August 12, 2016 Show with John Samson on “More on the Word of Faith Heresy”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 12th day of August 2016.

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I'm so delighted to have my friend back on the program, Pastor John Sampson who is the pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona and he is a former

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Word of Faith Pentecostal and not only was he a pastor in that heretical movement but he was also a talk show host on the local

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Word of Faith affiliate of TBN, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which is an ironic name for a network that would air programming hosted by Oneness Pentecostals.

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But our friend is originally from the United Kingdom, now living in the wonderful nation that we call the

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United States of America and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back again to Iron Sharpens Iron, John Sampson.

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It's good to be with you Chris, always is, thank you. And co -hosting with me for the very first time ever is a man who is not only the new webmaster for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, thanks be to God, without him the program would probably not be on the air right now, and he is also an elder at the

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Community Evangelical Free Church in Champaign -Urbana, Illinois and he is

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Eric P. Nielsen. It's great to have you in studio co -hosting for the very first time,

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Eric. Thanks Chris, it's good to be here at the Iron Sharpens Iron studios. And if you could Eric, let our listeners know more about yourself before we move on to Pastor John.

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Okay, as you said I'm an elder at the Community Evangelical Free Church of Champaign -Urbana.

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We are a fairly small church but we love the doctrines of grace and we love the gospel and we love missions.

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Ever since I started going to the church we've met in a gym and the reason that we do that is we want to try and put a large portion of our budget towards reaching unreached people groups with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Great, and he is also, Eric is also a mutual friend of Dr. James R.

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White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Rich Pierce who is the president of Alpha and Omega Ministries and also a member, a fairly new member of the church where our guest

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John Sampson is the pastor. And Eric has done some internet work and other things like that for Alpha and Omega Ministries in the past and it's such a pleasure to finally meet him face to face after having many phone and internet conversations with him and having him come to the rescue when

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Jason Delgado, a dear dear brother in Christ who was the initial webmaster for Iron Sharpens Iron had to step down due to overwhelming family commitments including the passing of a very young adopted son who had a rare skin disease, an adopted son from Russia and I ask of you to continue to pray for the

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Delgado family as I'm sure they are still mourning the loss of this precious child that they adopted.

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And we thank Jason Delgado from the bottom of our hearts for creating such a beautiful website and hope that Jason can be involved with the program in some way again at some point in the future.

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But Pastor John Sampson if you could, I know that you've already been on this program, if you could let our listeners know something about your background in England, how you came here to the

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United States and how you became involved in what is known as the

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Word of Faith Ministries or Theology, we would call it

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Word of Faith Heresy now, I always did but you just started to about several years ago.

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But if you could tell us something about your background. Well how far back do you want to go?

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I was born very close to my mother and then we kind of drifted apart. I was converted at the age of 14 and very quickly was swept up in what we would now conceive as the

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Word of Faith movement and was very impressed with some of the things I saw. Some of the things

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I saw were just dubious and were suspicious to me but there was enough going on that I thought was good that caused me to stick around and actually went after conversion to a

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Bible college, probably the equivalent word would be seminary here, but over there it's just typically called

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Bible college and what was interesting was maybe 90 % of the lecturers were

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Reformed but they never told me why and they never went through the scriptures with me as to what it is they believed and why they believed it.

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So I actually went through years of training over there without really understanding what

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I've now come to understand of the doctrines of grace but was still very much caught up in that movement and after Bible college, rather than entering the ministry with that particular denomination, joined a gentleman by the name of Harry Greenwood who was probably without too much doubt the leading

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Word of Faith preacher in the United Kingdom. There might be some who would dispute that but he was certainly number one or number two and I was his assistant and it was really an amazing time of nine months of traveling with him and maybe

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I'd speak for ten minutes and then he'd carry on in all the places we went to which were out of the

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United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand and then the United States here, but came over to America to actually start a church and it would be certainly a

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Word of Faith church and only in time has the Lord brought me out and that's something of a story

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I've shared before but that's something of my background. And it'd probably be a good idea for us to get some of the main areas of belief that would separate a

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Word of Faith Pentecostal from more mainstream Pentecostals in some of the major denominations or even independent charismatic churches that are more in alignment with biblical orthodoxy and as we were saying before the program, we have to be careful that we're not slandering

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Brethren in Christ by broad -brushing Pentecostals and charismatics with this label because there are,

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I know personally, Pentecostal ministers and members of Pentecostal churches and charismatic churches that are equally appalled and disgusted with the

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Word of Faith movement, some perhaps even more so because they are very often broad -brushed along with them since they are charismatic.

