“Confessions of a Former Word of Faith Pastor” On The Dividing Line

Welcome to The Dividing Line today. My name is John Sampson. I serve as pastor at King's Church in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. James White is away today and I have the joy and privilege of filling in for him.

And hopefully you'll enjoy the program today as we talk about something I believe that's close to the heart of God, His sovereignty, His majesty, His holiness, and in contrast to that, exposing some of the deception of something called the Word of Faith movement, which I was a part of for quite some time.

I want to start off because we're going to go into some serious matters with something in the way of humor, just to lighten the mood, hopefully. It's supposedly a true account of something that happened in Sarasota, Florida, recorded in the police log there.

And it's a story about an elderly Florida lady who did her shopping and upon returning to a car, found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle. She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her lungs, I have a gun and I know how to use it.

Get out of the car. The four men didn't wait for a second threat. They got out and ran like mad. The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver's seat.

She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition. She tried and she tried and then she realized why. It was for the same reason she'd wondered why there was a football, a frisbee, and two 12 packs of beer in the front seat.

A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces further down. She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station to report her mistake. The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn't stop laughing.

He pointed to the other end of the counter where four pale men were reporting a carjacking by a mad elderly woman, described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun.

No charges were filed. And here's the moral of the story. If you're going to have a senior moment, make it memorable. Make it memorable. I love that story. And it's something that brought me quite a few smiles.

And I hope it's made you smile, too. We're going to talk about something I believe is very, very vital to our spirituality, to our health as Christians, and that is the sovereignty of God. How do I start this?

My Background in the Word of Faith Movement

I need to kind of share by way of background what my story was, or at least something of it. I was converted at the age of 14 and pretty soon afterwards was exposed to some very good teaching and some teaching that is, as I look back, was less than good.

But yet I had such a desire to study. I knew from day one of my Christian life that God had called me to ministry of some sort, although I didn't know exactly what that was at the time. I wanted to be a pro soccer player.

I was close to achieving that goal as I continued on in that, but the Lord had other plans. But then in 1985, I was desiring to go to Bible college, and it would be something of a shock for folk to know that I wanted to go to a place called Ramah Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is the heart of the Bible ministry of Kenneth E. Hagan.

And I was all set to go. I was approved to go. I had all the clearance from both the government for visa purposes and the school there in Tulsa. But the one obstacle was my father, who was going to fund the operation, and he found out that the course was not in a residential college, that I'd have to get housing outside the grounds of the college.

And he was a big believer, and I think he was right, that you learn most of the things you'll learn at Bible college in discussions after the sessions have finished. And if you just go to either a job or to your apartment, you're going to miss all that.

And so he wouldn't fund it. And that was the end of that dream of mine. I remember being absolutely devastated that I wasn't to be able to go to Ramah. And yet, with about two or three weeks to go before the start of the year, I applied to go to a place called Elim Bible College.

It's similar to a seminary here. I think here we use in the U .S. the word seminary a lot more frequently than the word college, but it amounts to the exact same thing. It's now called Regents Theological College.

And in God's plan, the teachers, at least the bulk of them, perhaps 90 percent of the residential teachers, were reformed in their theology. And I resisted it like I could and did not enjoy that aspect.

And yet no one ever sat me down and walked me through why they believed what they believed from the Scriptures regarding soteriology, the study of salvation. It just never happened. I heard later that there was a fight that broke out between an Armenian and a Calvinist the year before.

And so there was a reluctancy to openly talk about these things, although it's obviously the case that a teacher who is reformed, that will come out in their teaching. But no one ever walked me through why they believed what they believed.

Now, I went through the Bible College there, then in 1987 became the associate minister. This was immediately after finishing the Bible College, the associate minister of a man called Harry Greenwood.

He was very well known in the United Kingdom. And my understanding of faith was built more on Harry Greenwood and another gentleman that may be very well known in the United Kingdom, Colin Urquhart, who was a former Church of England minister who encountered the Holy Spirit.

According to his writings, he wrote a very popular book called When the Spirit Comes, which was highly influential. I've actually got a couple of his books here. One called Anything You Ask, another called Receive Your Healing.

And in terms of the faith movement in the United Kingdom, he was very prominent. And he was very orthodox when it comes to subjects such as the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ. His Anglican or Church of England background did not cause him to go into some strange things that happened on the American side of things with folk like Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagan and certainly others who had very aberrant views regarding the cross.

