WWUTT 1030 Q&A Benny Hinn, Couples Studies, Christian Fiction?

Did Benny Hinn really repent of prosperity theology? What would be a good Bible study for a husband and wife to do? And should Christians read fiction? The answers to these questions and others when we Understand the Text.

WWUTT, Giving, and the Origin of the Ministry Name

This is When we Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ that we may attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, being knit together in love. Tell your friends about our website, www .tt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

And my lovely co-host, Becky Hughes.

Hello, everybody.

My darling wife. Hey, we thank you for your gifts, and remember that you can give to our ministry when we understand the text. The money goes to our church, which is a non-profit organization, and therefore, if you are able to do a tax write-off, then that would qualify.

So go to our website, again, www .tt .com. Click on Give, and you can give online, or you can send a check to our church. If you send a check to the church, then you will get a giving statement from us at the start of the next year.

So after we get done with all of our giving, and we're doing the invoices and stuff like that, so then you'll receive something from us that way. If you give online, it's through Simple Give that you'll actually get your invoice.

I don't believe it comes from us. And we thank you so much for your support of this ministry. If you can't give money, but you want to support us somehow, just tell your friends.

And pray for us.

We have come to where we are because of referrals. Because someone has recommended what to somebody else. That's really how we've...

And the Lord has blessed us so much.

It's been wonderful. We would not have come to where we are if not for just listeners that are excited about the podcast, or viewers that love the videos and share them with others. And that's how, when we understand the text, as a ministry has grown to where it is.

I've said this before about the ministry name, but if I knew we were going to get here, I probably wouldn't have called it what.

What? I know.

I was telling somebody the other day about how you have a what ministry, and they're like, huh?

What ministry?

And I was like, you know, what?

What?

And they were like, oh, okay.

Yeah.

You know, I didn't...

I didn't think that through.

Yeah.

When I was explaining.

I didn't share this with you yet.

Oh?

But when I took the kids to the library the other day, there was a woman that pulled in right behind me.

Okay.

And she didn't pull like all the way into the parking space. She just kind of pulled up alongside me.

Okay.

And she's motioning me to roll down the window. So I rolled down the passenger window, and she said, what does your license plate mean? Because I have WWUTT on our license plate.

Oh, that's cool.

And I said, it's when we understand the text. And she kind of made a face, and she was like, when we understand the tax.

Oh, funny.

Like instantly, she's like, oh, this is a government thing? I don't know that I like this. I was like, no, no, no, text. So this is a... It's a Bible ministry. You can find it online. Bible devotions every day.

Videos explaining a bunch of variety topics. And she goes, oh, well, that's fascinating. I don't know if she was interested in it or not, but she was really curious about what WWUTT stood for.

That's awesome. Maybe it'll stick with her.

Yeah. So if anything, it turns heads, but it's not the ministry name I would have chosen. It was something...

What would you have chosen? Do you know?

Yeah. I probably would have gone with East from West.

Oh, yeah.

That I tried to change the name of the podcast to before it ran.

Yep.

We did try that.

But I mean, everything was around the videos. We weren't thinking of the podcast. It was making the 90-second videos, which we were doing for our church.

Right.

And we were just coming up with something creative, a little tagline we can throw at the end. That's like Paul Harvey doing, and now you know the rest of the story.

The rest of the story.

And that's when we understand the text. That's what we were going for. And then we noticed, hey, it abbreviates as WWUTT. WWUTT?

WWUTT?

Then I threw my Tim Taylor slash Scooby-Doo impression on it. That's how it came out, but I really was not, I wouldn't have chosen that as a ministry name.

Yeah.

It makes it a little interesting to tell people.

It does. I have to explain. It's not the easiest thing to have to explain.

Maybe that's why Todd Freeland calls it WWUTT.

Yeah, he just calls it WWUTT. Everybody calls it that because of Todd. So thanks, Todd.

Shut up.

Well, I know where he got it from, too. I don't think it was from the WWUTT, and he was just sounding it out as WWUTT. I think it was because of the camel in one of the first videos that we did. Remember, I took the Geico camel, and the Geico camel goes WWUTT.

You know what I'm talking about? So that's why he started calling it that.

Okay, that's making sense now.

And he connected that with what, and that's how he started calling it that.

I like it.

I like it, too.

It's kind of catchy.

Yeah, it's just not easy to go, I'm the host of WWUTT.

Yeah.

What?

What?

You still get the what.

Yeah, you still get the what.

Yeah.

