A Word About TV Preachers

Many of America's Most Influential Preachers of the past 50 years.
See list at bottom of article.

A preacher stands in front of a TV camera and leads a million people in a 15-second prayer. "Repeat after me: 'Lord Jesus, I accept you as my personal savior. Forgive me of my sins. Amen."

Then he says, "WE BELIEVE YOU ARE BORN AGAIN AND YOU WILL GO TO HEAVEN."

That preacher is a liar. He is a wretched deceiver. He would send multitudes to Hell unprepared to meet God. He is leading guilty, unregenerated sinners to believe that they are now saints of God. And it is JUST NOT TRUE!

Jesus said that if you are not born of both WATER and SPIRIT - that's water baptism in Jesus' name (Acts 2:38), and the baptism in the Holy Ghost (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8; 2:4,38-39) - you "CANNOT ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD," John 3:5. Not one verse in the Bible negates those words. "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is NONE OF HIS," Romans 8:9. The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Christ, and without the Holy Ghost, a man is NOT born again.

NOBODY ever got born again "accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior." What kind of Bible doctrine is that? Where did that nonsense come from? The Apostles never preached or taught anything like that. They cried out, "REPENT!" They COMMANDED them to be baptized "every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." And they KNEW when they received the Holy Ghost, because they heard them speak with tongues as the original 120 had spoken in the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost.

SO why do we tolerate preachers lying to millions of people as we do? Why do we not scream to the high heavens, "DON'T LIE TO A MAN ABOUT HIS ETERNAL SOUL!!! Don't tell a man that he is going to Heaven, when by the Word of Jesus Christ, "he CANNOT see the Kingdom of God." That means he is going to Hell.

What bigger, more damnable lie is there in the world than one that comes from a man who purports to be speaking on behalf of Jesus Christ, CONTRADICTING one of the very most important doctrines that Jesus ever taught?

Modern preachers scarcely touch on the need for repentance, and then it is only a few words. Real, genuine, repentance that provokes remorse, and causes a person to quit his sins, radically change his ways, and live a holy, godly life, is almost never preached anymore. Asking for forgiveness is not repentance. That is asking for a pass. True repentance confesses all wrong doing, and QUITS doing it, evoking a life-transforming conversion. Most of these preachers NEVER mention quitting your sins, and if they do, they never name or define sins, and never rebuke them.

And the doctrine of the New Birth has been STRIPPED of all meaning. Almost NOBODY preaches the essentiality of water baptism in Jesus' name, or the essentiality of being baptized in the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues - but the scriptural COMMANDS are still right there in your Bible, and Jesus Christ Himself taught them.

It is time to shut down lying preachers. It's time to boycott ALL their endeavors. Stop listening to their lying doctrines on TV and radio and YouTube. Stop buying their products, their books, their videos. Stop supporting them in every way. Stop LIKING their Facebook pages. It's time to expose them for the liars that they are. It's time to put them out of business. It is time to preach from the mountain tops, "YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN OF THE WATER AND THE SPIRIT!" Nothing less is acceptable. A preacher who won't preach that is NOT a man of God. He is a liar.

It is time to revive the Apostle's Pentecostal message, and preach and pray until the multitudes finally realize that they have been lied to, and go to an Apostolic Pentecostal Church where they can hear the Truth preached, and genuinely be Born Again.

SEE: The Biblical Explanation of the New Birth


Footnote: List of preachers in top photo (left to right, top to bottom).

Row 1 - Bishop Fulton Sheen, Billy Graham, Robert Schuller, Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, John Burke, Dan Kimball, Craig Groeschel

Row 2 - Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman, Benny Hinn, Mother Angelica, Pat Robertson, Jim Bakker, Tammy Faye Bakker, Paul Crouch, Jan Crouch, Marcus Lamb

Row 3 - A.A. Allen, R.W. Schambauch, Leroy Jenkins, Rev. Ike, Peter Popoff, Leroy Thompson, Fred Price, John Avanzini, Robert Tilton, Mike Murdoch

Row 4 - Rex Humbard, Jimmy Swaggart, Marilyn Hickey, Joyce Meyer, Rod Parsley, T.D. Jakes, Jesse Duplantis, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen, Joseph Price