And so I started in ministry with Harry Greenwood and had a whirlwind tour of the planet with him. For nine months, I was with him living in the same house. I was his associate minister. Oftentimes, he'd be preaching and give me 10 or 15 minutes to preach.

And then he'd follow on either correcting the mistakes or going further into the subject, either one, sometimes both. And it was a joy. It was an amazing time of my life after Bible college. In the nine months I was with him, probably six of those months were spent overseas in places like the United States, India, Australia, New Zealand, and learned so, so much through his ministry.

But suddenly in March of 1988, he died of a heart attack. And I thought that was the end of my life. I was in my early 20s and thought that was it. And then a number of opportunities came forth. And one of them was to become a co-pastor in a church in Fleet in Hampshire with another brother called Jonathan, who I'm still in touch with today.

And for three years, we were plaguing the neighborhood with flyers and having evangelistic outreaches. I think I joined the church there when there was 20 people, and it grew to about 150 in the three years I was there.

And just an amazing time, amazing time of learning. And I would say that even at that point, we would be classed as word of faith people, pastors. And he was just maybe a year or two older than I was.

So there was not a lot of experience between the two of us. And in 1990, a book came out by a man called Dan McConnell. This is the English version called The Promise of Health and Wealth. And I read it from cover to cover.

If you were to look at it now, you'll see it's underlined on every page. Just learned so much from it. And it was exposing the dangers of the faith movement of which I was a part. And I made mental notes as well as written notes to say, well, that's a strange thing that's been said.

That's a strange thing that's been taught. Have to avoid that. And it was amazing because you're going to hear my story and wonder, why on earth did I stay in the camp? Well, here's what was going on in my heart.

I understood that I didn't have to embrace every statement made by the prominent people in the movement. And I remember on a visit to the United States, I asked a prominent word of faith pastor what he thought about Kenneth Copeland's view of the atonement and what happened between the cross of Christ and the resurrection of Christ.

And his answer blew me away. He said, Oh, Kenneth Hagin, he's just out. Kenneth Copeland, he said. Kenneth Copeland is just out to lunch on that. And it blew my mind. I thought, really? You can still be in the camp and not agree with everything that Mr. Copeland said.

And it just gave me, sadly looking back, the liberty to stay in the movement. And so I thought, well, I'll just stay with what I believe is an orthodox view. And that's what I'll preach. And back in 1990, after this book by Dan McConnell came out, I wrote a letter to Kenneth Hagin because he was quoted widely.

He'd made some public statements because he's written books on the subject. But I thought, let's let's find out exactly what he believes on specific issues. And so that's what I did. I wrote a letter to Kenneth Hagin.

Let me see if I can find it. And I with Jonathan, this other brother in fleet, released a statement as an elder. To the flock regarding the word of faith movement, let me just say what I said back in 1990 regarding the word of faith movement.

And I wrote this to Kenneth Hagin. I said, this is what we're saying to our congregation. Do you have anything to comment? Would you respond in any way? This is what I wrote. Due to the rising concern in the fellowship, the church here regarding the word of faith movement, we as elders believe it is time that we made our position clear.

It is for this reason that we are producing this statement. They wanted two other sentences. I'm not going to read the whole thing. I say the Bible tells us to pay close attention to yourselves and to your teaching, persevere in these things.

For as you do so, you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. We therefore have felt it necessary to point out the areas which are clearly unscriptural. Obviously, we would ask you to pray through these things yourselves.

Then under the heading doctrinal error in the body of Christ, there are different schools of thought regarding minor doctrinal issues. Example, when the rapture occurs, et cetera. However, there are major points of doctrine which every Christian needs to embrace.

Example, the Trinity, the humanity and deity of Jesus Christ, the sinlessness of Christ, the atonement of Christ, the physical resurrection of Christ, et cetera. And the cornerstone of the word of faith movement is what they call what happened from the cross to the throne and can be summarized as follows.

One, as Jesus died on the cross, he took on the nature of Satan. Two, Jesus became sin, literally. Three and four, Jesus went down into hell in our place and was tormented for three days and nights in hell.

Five, during this time, Satan and his demons were rejoicing at Jesus' apparent defeat. Six, Jesus became a mere mortal man to pay for man's sins in hell. Seven, Jesus defeated the devil in hell. Eight, the atonement merely began on the cross but finished in hell.