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But let me before you even do that let me just give our email address out it's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA and please only remain anonymous if it's a personal private matter.

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Perhaps you don't want to offend someone that you know and love who is a

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Word of Faith believer. Perhaps you're in a church that's Word of Faith and you're thinking of leaving or there's some reason that you want to remain anonymous.

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We will grant that request but if you can we prefer that you identify at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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So going back to the the main areas that would separate

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Word of Faith theology from your typical mainstream

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Pentecostal and charismatic churches. Yeah, that's a very good question and it's something it's very hard to answer in just a minute or two, but in two words

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I would say over -realized eschatology, which is a technical way of talking to speak of everything that is true for heaven is expected now in terms of Jesus and his work on the cross.

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It would be seen in the Word of Faith movement as he went to the cross for all of our sin, all of our sickness, all of our disease, poverty, to remove the curse from us, and yet while it's true

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Jesus did redeem us at the cross in all of those ways, the big theological rock that needs to land in all of our pools is the sovereignty of God, whereby he is lord over when he brings that promise to pass.

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I could say to a child of mine, I will get you an ice cream, but that doesn't mean it's right this second, it could be two hours from now, hopefully it's not three years from now, but I'm as the father lord in that small lowercase sense over how

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I watch over that promise to fulfill it. Whereas in the

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Word of Faith movement it's all now, it's available now, and if you're not receiving it there's something wrong with you, or you're not working the system, or you need more knowledge of the laws of the universe that God has put into play, you need to believe and confess this word so that it comes to pass, and I look back with a lot of sadness because although I helped people prepare for healing,

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I was not able to prepare them for death and a funeral because it's not something that is even conceived as something to talk about in the

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Word of Faith movement. So it's an entire worldview that looks at life in the light of Jesus has gone to the cross for all of us and we can receive all of it now, man's been given the keys,

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God's hands are actually tied by what you and I say. There's life and death, death and life in the power of the tongue, you choose, you speak life, all will be well, you choose and speak words of death and you're inviting the devil into your life with his sickness, his poverty, all will be well and you'll have what you say.

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And you know this Chris, in many other areas too, the greatest lies are built on some truth.

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Words are extremely powerful, they can bring death and life to any relationship and that's really the context in which those words occur in terms of the meaning in Proverbs.

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But the Word of Faith takes a very literalistic, very wooden interpretation of those words and builds an entire theological system out of them, so you can't even joke and say that tickled me to death, wow that's bringing death on my life,

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I'm dying to see it. No you can't say that, you can't say I'm catching a cold because that's bringing that thing into your existence.

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So it's a worldview that is certainly not true of many in what we would call the spectrum of the charismatic movement, the

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Pentecostal world, but certainly a big component of that world is the

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Word of Faith movement which is what we're addressing at this point. And you used a phrase before,

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I just wanted to make sure that people didn't misunderstand what you meant when you said realized eschatology, there is a heretical group that we would call hyper -preterists, they would call themselves sometimes believers in covenant eschatology, realized eschatology, or sometimes they just call themselves preterists, but they are confusing the issue with those who are partial preterists, who have a biblical view of the visible physical return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead.

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But most of these Word of Faith main spokesmen, if you will, for that movement, they would believe in at least some kind of a future return of Christ, I'm assuming.

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Yes, that's true, that's a good point to make, yeah. All right, and well, some of the things that you have actually laid out that are going to be possible chapter headings in a book that you are working on that may be published in the not -so -distant future on this issue, which

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I'm eagerly looking forward to get a hold of, but one of the chapter headings, at least that you are envisioning, is buy the truth and sell it not.

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And how much do you want to know the truth, etc., if you're not willing to send a televangelist money, you're not worthy of a blessing, and God will not give you one, and so on.

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But if you could, tell us about that title. Yeah, the buy the truth and sell it not, it's a verse from the book of Proverbs that basically is outlining the fact that truth is so valuable, sell all you have to get it.

