantis.

There's many, many more because it's a big business and there's a lot of money to be made by expounding false promises and misinterpreting scripture for your own personal gain. Our guest for the rest of the program today is Costi Hinn. He's the nephew of Benny Hinn, one of the most prominent leaders of the prosperity movement. He has a brand new book out entitled God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel. Let's get right to the first segment of the interview with Costi Hinn.

Costi, we're really thankful to have you back on the program today to talk about your brand new book, God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel. And I want to start out by reading about your family on page 16 of your book because a lot of the things that you're going to talk about today with your story, someone may take it as, well, this person has a grudge against his family. He doesn't like his family. So I want to make sure I lay the groundwork of your relationship with your family. Of course, you are the nephew of the world-renowned faith healer, Benny Hinn, prosperity gospel preacher.

And let me just read from page 16 of your book. He says, I'm not angry at my family. I love the Hinn clan with all my heart. My father is an affectionate, generous, and loving man.

He's also in the prosperity gospel ministry. My mother is a hospitable, caring, and loyal woman. Like every family, we've had our challenges and disagreements, but all my life, they've done nothing but try their best to love me as a son.

My sisters are incredible women who would rush to my aid at the sight of a distressing text message. Every one of my uncles and aunts has treated me like their own since I was born. My Uncle Benny always favored me, was generous beyond measure, and has never once insulted me to my face, even in the midst of my opposition to the theology he has propagated.

Let me repeat what I've already said in a different way. This book is not a smear campaign or a vengeful crusade. I think that was an important thing to write early in the book, Costi. Talk about what your family dynamic was like growing up and what that family dynamic was like away from the church as well. I wanted to make sure people understood, and even my family, as they read the book, if they decide to read it, that I love them. I've told them that anyway in person, and so it is important to understand that here in this book, and even in general in ministry, we're rejecting false ideologies and false gospels and false teachings, but we're not rejecting the people, per se, and we're tearing down false gospels and false ideologies and anything that is raised up against the knowledge of God, as Paul explains to the church in the New Testament, but we're not tearing down the people or trying to destroy them, and so I'm thankful that you would read that.

Growing up in my family was wonderful in all the senses of being a child who was loved by his parents, provided for lavishly, and we defended one another. We were always there for one another, and we grew up in a sort of celebrity bubble with all the bells and whistles, a ton of luxury, and I explain all the details of that in the book, and so I thought that was normal when you are anointed, as I believed we were, and when you were at the top of this system where God had called us, in my view and in our view, and anointed us to bring a message of hope and healing to the world, and so we were a conduit, the middleman between God and his people, like a priest, essentially, explaining to people how if they would believe like us, trust in what we were teaching them, and follow after our ways, then God would bless them as well with health, wealth, and happiness. Kosti Hinn with us today in the Christian Real View, the author of God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel. I want to read and start out for those who may be listening who are wondering what exactly is the prosperity gospel. You see on page 15, there are millions of people who need to be saved from the prosperity gospel, deception like I was. I'm trying to reach them, while at the same time inspiring other people to reach them too. I want people to see that the prosperity gospel is damning and abusive.

It exploits the poor and ruins the lives of some of the world's most vulnerable people. So explain, Kosti, what is the, I'll add a couple words to it, the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. 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 if 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, Costi? 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 would 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, Benzes, 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 know, 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, you know, 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, for anyone who follows Jesus. Kosti Hannigan with us today in the Christian Real View Radio program, the author of an excellent new book entitled God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel.

Kosti was saved out of the prosperity gospel. We're going to talk a little bit more about that as we continue with today's interview. Okay, that's next, next segment coming up. By the way, this is our new current resource on the Christian Real View, Kosti's book God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel. It's yours for a donation of any amount to the Christian Real View. Just go to our website or give us a call in our office.

I'll give that contact after the break. 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 marked when they're born. That's Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.

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Monthly partners can choose to receive resources throughout the year. Call 1-888-646-2233 or go to thechristianworldview.org. Thank you for your support. God, greed, and the prosperity gospel. Today is part one of a two-part series on this with our guest, Kosti Hinn. He is here and authored this book. We're offering, as I mentioned before the break, for a donation of any amount to the Christian Worldview. It's a 224-page soft cover book. It really gets you on the inside. He grew up in it, his family, his dad, his uncle, and so forth, and was just miraculously saved out of it.

And this guy is sound in the world. ...out as you hear him talk about this movement today that is so major and so huge and affects so many people all over the world and bleeds with its influence into the evangelical church as well. You can order the book by going to our website, thechristianworldview.org. You can call us at our office number toll-free, 1-888-646-2233. That's 1-888-646-2233.