Quote, the blood shed on the cross was insufficient for our atonement, end of quote. Then I say, Orthodox Christian doctrine. We'll now try to bring the Orthodox Christian doctrine regarding the eight points mentioned above.

One, this is nowhere mentioned in scripture. There is no redemption for Satan or his angels and there certainly was no need for Jesus to take on the nature of Satan. Hebrews 2 .16 tells us that he does not give help to angels.

This is a very dangerous teaching. Two, Isaiah 53 .6 tells us that our iniquities fell upon him. He bore our sins and he was the sin offering for us all. Our old man was placed in him yet this in no way polluted him.

Jesus remained the spotless lamb of God throughout his ordeal at Calvary. Second Corinthians 5 .21 which if you remember is he God made him Jesus who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

That verse must be read in the context of the whole canon of scripture. Jesus was the sin offering. Every Old Testament sacrificial lamb was regarded as holy before, during and after the sacrifice. Jesus took the judgment that was due to us on the cross as he bore our sins.

Jesus was without sin. Three and four, the Bible does speak of Jesus descending to Hades. However, Hades contained two distinct compartments. The place of torment for the wicked while awaiting the judgment of Christ.

And two, the place of comfort for the righteous believers known as Abraham's bosom or paradise. It's clear from Luke 23 .43 that after his death Jesus went to paradise. First Peter 3 .19 literally says Jesus made proclamation to the rebellious spirits, proclamation of his victory.

So it goes on. Five, again this concept nowhere mentioned in scripture. Scripture indeed suggests the opposite. Colossians 2 .14, Christ made a public spectacle of the enemy and triumphed over the principalities and powers by means of the cross.

Not some other event. Six, Jesus became a man. That's the second person of the trinity became man in the incarnation, but he still maintained his divinity. At no time on the cross did Jesus cease to be divine.

He did not pay for man's sins in hell. Colossians 1 .20 says he made peace through the blood of his cross. On the cross Jesus cried out, it is finished, which in the Greek means paid in full. First Peter 2 .24 says he bore our sins in his body on the tree.

Seven, there is nothing in scripture to justify the statement that Jesus defeated the devil in hell. Everything in the New Testament regarding this points to victory being attained at the cross. Colossians 2 .14 and 15.

Number eight, First Peter 2 .21 -24, Colossians 1 .20 -22, Hebrews 10 .10 are scriptures which show this teaching to be of a heretical nature. That was, of course, the atonement merely beginning on the cross but finishing in hell.

So that's what we wrote to our congregation. That's what I wrote to Kenneth Hagen. And stunning as it may seem, I got a three-page letter back from Kenneth Hagen. I've since talked to Raymer graduates and people who have gone through many years at Raymer and are stunned that not only is there a letter from him by means of a personal response but a hand-signed letter from Kenneth Hagen because apparently he was just about untouchable.

Many people went through two years of training without having a personal conversation with him. That's what I'm told. I don't know how true that is but that's what I've been told. Here's his response, June 19, 1990.

Dear Mr. Sampson,. In response to your recent letter, you must understand that an entire book would be necessary to respond fully to every point of doctrine you presented. However, I feel that I should at least attempt a brief response to let you know where I stand on some of these issues.

I'm sure you are aware that several books have been published attacking me and attacking the so-called faith message. Of course, I'm holding up one of them, The Promise of Health and Wealth by Dan McConnell.

He says, which I would prefer to call the word of God message. However, it needs to be noted that not one of the authors of these books knows me personally or has ever talked with me about what I believe.

My comment here is, we know what you believe from your writings, sir. He says this, Therefore, they really have no idea where I stand on doctrinal matters. Furthermore, they have taken what others have said and have combined them with things I have said, taking most of the quotes out of context and formulated a group theology which all of us are supposed to believe.

Now let me just say, that line is true. It is absolutely true and it's what probably kept me sadly looking back in the faith camp, in the faith movement for many a year. Because there is, there was, there is no headquarters for the faith movement, not officially.

It's not like Rome where there is a Vatican, where there is a confession of faith such as the London Baptist Confession of Faith. There's nothing that we have to sign to say, I sign here on the line, my name, I put to this document, I believe all of these statements.

And so there was no collective agreement on what we believe about these things. And so there is a mixed, very mixed, some staying within the bounds of orthodoxy on at least the issue of the cross and some that is completely heretical.