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And many of the people I talk to on this issue have a closed mind, and are not open to hear

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Scripture on this. The fact is, the Word of Faith seems to, at first glance, at least in a shallow way, base its entire teaching on Scripture.

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They're always telling people that they're Word people, Word of God people, but looking back

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I can see it was favorite Word of God people. There were verses that are taken out of their setting, out of their context, and you can build a huge skyscraper -type doctrine on literally a dime of real estate.

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There's not much to it, but you take a verse. Buying the truth means, I want to know what

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God says, I want to know all that he says, I want to receive everything he's revealed about himself in the

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Bible. And what we should do as Christians is, when we learn of the enormous sovereignty of God over all things, what we should do is not forget that when we're talking about other issues.

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And what we do as Reformed people is not forget that. And in a systematic theology, on page 1, 2, or 3, we would mention

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God's sovereignty. And when we come to page 32, which talks about man and salvation and all of that, we shouldn't forget the fact that he's sovereign.

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He's sovereign in salvation. He's sovereign over all his works. And one of the key themes that is absolutely rejected by Word of Faith is the sovereignty of God.

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It cannot handle that. In fact, I heard one Word of Faith preacher, his name is Andrew Womack, say, and he's a gentleman who stayed at my home, by the way.

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I had him many times as a guest preacher at our church. He's actually calling that, the teaching of the sovereignty of God, the greatest heresy confronting the body of Christ at this time.

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The lines are drawn. The God who is sovereign versus a

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God who, in his sovereignty, has given man dominion, and we work out the purposes of God in our life by what we believe, what we say.

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You'll have what you say. Man is in control. And God, in his sovereignty, has handed the keys of the car to man and said, now you deal with it as you will.

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You have life as you want it. I've shown you what I want. Now it's up to you.

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Now, I was just curious, since that proverbial statement from the scriptures, buy the truth and sell it not, is that a common scripture that is twisted by the

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Word of Faith in order to get people to give money in order to be blessed? I've not really heard that.

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Perhaps that is out there. I'm not sure on that one. Where I'm coming from is that just the heartfelt desire that only

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God can put inside the soul is I want to know the truth. And you read Proverbs 4, and it's not a casual acquaintance with the truth.

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It's it's crying out for understanding. It's God, show me, show me who you really are.

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Show me what your word teaches. And that could be a scripture that is very well misused.

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I'm not so aware of that one. Okay, well, one of the things that strikes me as something that would differentiate

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Word of Faith Pentecostals from more historic

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Pentecostals, old school Pentecostals, and some charismatic folks, because as you know, there are even

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Reformed churches that are a continuists or non cessationists.

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Some even will call themselves charismatic, who would militate against Word of Faith Pentecostalism very much, and even declare that it's heresy.

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But one of the things that seems to differentiate them, the Word of Faith folks from the other

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Pentecostals and charismatics that you and I would have more in common with, is the greed being a really central motivating factor in what you want from God to make you a happier person on this earth.

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It seems that it's a very greed driven theology, whereas you may have some very humble and poor, even

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Pentecostal and charismatic folks, who are very content with what they have.

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They are just saying, and I believe that they are misinterpreting Scripture, since I am a cessationist, but they are just saying, we are really just defending the inerrancy of the

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Scripture. We see in the Scripture that there were miracles performed by the

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Apostles and the believers in Jesus's day, and in the days of the Apostolic Era when the

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Bible was written. We see no reason for these miracles to cease.

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If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we believe that these things are for us today as the

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Church, and to them it validates the inerrancy of Scripture. And that is really, it's almost like they were reacting to the liberalism and the dead orthodoxy, perhaps, of dry

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Protestantism and evangelicalism that had lost its vibrancy and its passion.

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And so there were at least some, I think, some good motivations in the origins of these movements.

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I just obviously disagree. But they would, these folks, would also look upon the obvious palpable greed of the

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Word of Faith folks, they would look at that as being something repugnant and foreign to their own theology.

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Well, would I be right on saying that that is a hallmark, it seems, of Word of Faith theology's greed?

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Yeah, you're absolutely right. The gentleman I was with, Harry Greenwell, had a different bent in that he would define prosperity in a way different from most of the

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Word of Faith folk out there. He would say God's prosperity is not measured by how much we have, but how much we're able to give is a little different path.