Row 5 - E.W. Kenyon, Kenneth Hagin, Charles Capps, Kenneth Copeland, Gloria Copeland, Jerry Savelle, Paula White, Rodney Howard Brown, John Wimber, Steve Munsey, Brian Houston

Row 6 - Jack Hayford, Chuck Swindoll, Greg Laurie, Francis Chan, John Maxwell, Charles Stanley, Andy Stanley, Ed Young Jr., Mike Bickel, John Piper, John MacArthur

Imprisoned by Jesus Christ

Prison Cell at Sing Sing

Paul, the apostle, called himself "the PRISONER of the Lord," "the PRISONER of Jesus Christ" (3x), and "His PRISONER." He also called himself, "a SERVANT of Jesus Christ," "Christ's SERVANT," "SERVANT of the Lord," and "SERVANT of God." And a servant has no rights of his own. He is only free to do the will of his Master.

Paul was not alone in that perception. Peter, James, John and Jude all referred to themselves as SERVANTS of Jesus Christ. In fact, all the Apostles were PRISONERS - imprisoned for the cause - at some time or another in the course of their ministries. They were locked up, often beaten, locked in stocks or in chains, treated harshly, and deprived of their personal freedom.

There are some aspects of prison that shock the mind. I am thinking about the iron collars, or shackles and chains in which a prisoner is typically held. Of course, there are prison cells - often dark, dank, musty, lonely, solitary, claustrophobic, and even sickening. In ancient times, the prisons and dungeons must have been horrifying. There are sometimes beatings, and cruel and unusual punishments, even torture and great pain.

A PRISONER is imprisoned. And in the case of Paul and the other Apostles, Jesus Christ was the prison warden. They called themselves PRISONERS and SERVANTS of Jesus Christ.

Imprisonment and enslavement is not exceptional in the service of God. It is the norm.

Jesus Himself was a servant and a prisoner, both to the will of God, and as a hostage to evil men.

WHY? Because the will of God is 100% contrary to the will of men. The carnal mind is enmity - hostility - against God. If  you will do the will of God, the world, the flesh and the devil will assault and accuse and punish you in unimaginable ways. You will suffer for doing God's will.

It is the prison of Christ.

The prison of Christ strips the flesh of its freedom. The prison of Christ will not allow you to be the carnal, worldly, vain and self-indulgent person that what you want to be. The prison of Christ forces you to do the will of God at what is often a very high cost, and involving great loss to your personal, selfish desires, dreams and ambitions. The prison of Christ will sometimes humiliate you in front of your peers. It will embarrass you. Your flesh will sometimes utterly rebel against the prison of Christ, and demand to be set free.

The world, the flesh, and the devil violently oppose the will of God. Everything about your flesh aggrieves the service of the Lord. Your worldly friends will oppose your doing the will of God. Sometimes, your family, and even fellow Christians, will not understand your calling. And certainly, Satan will oppose you with every imaginable and unimaginable conflict. The Will of God will imprison you. Enslave you. Exile you from home, family and friends.

But it is The Crushing

Like a chemist or pharmacist uses a mortar and pestle to extract the compounds he needs, God uses the CRUSHING of life to extract the sweet fragrances and priceless substance of obedience and submission that demonstrates to the world that God, Heaven and Eternity is your priority, and the temporal things of this world cannot change your mind. It is the ultimate testimony to a misguided, misdirected sinner that you are an eagle in a barnyard, and no matter how long they hold you hostage, the moment you are free, you will fly away again and do the will of God, just as you began to do at the first.

No prison, no hardship, and no crushing will stop the true man or woman of God from doing His will. This is a test of priorities. If you can be dissuaded from your Heavenly vision, the prison will dissuade you. If you can be forced to recant and renounce your allegiance to Christ, the crushing will do it. 

"...we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God," Acts 14:22.

"And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, THESE ARE THEY WHICH CAME OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," Revelation 7:13-14.

"And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and THEY LOVED NOT THEIR LIVES UNTO THE DEATH," Revelation 12:10-11.