So let me read that line again because he does make a valid point here. They have taken what others have said and combined them with things I have said, taking most of the quotes out of context and formulated a group theology which all of us are supposed to believe.

However, I do not necessarily agree with everyone who calls himself or herself a faith teacher, nor do I really believe the majority of the things which these books say I believe. Interesting. I will attempt to go through the eight points presented in your letter and briefly comment on each of them.

I'll just read it and comment very little on it. Points one and two. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5 21 that Jesus was made to be sin who knew no sin. This is what I believe. Jesus never personally sinned.

He's underlined that. But God made him to be sin with our sins. How that was accomplished is a divine mystery, just as was the virgin birth. However, if the first part of the verse is not true, then the last part of this verse is not true either.

And we have not been made the righteousness of God in him. That would mean that we are still lost in our sins. You mentioned viewing this verse in the light of the whole canon of Scripture, even the types and shadows of the Old Testament pointed to Jesus being made sin.

After all, it was the brazen serpent, the serpent being a symbol of sin throughout God's word, that was raised on a pole to bring reconciliation and healing to himself. I must say something here. This really bothers me.

Copeland has made the statement. It's outlined very well in the book here, Dan McConnell's book, that Jesus became a satanic creation on the cross. His nature was polluted by sin. And it seems that is indeed what Kenneth Hagan is saying.

I'm trying and I have tried many times to give him the benefit of the doubt. But that really worries me. What he says there, what he writes there worries me enormously. It did back then. It does still today.

He says, after all, it was the brazen serpent, the serpent being a symbol of sin throughout God's word, that was raised on a pole to bring reconciliation and healing to Israel. Jesus himself stated that this was a type of himself.

Also, the scapegoats, goats being a symbol of sin and sinners throughout Scripture, had hands laid upon him to transfer the guilt to the nation of Israel and then was sent off into the wilderness to die.

There are many other biblical references which time and space do not allow me to cite. I would just say Isaiah 53 tells us our sin was laid on him. But not that Jesus became a sinner on the cross, not in any way at all.

Points three and four. Kenneth Hagan says, writes, there is not enough Scripture on this subject. Just a reminder, that's about Jesus' descent into Hades. What happened to Jesus between the time of his burial and his resurrection?

To build a strong case one way or the other. This particular area has never been a major emphasis of my teaching, although some others have emphasized it more heavily. Point five. I do not recall ever teaching this myself, although I have heard others do so.

Point five was the concept of Satan and his demons rejoicing at the apparent defeat of Jesus on the cross. He says, I don't recall ever teaching that, although he's aware of others doing so.

Six.

I have never at any time taught that Jesus ceased to be the divine son of God, not even for a moment, in all that he suffered in his death and burial, and all that he experienced in his resurrection, and continues to experience in his presence, seating at God's right hand.

He has remained fully God and fully man, not one or the other, but equally both. Okay, sounds very orthodox on that point.

Seven.

Where Jesus defeated Satan cannot be clearly proven from Scripture. We only have one Scripture to go by, Colossians 2 .15, and there are two alternative translations of it. One says, triumphing over them in it, which seems to be a reference to the cross, as mentioned in verse 14.

However, the Greek word translated it, in the King James Version, is actually the word auto, which could just as readily be translated, triumphing over them in him or himself. He writes, why spend time splitting theological hairs over the location of Jesus' defeat of Satan?

The important thing is that he did triumph over Satan, and did so on our behalf. We shouldn't get so caught up in the technicalities that we fail to recognize and proclaim the truth. Point eight. I have not taught nor do I believe that the atonement finished in hell.

He writes then, in response to the name and claim it teaching, I've never stated that we can claim anything other than what the word of God promises us. If we can't find Scripture for what we are believing for, we have no basis for faith.

But if God has promised something to us in his word, we don't have to wait for a second word from God. Any sinner, at any time he chooses to act on God's word, can receive salvation. Obviously, you're hearing a very Arminian position regarding that particular subject.

He doesn't have to wait for a spoken invitation from God before he can act on what God has already stated in his word. If this is true in the matter of salvation, then it is true in all other blessings God has promised us in his word, including healing, the meeting of our needs, etc.

There's been an erroneous teaching propagated concerning the meaning of rhema, which is completely out of line with the Greek meaning of the word. This teaching states that we have to wait for God to quicken a particular verse of Scripture to us before we can act on it.