Every time somebody has to say what. It's like I was trying to do a bad Abbott and Costello joke. Who's on first, what's on second, I don't know who's on third.

Yep.

Benny Hinn, Prosperity Theology, and False Repentance

Now, I didn't want to gab about this at the very beginning. Not the way that I planned on opening the show. I wanted to jump right into the Costi. Not Costi-hen, Benny-hen.

Not Costi-hen.

Benny-hen.

Benny-hen.

Although Costi-hen is going to be in this.

Controversy about Benny-hen.

The controversy about Benny-hen.

That's it.

So a couple of days ago, this clip had been posted to YouTube on Wednesday, Tuesday. I think it was Tuesday when it was posted.

I think it was.

And it showed Benny-hen repudiating the prosperity theology. Supposedly that's what it, he was repenting of it. He was saying, it's bad that I did this and I'm never going to do it again. And so the day after that clip hit YouTube, I had written a blog to kind of lay out, here's why Benny-hen has not repented.

Here's how he amassed his millions. He's hurt millions and millions of people. Can the grace of God cover all of that?

Yes.

Absolutely it can.

Done.

But what would the fruit of repentance look like in the life of a man who conned people out of millions and millions of dollars?

Right.

And of course that goes into Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

Right.

And I had the right name.

Yay.

You remembered the right name this time. So Jesus goes to the house of Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus says, behold, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.

And Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house since he also is a son of Abraham for the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. And Zacchaeus recognizes he is a lost sinner in need of a savior.

And the grace of God covered over Zacchaeus' sins. But the heart of repentance, the fruit of that repentance is demonstrated in the fact that Zacchaeus knew his wealth came from cheating people out of their money.

And so he was going to give half of his wealth away, half of my goods I give to the poor, and then those whom he had defrauded, those whom he had conned out of their money so that he could get rich, I'm going to restore four times what I stole from them.

And so is that the kind of repentance that we're seeing from Benny Hinn? Now, certainly you can say, well, I hope so. I hope that's what we're going to see from Benny Hinn. But what I want to show you here is it's too soon for us to jump on saying that Benny Hinn has repented because he's actually been saying this very thing for a long time.

And Becky and I even talked with Kosti about this a year ago in the interview that we did in March of last year, so this has been over a year ago.

Yeah.

When Benny was saying then that he was repenting of the prosperity theology.

But being a year and a half away from the last time, people just kind of forget because there's been a lot on the news lately.

Yeah, well, I mean, they're getting there. I don't even know that people forget. They just they didn't hear about it, but they're getting manipulated by the latest thing that's hitting the newsreel and going, oh, look, Benny Hinn has repented.

No, no, no. He talked about this a long time ago.

Well, that's what I'm saying. They forget that he's already talked about it.

Well, I'm saying I'm saying I don't think they knew. Oh, they're just they're just latching on to the latest thing that's hitting the social media trend.

OK, and so then it's a trend that he's been doing for quite a while.

Right. So then when I post a blog about no, he hasn't repented and and Justin Peters has said similarly, no, this is not repentance. Brandon Kimber, who has created the American Gospel documentary, has also pointed out there's this is not genuine repentance.

And when we're pointing things out like this, there are people that are harping on us, right, saying, what's the matter with you? Why can't you be loving and gracious to this man and wait to see that fruit is going to be produced by this?

Because he's been saying this for over a year and a half.

Yeah.

And every time he says it, he gets notoriety for it. That's what he wants.

Right.

But we're not actually seeing any fruit of repentance when he says that he is repudiating the prosperity theology. So I'm using the beginning of this program here to kind of lay those things out together so you can hear that in succession.

I was just going to say, Costi, in our interview, you know, that year and a half ago, he said that Benny has done that before, too.

Right.

Even before that.

Yeah.

So it's just it's a thing. And I agree that it's probably just to get his name out there and be like, hey, more people come. Come see me. Come give me money.

Yeah. Now, of course, that's sometimes that's speculative. We can't know what the motives of his heart is.

Right.

All we know is that what he has said has not matched his actions. And and I will play the answer that Costi gave us last year as well, because Costi's position on this hasn't changed. And what he said, even related to the news that's hit this week is just like what he said to us last year.

Right.

So and I think that that's the heart that we should have when it comes to approaching something like this, when a false teacher, whether it's Benny Hinn, who is, of course, a relative of Costi's, whether it's somebody you're related to or or some false teacher that that has you know, you've just seen that face and that figure conning people for years.

We should all have the desire that they would repent.

Oh, yeah.