Or you can write to us at our mailbox and I'll give that later in the program. But let's get back to the next segment of the interview with Kosti Hinn. I want to read from page 46 of your book. You say, In one sermon I heard growing up, my uncle Benny taught us that if we wanted God to do something for us, we needed to do something for him. This applied to everything, especially miracles. Whenever possible, Benny would preach to the masses that if they wanted a miracle for their sickness and disease, they needed to give money to God.

No money, no miracle. Giving to God was the secret to unlocking your dreams. It was the secret to job promotions. How does this prosperity gospel, I'm going to call it a game, because it appears to me to be a deceitful game that's being played on people.

And why are people then, it may seem obvious to ask this question, but why are people so attracted to it if the game seems so obvious? Well, I think you have two demographics and these are clear in the Bible. Certainly you have people who raise up teachers in accordance with their own desires, as Paul explains to Timothy would happen. And they want this. They like the teaching.

They like the ear tickling. And they like being told, hey, here is a version of the gospel that says, you're not going to suffer. God's going to give you the desires of your heart.

Just believe, just give. And they want to control their own destiny. That is attractive to people. As crazy as it sounds, for those of us that see things in black and white, sometimes we need to remember that we also were once deceived.

And it's easy to get caught up in a better, more man-centered version of the gospel. On the flip side, you do have people that are vulnerable. They're sick. They're dying.

They're on their last leg. Or imagine, David, you and I, if we had a child and we were in the third world and there was no hope, no modern medicine, nothing more doctors could do, but an anointed faith healer was on a billboard saying that he's coming to our little area and we traveled hundreds of miles from wherever, a village in India, holding our child, hoping that this man who claims to be a healer can heal our child. And that is the kind of person I want to see us do a better job reaching and protecting.

That's partially why I wrote the book. I'm hoping it'll trigger Christians and trigger missionaries who are already doing a great job to receive support. There are vulnerable people that are being exploited in the third world because an American preacher shows up and pitches to them the American dream and they're never going to get it.

But they're told if they just give all they have or make a sacrifice, that God will do a miracle for them. And in the third world, picture hundreds of thousands and actually at one point in Mumbai, India, we had millions of people there at the services. Acres upon acres of land had been rented and this is all on YouTube.

There's footage of it. Imagine if just every person or even just all the sick and vulnerable gave just a few of their international currency dollars. That adds up. And also you have wealthy dignitaries and other people who believe and who think that this is some anointed healer who's going to bless their country and bless their government and bless their business and they give large amounts and then now add in all the Americans who are being shown the footage that's been edited and produced to look really good being told, give all that you have and give generously to this work because we're going and reaching the nations with the gospel. That is a recipe for tens of millions of dollars to be raised. The only problem is it's not going into reaching those people with the truth. It's not going into reaching those people by planting churches and building multiple orphanages. It's going into supporting the lifestyle of a faith healer.

Wow. Kosti Hinnigan with us today in the Christian Real View. As you were telling that story, I was just thinking back to the New Testament. I can't remember what town it was in, but Paul went in and he disrupted. People were being saved and it was disrupting their idol-making business. Kosti, you can't be good for the business of the prosperity preachers around the world.

What kind of blowback from either just generally or specifically within your family do you receive as a result of your conversion to the true biblical gospel and now writing a book like this? That is one of my favorite stories. You're referring to Acts 19.

It's in Ephesus. The idol-makers get really upset and they literally say, our prosperity depends on this. I love that Luke, who was recording the book of Acts, I love that he used the word prosperity, that the Holy Spirit inspired that. Our prosperity, our well-being, our business, our profits, all depend on this.

Yeah, the blowback has been mostly frustration and anger from certain family members that are the benefactors and the lead benefactors. Conversely, there's been others that have called me privately and said, go Costi, go. We're praying for you. Thank you, or we're proud of you. I give glory to God for that.

We praise Him for that and we pray together. They're not pastors. They don't feel called to stand up publicly and make a big deal about this topic. They don't feel like that's their call. Some of them just own businesses or are humble Christians who are just hoping that pastors and leaders will stand up to this.

There have been some private conversations that are not so much blowback, but they're glorifying God for what He's doing. Then there's people that are in the middle in my family where they don't like conflict, and who does? They don't like to see family divided. David, no matter what culture we're from, we happen to be a Middle Eastern family, kind of like the Italian mafia, but I think American families of all cultures can relate with this, where we say blood is thicker than water. Family is family. Family is first.

Family is the people that, at the end, have your back, and that's who you live for. Family can be an idol sometimes that we make into the thing that we must preserve, but Christ calls us to love Him and serve Him and stand for the truth that He taught, even above family. In Matthew 10, Jesus talks about that.