People on my staff who are well-versed in New Testament Greek have studied this word, utilizing some of the finest study tools available. The only distinction that the Greek language makes between logos and rhema is that logos is the written word and rhema is the spoken word.

The Bible itself states that every word of Scripture is already God-breathed, 2 Timothy 3 .16. The entire Bible has already been spoken by God and energized by his power. There is no need to wait for God to do something further before we can believe his word.

He has made certain promises to us, and they are ours the moment we reach out by faith and appropriate them. I trust that the information I've shared with you will acquaint you with my stance on some of the issues you presented.

May God bless you as you continue to walk in the light of his word. Yours in Christ, Kenneth Hagan. There we go. Okay, I won't spend too much more time on that because there's other things I want to get to.

The Deception of the Word of Faith Movement

In my own experience, I was a pastor in this movement both in England and then moved to the United States in September of 1992. Spent the first six months in Tucson, Arizona at a large faith church. There was about 800 people at the time.

It's around 1 ,600, maybe even 2 ,000 people now. And it is now not a faith church in that sense. It's very reformed. The pastor and I are friends, and we've gone on very much of an unexpected journey.

And if you were to look at the doctrine of salvation in that church now, it's soteriology. It's study of salvation. It's application of redemption in terms of how it's perceived. Very, very reformed, and we're so grateful for it.

So what was my involvement? I was a Word of Faith pastor, and there's no doubt about it. The church there in Tucson, guest speakers included men like Jerry Savelle, Jesse Duplanis, others that are notorious in that movement.

I formerly was not only a Word of Faith but charismatic, but it gets even worse. I was a local TBN host. I know. Can someone say such a thing on the dividing line? Yes, that's why this dividing line is called Confessions of a Former Word of Faith Pastor.

It doesn't get lower than that in our eyes, right? But God brought me out. In fact, when I look back, I was preaching not only what I would believe to be an orthodox view of the cross, but I preached repentance.

I preached something that I didn't hear much of, if anything at all, in that movement. I called people to repentance and faith in the biblical Christ, and yet I know I was deceived. I was deceived because I was part of a movement that I believe had not enough of the truth to be called a legitimate Christian movement.

So if I was aware of the error, and even back then in 1990 I was, as you could see from what I was writing, how could I stay in the movement? Again, because I thought you don't have to embrace everything that's being said by these guys, by Kenneth Copeland or Kenneth Hagen.

If you're from Denmark, you might even just say Copenhagen. But no, I didn't. I didn't embrace it. I thought they were out to lunch on a number of issues, but I stayed in. And I believed, and here's my deception, that God was the healer of His people, and that was one of His covenant names.

We don't need to do a Bible study to know He is Jehovah Rapha, or Yahweh Rapha, Yahweh Yireh, Jehovah Jireh, our provider. And I believe that in all times and in all situations, that's what He wanted to do.

He's made His will clear. He is the healer. He is the provider. And I would define prosperity differently from many others. I would go with what I learned from Harry Greenwood. Prosperity is not how much you have, but how much God is able to do by meeting your needs with sufficient leftovers so you can minister to others.

It's not really a selfish thing, but that's certainly not what was promulgated by the movement. I thought I was a change agent within the movement. I stayed much longer than I should. Here's what I believe would be the issue.

It only takes a small amount of deadly poison to kill someone. You don't normally go up to someone with a can-marked poison and say, try this. They're not that stupid, but should the poison be served under the bun of a delicious-looking hamburger?

Another story. And the deception in the movement was lurking under the surface and sometimes not even under the surface. And at the heart of every deception, I believe, is pride. It was true in the Garden of Eden.

You don't need to have a God. Why? You can become one, the serpent said. Religious deception always seeks to in some way dethrone God, elevate or even deify man, and then add human merit or works to the gospel of grace.

Those three things. Dethrone God, elevate man, and add works to grace. Of course, if you do that, you don't have grace at all. And then gross error is often a truth taken to an extreme. If there was no truth whatsoever, no one would ever be deceived.

And here's what I've learned. Deceived people deceive people. If we ourselves are deceived and we really believe our deception, we will deceive others when we start talking about it. The Lord is our healer.