And and when we recognize it, when we see that it's genuine repentance, throw and open the doors.

Oh, yeah.

Saying yes.

Welcome them home.

Yeah, absolutely. Praise the Lord that he has won you out of that false teaching that you've been in and even pushing on other people for years and years. The grace of God can cover over these sins. There's no way there's no way Benny could ever pay back what he had done to people.

There's no way he could do that.

There's none.

But there still must be a demonstration of of a mourning in his heart of realizing the evil that he's done in the sight of God.

Right.

And I'll talk about that here in a moment. So here's the clip as it hit the social media loop this past Tuesday.

Today, sadly, among a lot of circles, all you hear is how to build the flesh. It's a feel good message. That's what you hear out there. It's all about feel good, do good, all that. Make money, all the rest of it.

And I'm sorry to say that prosperity has gone a little crazy and I'm correcting my own theology. And you need to all know it. Because when I read the Bible now, I don't see the Bible in the same eyes I saw the Bible 20 years ago.

And Steve Strang from Charisma, whom we go back years, he actually he was in my wedding. People don't even know that Charisma Magazine began with my father-in-law. Charisma Magazine started with Roy Hardin and I married his daughter.

So Steve Strang was in my wedding. We go way back. And he's already asked me, sir, are you ready to make it public? I said, well, not totally because I don't want to hurt my friends or my love who believe things I don't believe anymore.

And I will tell you now something that is going to shock you. I think it's an offense to the Lord. It's an offense to say give $1 ,000. I think it's an offense to the Holy Spirit to place a price on the gospel.

I'm done with it. I will never again ask you to give $1 ,000 or whatever amounts because I think the Holy Ghost is just fed up with it. Are you? Did you hear me? I think that hurts the gospel. So I'm making this statement for the first time in my life and frankly I don't care what people think about me anymore.

So I had a guy, well, I'll tell you who, it was Dan Willis. I love Dan with all my heart. I said, don't you dare preach that message again. Just if you dare. I said, no, no, I'm not going to hear it. I don't want to be a part of it.

So when they invite me to telethons, I think they will not like me anymore. Because if you look at the word of God, I don't want to get into it now. Am I shocking you? Good. Let's have a high five on this one.

If I hear one more time, break the back of debt with $1 ,000, I'm going to rebuke them. I think that's buying the gospel. That's buying the blessing. That's grieving the Holy Spirit. That's about all I will say.

If you are not giving because you love Jesus, don't bother giving. I think giving has become such a gimmick, it's making me sick to my stomach. And I've been sick for a while too. I just couldn't say it.

And now the lid is off.

I've had it.

You know why? I don't want to get to heaven and be rebuked. I think it's time we say it like it is. The gospel is not for sale. And the blessings of God are not for sale. And miracles are not for sale.

And prosperity is not for sale.

So that was the clip. And that was taken from his program. I can't remember if it aired on TBN or Daystar. But it was one of those networks with Benny Hinn's program airing on there. So Brandon Kimber, as I mentioned, who's the producer of the American Gospel documentary.

He mentioned that the very next day. So he was talking about this on his Facebook page. The very next day, which would have been Wednesday. Benny Hinn was on his program telling you to sow a seed. And to sow a seed for, you know, that's prosperity preacher speak.

For send us your money. And he even gave a dollar amount. It was $120.

Was it pre-recorded or was it live?

Well, we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that here in a moment. So here's the next clip from the very next day of Benny Hinn telling you to sow a seed.

When heaven opens, it means heaven is on your side. And God says he'll protect your money. He'll protect the fruits of your ground if you do it the right way. And the right way is sowing seed into God's work.

There's an address on the screen. Make sure to send that prayer request and sow a seed. I'm asking many of you to sow $120. You know why? Because the number 120 is the number of deliverance and liberty.

See, that's just Benny up to his old tricks.

Yeah.

Same thing he's always done.

Right.

Okay. So you raised the question, but was that pre-recorded?

Right.

Likely, yes.

Okay.

But we know that he was teaching exactly like that as recently as April. Because I went on YouTube, and I mean, it didn't take me 30 seconds to just a little bit of research. I went on YouTube and typed in Benny Hinn prosperity or something to that effect.

And this is one of the first videos that I got. Benny Hinn teaching live in April, just like what he said there in that audio clip. So this is from just a few months ago.

Okay.

Now, I'm going to ask you right now to go to the phones. There's a number on the screen, and I want you to sow a seed. And we're going to pray, and they're going to bring your prayer request and your name to me here, because this is live.