In Luke 14, He does as well, from verses 25 to 35. Basically, you've got to love Jesus more. I've got some family members that are wrestling through agreeing with the truth, but frustrated that there's conflict in the family.

They don't understand why I have to do it. They've asked me to let other people do it, or they've said, Hey, why can't you just pastor your church and not say anything? Just let other pastors talk about it. I don't think that that's something I want to face the Lord and say one day when I answer to Christ for being an actual pastor, if I'm going to be a real one. I don't want to face him one day, and he says, What did you do in my name?

I'm listening there, and he's reading the resume, and I hand him my little resume, so to speak. There's this big gap, and he's going, Well, there was this one area, Costi, providentially, you had a last name, you had a conversion, and you had the opportunity to help and speak on this issue. I didn't need you. I'm Christ. I could do what I want, but I did call you to this, and I wanted you to do it, and you didn't.

Why? I tell him, Well, because I thought David Wheaton can do that. You know, John MacArthur, John Piper, you know, R.C. Sproul, or all the other pastors who can be nameless but line the halls of heaven because they were faithful. It was their job, Lord, not mine. I didn't want to cause conflict.

I don't think that that would be a good moment for me, David. So I've chosen this path, and there's some family members that are hoping or were wishing that I would relegate it to others. You know, there's nothing more important in life than defending what the gospel is and pointing out and pushing back against what it isn't, and so this issue is of utmost importance because it has such an impact on so many people. It's so huge, and one of the reasons I was really looking forward to the interview today is because it's not just in the whole world of the charismatic church, so to speak, but it's the way it's influencing the evangelical church. I hear so much of the language of the prosperity gospel.

You need to have a breakthrough. The idea of the miraculous sign gifts coming into the evangelical church, speaking in tongues, healings, and so forth, that's what I'm most interested in is what it's going to do to what was traditionally biblically sound Christianity. I want to read from page 33 of your book where you talk about speaking in tongues.

This is a huge part of the prosperity movement. You quote someone, an altar worker, saying, just open up your mouth. Say whatever is on the tip of your tongue.

Just say ba da da da da da da da da da. An altar worker coached me. I had been sitting in the youth section during a church service, and at the end of the service, my dad called the teens up to receive the gift of tongues. Well, the Bible describes the gift of tongues as the supernatural ability to speak in a real foreign language with an interpreter, I'll add, by the way, what scripture says. We taught that it was the ability to speak ecstatic utterances that made no sense on earth but were understood in heaven.

Why are these miraculous sign gifts, specifically for this question, speaking in tongues, so crucial to the prosperity movement? Get ready for your summer reading with the lowest prices of the year on My Boy Ben and University of Destruction, both written by David Wheaton and owned by The Christian Worldview. Readers have been touched by My Boy Ben, a moving story about David's close companionship with a yellow lab that culminates in an encouraging message about God's grace in our most trying times. And if you know a high school or college student you'll want to read and give them University of Destruction, your game plan for spiritual victory on campus.

Take advantage of this limited-time offer with our lowest prices of the year. Both books make excellent gifts, especially when you request them signed and personalized. The My Boy Ben e-book is also available. Order online at thechristianworldview.org by phone at 1-888-646-2200.

Or by mail at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. 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 Worldview Speaker Series event on how social justice is impacting the Church and the Gospel, featuring Daryl Harrison, an insightful and biblical scholar and writer on this important-to-understand topic.

No cost, no registration. Then, the next day on Monday, September 16th, is The Christian Worldview 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 event is on Sunday, September 16th.

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. Okay, final segment of the day here on The Christian Worldview radio program as we've been talking with Costee Hinn, the author of the book, brand-new book, God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel. And I haven't given out the way to order the book more than one time, so I'll do that now before we run out of time here on the program today. The book is a 224-page softcover book.

It normally retails for, let's see, it's $17.99. We're offering you for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview. This is a limited-time offer.

You can get it at our website, thechristianworldview.org. You can call us at our office number, 1-888-646-2233. Again, that's 1-888-646-2233. Or you can write to us at our P.O.

box. That's P.O. box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's P.O.

box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. And I was thinking, as we're asking you, if you want to make a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview, someone might be thinking, well, how is this different than the prosperity movement? They're asking for money all the time, too.

There's a world of difference. These people are enriching themselves on the people they are coming to speak to. We at The Christian Worldview are not enriching ourselves by your donations to our ministry. In fact, up to this point for 15 years, this has been an all-volunteer-based ministry. There is a world of difference between what's going on in the prosperity gospel and what's going on in ministries that try to adhere to a biblical framework for what they do, whether in media or churches or anywhere else.