He is our provider. What is the error of the health, wealth, the faith movement? What is wrong with faith, for goodness sake? The answer is nothing at all if it's a biblical faith. Faith is a beautiful, wonderful, biblical word.

How can there be an error to believe God's word? Here's what I found out. I was preaching one time in Sydney, Australia. It's interesting. At some point, I was preaching at a lot of conferences and other churches.

There were invites to go preach in many different places. When you become Reformed, it's not quite the same thing. But I was preaching in Sydney, Australia, and I preached on the subject of healing. And the pastor afterwards was very friendly, very gentle with me at the time.

But he said something that stays with me to this day. He said, Johnny, I believe you've got an over-realized eschatology. Some people say, your what hurts? What did he just say? He said, you have an over-realized eschatology.

And I didn't really want to talk about it because I just thought, well, I've left him the word of God. It'll do its work. And one day, he'll come to see my wonderful reasoning. In going to the scripture, he bore our infirmities and carried our sicknesses and by his stripes, we were healed.

That'll say that in the morning. I'm sure he'll read it. He'll come to agree with me. But as I continued on, I began to understand something of God's sovereignty in the year 2000. I write about that in the book that I wrote, 12 Whatabouts.

Dr. R .C. Sproul came to Scottsdale, Arizona. I was impacted greatly on the subject of election. If I would align all my theological concepts in a row, under the idea of election, I now became open, which is my depravity.

I hadn't seen it before. Election was now under the canopy and the roof of the sovereignty of God. I could see the sovereignty of God in the matter of salvation. But in all other matters, I wasn't yet convinced that God was sovereign.

But when I began to study what the scripture says about sovereignty, I realized that little roof over election expands to cover every other subject. He's sovereign in his mercy. He's sovereign in everything he does.

What is sovereignty? I define sovereignty as God does what he wants, the way he wants, when he wants, without having to ask permission. That's pretty much it. He is in charge. And as I read scriptures like Revelation 21, it tells us that there will be a day when everything will be all right.

We could have a Pentecostal moment and sing a song right now. I believe it's going to be all right. Because Revelation 21 tells us the state of Christians in heaven. It says, Now hear this. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, m-o-u-r-n, mourning, grieving, nor crying, nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.

Question, when do these things take place? In the eternal state. Not right now. It's when Jesus comes back. It's when he sets us free from this earthly limitation to see heaven be there and enjoy the benefits and all death, mourning, sorrow, sickness, all of that will be something we'll have to look back on.

It will not be the experience of Christians in heaven. You'll not be finding a brother or sister walking on a wheelchair complaining about arthritis. It won't be happening. And I believe that Jesus paid for that by means of the cross.

It didn't just happen. Jesus bought and paid for all of our deliverance from the evils and the effect of evil in this world. What is over-realized eschatology? Those are big words. The word eschatos is a word that means the end times or end things.

The word eschatos means end times. Logos means word or the study of. Eschatology is the study of the end times. And everyone has one. Everyone believes something about future events. Eschatology, therefore, is the word or the study of the end times.

And the Bible has a lot to say about those things. And Revelation 21 tells us when Jesus comes back, he will make everything right. He will restore not only us but the entire universe to its intent by God.

So that's a promise to all the saints. Heaven will be a place free from care, stress, pain, sickness, grief, death. Praise God for that certain hope. But an over-realized eschatology is an expectation that all of heaven's blessings will be available to us and is available to us in the here and now.

And that's just not true. That's just not true. Someone might say, but doesn't the Bible say, the B-I-B-L-E say, he forgives all our sins and he heals all our diseases? Yes, it does. Psalm 103, verse 3.

So is it a deception to believe that he heals all our diseases? What it is about that verse, John, you don't believe? I do believe the verse. I believe another one, too. Like in John chapter 10, it tells us it's the thief who comes to kill, steal, and destroy, and that Jesus, in contrast, came to give us life.

It does say that. It even says he came to give us life more abundantly. Notice what it says. He came to give us life. It does not say he came to give us a certain type of lifestyle. Jesus never promised a storm-free, sickness-free existence this side of heaven.

But understand that though he forgives our sins and heals our diseases, he's Lord over when that takes place. For some Christians, that will be in the here and now, and for other Christians, it will be when they see Jesus face to face.

A lot of people will not accept that. They will not accept that, but I believe biblically they don't have a ground to stand on because of what the Bible says. Here's a concept we have to have in place if we're going to be sound Christians.