So start calling now. Begin to call now. Pick up that phone and call the number on the screen right this minute. It's there for you. All right? You call that number on the screen, and they're going to bring your pledges or your prayer requests to me or your name when you sow that seed.

And I'm going to pray over it because the anointing is on me here already. And I'm going to believe God with you that every financial need will be met in your life. We are on the verge of the greatest breakthrough spiritually for spiritual blessings, physically for physical healings, and financially for prosperity we haven't seen before.

The prosperity of Luke 6 through to 8 is going to happen because it says, it shall be given unto you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. We haven't seen that yet. Shall man give to your bosom?

This is the wealth of the sinner being transferred because Jesus said, man, give to your bosom.

So he's saying there, give, sow a seed, and the wealth of the sinner will be transferred to you.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, which is the same prosperity shtick that he's been selling for a long time. And recognize here that Benny's problem is not just prosperity theology.

Right.

It's all of his theology.

Yeah.

Prosperity doctrine is just one problem of many. This man is a heretic who has taught the little God's doctrine that you can be little gods.

Oh.

He's made dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of prophecies that never came true. You just go to Justin Peter's seminar back when he was doing A Call for Discernment, which you can still watch for free on YouTube, or you can pick up his DVD Clouds Without Water.

Part of Justin's seminar where he's exposing these word of faith heretics, he plays an audio tape of Benny Hinn from back in 1989. It was a New Year's Eve preaching thing that he did. I don't know if it was on TBN or where it was.

I don't quite remember the context now. But I know that he goes into like a trance and claims the Holy Spirit has come upon him. And he starts laying out all these prophecies of things that are going to happen in the 90s.

And not one of them came true. It was all fraud. And he's always been a fraud. So the prosperity thing is not the only problem.

Right.

It's just the thing that's getting all the attention right now because of the documentary American Gospel. Because of people that are claiming that they've been won out of the prosperity movement. And a lot of those videos are gaining all kinds of traction on social media.

It's Kosti Hinn's book, God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel. And this kind of stuff is starting to kind of put the pressure on these organizations like Benny Hinn's ministry, TBN, Joyce Meyer, a lot of these other word of faith things.

I mean, you can go back and find interviews with Joyce Meyer years ago where she's being pressed by the interviewer. Well, some people say you're a prosperity preacher. And Joyce Meyer will reply, well, what is that?

And they've been accused of this for years. And they've always been dodging it by claiming, I'm not a prosperity. No, I hate the prosperity doctrine. Interesting. Yeah. So they never claim to be prosperity theologians.

They've never used that title. So as soon as they get labeled with something like that, the only way they know how to shake it is to do this like faux repentance sort of a thing. And they've been doing this for years.

This is nothing new. So this clip that I'm going to play for you here, this is Benny Hinn over a year and a half ago. And again, he's been doing this for a long time.

Right.

But this was one that kind of gained a lot of attention, even among those who are more sound in their faith. Oh, look, Benny Hinn is repenting now. He's stepping back from the prosperity theology. So listen to this clip and how similar it sounds to even statements he was making this week.

And yet we've not seen any of this change from Benny. In fact, I'll even say that he's greatly dishonest in this particular clip. And I'll mention why when we get to the end of it.

All right. Sounds good.

Today, many Christians are not truly Christians. Their Christianity has become deluded. And, you know, we get attacked for teaching prosperity. Well, it's in the Bible. But I think some have gone to the extreme with it, sadly.

And it's not God's word, what is taught. And I think I'm as guilty as others. Sometimes you go a little farther than you really need to go. And then God brings you back to normality and reality. No, no, no.

Because you read the more you know the Bible, the more you become, you know, biblically based and more balanced in your opinions and your thoughts. Because we are influenced. When I was younger, I was influenced by the preachers who taught whatever they taught.

But as I've lived longer, I'm thinking, wait a minute. You know, this doesn't really fit totally with the Bible. And it doesn't fit with the reality. So what is prosperity? No lack. And I've said this before.

You know, did Elijah the prophet have a car? No. He did not even have to have a bicycle. But he had no lack. How about the Lord? Did Jesus drive a car or live in a mansion?

No.

He had no lack. How about the apostles? No lack. None lacked among them. Today the idea is abundance and palatial homes and cars and bank accounts.

The focus is wrong.

Yeah. The focus is wrong.

Focus on the Lord. And abundance and prosperity comes in all dimensions of your life. Because he's the Prince of Peace. He's that perfect shalom, that total well-being that affects every aspect of your life.