So a world of difference. So we have one segment left here with Costi Hinn, and then we have another whole program coming up, probably not next weekend but the following weekend. And we'll get to that. I hope you're enjoying the interview. We'll have it on podcast as well.

But let's get to the final segment with Costi Hinn. Why are these miraculous sign gifts, specifically for this question, speaking in tongues, so crucial to the prosperity movement? Because if you can appear as though you've got some special power that other people don't have, then you can, in a sense, control them. And you can, in a sense, wow them and lead them and get them to do whatever you say.

It's a power play. So what a lot of these guys do is they take the spiritual gifts that we see in Scripture and to you, you know, brothers and sisters who are listening who have a position that allows for an open approach to the spiritual gifts that are miraculous and signs and wonders. It doesn't mean that there can't be healthy disagreement or even some understanding that there's gonna be two different positions and we can both hold those positions each and still be united in the gospel.

That is okay. But what has happened is there is a group of people who have taken an open but cautious approach to the sign gifts or an open but biblical approach, maybe my friends would prefer I call it, and they've taken that position and they've twisted it and gone way beyond just a biblical argument and they've said things that make no sense, even to Pentecostals. I've got friends who are Pentecostals and they've told me before, listen, we preach the Bible, we go verse by verse, we advocate for the modern day use and operation of sign gifts but only in the way that they were used in the New Testament. And if someone doesn't have an interpreter, they're not allowed to speak in tongues or even try. Some people believe that it's ecstatic, some don't.

There's all sorts of room for some good healthy debate there. And those Pentecostal friends of mine have said, but absolutely no way under heaven do we believe and they'll just list all the things that my uncle has taught or that some other prosperity preacher has taught, whether it be a Jesse Duplantis or a Creflo Dollar. There is a huge gap between our biblically thinking Pentecostal friends and those who would twist a view on the gifts of the Spirit for monetary gain and for a power play. And that's what was happening, David. It was all a sham.

It was man-made. It was taking something that's supposed to be given from the Holy Spirit if it's legitimate and making it something that you could get by praying a special prayer or repeating after an altar worker. That's not how the Holy Spirit worked at Pentecost.

It's not how he works today. So trying to be fair here to both sides, I think there are a large group of us that may disagree on the ins and outs of spiritual gifts, but we are in wholesale agreement against what Prosperity Gospel and these signs and wonders enthusiasts are starting to twist and teach. Okay, today in the Christian worldview, you've been listening to an interview with Costi Hinn. He is a pastor, and he's an author of this book we're talking about today, God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel.

You can find out more about Costi. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter and so forth. His website is forthegospel.org. And he was miraculously saved out of this prosperity movement. His whole family, or much of his family, has been involved in his father as a pastor, as the nephew of Benny Hinn.

And if you missed any of the interview today, we'll have it up on our website, thechristianrealview.org. So why is this an important topic? Well, number one, it's important because whenever in ostensible Christian ministry, so to speak, I mean, they're talking about God, they're talking about Jesus and the Bible, whenever a professing ministry misrepresents God and his word, that's very critical to point out, as the New Testament writers say with false teachers. It says, 1 Timothy 6, 3, If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with a doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing, but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, and evil suspicions. And listen to this, In constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.

That's what these people are doing. They're using religion, they're using Christianity, using God in the name of Jesus Christ to enrich themselves. It says in verse 6, But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. In other words, there's a spiritual intangible, not a monetary gain that's guaranteed to being a follower of Christ.

So that's number one. This misrepresents God and his word. It corrupts the gospel. And people who are listening to them never hear the true gospel. They never hear about who Christ is and you need to repent of your sin and put your trust in Christ and your life may be hard. You may not get healed. You're going to die someday, regardless if you're a Christian or not, but praise God that he's provided a way for us to overcome death and be promised eternity in heaven with him. And thus this keeps people from being saved.

I can't think of reasons that it's more important to expose this and to talk about these kinds of issues. That's so big. You look at any Christian television station, these people just populate the airwaves in these stations. Again, you can get the book by going to our website, thechristianworldview.org. God, greed, and the gospel, 224-page softcover, retails for $17.99, yours for a donation of any amount to the Christian Real View. Or you can call us toll-free at 1-888-646-2233.

That's 1-888-646-2233. Highly encourage you to get this book. And our information, contact information, is repeated right after this program, the first minute following. We do live in a changing and challenging world and church, but there is one thing we should always look to and count on. Jesus Christ and His Word are the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Have a good weekend, everyone. We hope today's broadcast turned your heart toward God, His Word, and His Son. To order a CD copy of today's program or sign up for our free weekly email or to find out how you can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, go to our website, thechristianworldview.org, or call us toll-free at 1-888-646-2233. The Christian World View is a weekly one-hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation 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 World View. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.