But you focus on the wrong thing.

You know, and it's so wrong. I mean, forgive me, people have accused me of things aren't even real. One guy wrote a comment, oh, he's worth 40 million. I thought, how I wish. I would give it all to the kingdom before God Almighty.

He can tell you I'm right and Tim will tell you I'm right. And people say, well, he flies private jets. No, I don't. I have not flown private in, dear God, years. I fly commercial like anyone else and have for how long, Tim?

You fly with me, brother.

Yeah.

And what kind of hotels have we stayed in? Dear God, please.

We have some good testimonies.

Here, come on.

We have some good testimonies of our hotels that we've stayed in. That's for sure.

Yeah.

Some of you won't even believe it. But, you know, yeah, we all sadly make the mistake of thinking, well, you know, this is what God wants. And God says, no, that's not what I want. It's time to live biblically.

You know, it all comes down to one thing. Do we love Jesus? Yes or no? If we love Jesus, then it's all about Jesus. If we don't love Jesus, it's about other things. So that's just the way it is.

Yeah, but which Jesus?

Yeah.

You know, again, that's part of the problem with Benny's teaching, is it's not just prosperity theology.

Right.

It's all of the other stuff that he's taught wrong about Scripture, lying about prophecy, lying about how you buy miracles, lying about all you have to do is believe hard enough and you can receive your healing.

Lie after lie after lie. And in that particular clip, he even makes the comment about it. I mean, he tries to shrug off the fact that this guy was staying in hotels that were $25 ,000 a night.

Yeah.

He was flying on a Gulf Stream of four private jet, the average cost of which to own and maintain is $36 million.

Wow.

The Forbes list put Benny Hinn among the richest preachers on earth, said that he made nearly $50 million. And all of this is in Costi's book, in his book, God, Greed and Prosperity Theology, Prosperity Gospel, that's what it is.

God, Greed and the Prosperity Gospel. He lays all of that out. This is what they did. This was the lap of luxury that they were living in when they're traveling around the world doing all of this stuff.

So Benny is not demonstrating any remorse in that clip or in the one that aired earlier this week. There is nothing in his heart about, guys, I lied to people. I was messed up in what it was that I did.

Yeah.

Now, truly somebody can push back on that comment and say, well, isn't this the kind of guilt that we feel over our sin? Doesn't it sometimes come with our sanctification? So as we grow in holiness, we're going to feel more and more rotten about the sins that we've committed in the past.

Right.

Certainly. Like even as I mature now, I feel rotten about sins I did when I was a teenager.

Right.

So sure, I get that. But once again, this is not the first time he's done this. And it's almost like he's saying it to save face. And you have evidence of it in that clip right now where he's trying to throw off the fact that we don't stay in rich hotels.

We fly commercial. We don't fly private jets. Which some of that's not true. He still stays in rich places. He still is worth millions of dollars. Still drives nice cars, wears very, very expensive clothing.

None of that has changed. So he's not losing anything by saying, I repudiate the prosperity theology. He would be losing something if he actually turned from his lifestyle and admitted that he got all of this by lying to people and gave it to the poor, tried to give back to people that he had stolen from, left the ministry entirely.

That's something else that has to happen. He's got to step down as a preacher. It is not enough for him to stand in the pulpit and say, all these ways that I have conned people. He has to recognize that he has made shipwreck of this ministry.

He's never even really had a ministry. It's all been based on lies. And step away from that spotlight.

Well, yeah, to unlearn everything that he's teaching right now. I mean, really, that's going to take some time. And a miracle, really.

Yeah, it's the move of the Holy Spirit. It can only be.

Because he, I mean, I don't know if he thinks this is true or not, but you say it enough times, it's hard to think otherwise, you know?

Right. So he needs to go to.

Even if you do know you're lying, your lie becomes your truth.

That's right. Yeah, eventually God turns you over to your own depravity. In this case, the lies that he continued to tell. So in response to this statement that he made this week about saying, like, the gospel is not for sale, and the blessings of God are not for sale.

Miracles are not for sale. Prosperity is not for sale. Justin Peters replied and said, do not be fooled. This is not repentance. For Benny Hinn to repent, he would need to empty his coffers, give every cent he has to good ministries, shut his ministry down, confess to his lies and false prophecies, join a sound church, and never preach again.

Can Benny show a level of humility that causes him to step out of the spotlight that he's held for decades?

That only God can do in his life.

Only God can move this kind of repentance in his heart. And we'll forgive his sins. Don't get me wrong on that.