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But in general, you're absolutely right, that would be a defining thing. And greed is central, although it's never admitted, but that's exactly what is the case.

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Just on that, in my own thinking, when I came to see the deception of it, and see its harshness and cruelty,

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I thought, these poor little, you know, we have the proverbial little old lady who's sending her $10 check -in to TBN, or to the preacher she's seen on TV, and it's these very, very nasty preachers who are like devouring people in this way.

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While that is true, what is also true is there is greed on the giver's part, because the way this thing is presented is, you give big, you give in your hundreds,

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God will give in his hundreds. You give in your thousands, God will give in his thousands. And both are motivated by greed, and that's what

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I've come to see. It's not merely the false teacher, the one with the wrong motivation, it can be the giver as well, although giving is a good thing, it can be done for all of the wrong and false motivations.

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Second Timothy 4 is a key scripture, for the time is coming when people will not endure, they will not put up with sound teaching, but having itching ears, they'll accumulate for themselves.

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Notice, the people are accumulating for themselves. They want these teachers, they want these people in place.

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They don't want to listen to sound theology. They would rather have a station that will propagate error than a station that will propagate sound teaching.

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So they will en masse come towards these teachers and say, we want you to teach us.

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Having itching ears, they'll accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

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And so it's not merely the false teacher who has the false motivation, it can be the givers too.

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We have a listener in Mastic Beach, Long Island, Tyler, who asks, is the Word of Faith movement a byproduct of the more heretical side of the charismatic movement?

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And his second question is, should we be more understanding to God -fearing brothers who are continualists?

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I would say yes to both questions. The Word of Faith is a subsection of the charismatic movement.

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There's not a Word of Faith preacher or believer who is not charismatic as well. But charismatic is the larger spectrum of belief.

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I believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit that were present in the first century are still in operation now.

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That's basically a quick definition. Although you could be a little more precise if you wanted to spend more time on that.

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But certainly that is the case. The Word of Faith springs out of the charismatic section.

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The second part, if you can remind me of the question, what was that? Well, it's something that we really were saying at the outset of the program that we shouldn't...

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He's saying, should we be more understanding towards our God -fearing continualist brethren?

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And then, of course, not all continualists even prefer to be identified as charismatic.

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Like, for instance, John Piper, who is a continualist. He doesn't personally speak in tongues, but he just believes that they are possible today.

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That the gift, the miraculous sign gift, is possible.

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So you have all different kinds of levels of continualism or continuism.

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And so he was saying, should we be more understanding toward them?

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And I do know some of my fellow Reformed brethren and Reformed Baptist brethren who have very little or no tolerance towards charismatics.

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Some of them would say, and this would probably be a minority of Reformed Christians, but some of them would even say that they were not saved, that they could not be regenerate and hold to these views.

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And of course, there are some fundamentalists who would have that kind of an opinion of them.

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But you believe that you are actually a born -again believer when you are in this movement, don't you?

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I do, but barely. My understanding of what a

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Christian is, is someone who embraces the gospel and has a correct view of God, even though we're growing in our knowledge all the time.

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There's an acceptance of God as Trinity. There's an acceptance of Christ as fully

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God, fully man. And my views on that haven't changed, as hasn't my view on repentance and faith.

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And repentance is not something that is in any way stressed in the faith movement, but I was certainly believing that.

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What I understand is that there are some doctrines that are damnable, as 2

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Peter talks about. There are damnable heresies. Heresies that if believed will damn the soul.

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These are things like the deity of Christ. Jesus made it clear, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins, he said.

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So people say doctrine's not important. Absolutely it is, according to Jesus. You've got to believe the right thing about Jesus.

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You've got to believe the right thing about God. We don't have to be elite theologians, but we shouldn't deny these central components of the faith.

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There is a difference between embracing the gospel and then some of these,

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I would say, lesser doctrines, although every doctrine is important. Some are damnable, and some are just error that should be avoided.

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No one should want to embrace error. None of us believe we do. We all have our traditions, but there are some errors that are so severe they are damnable.

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I don't believe that those who are charismatic, who also embrace the true God and the true gospel, are lost people.

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They are Christians with error. Now, as far as the deity of Christ, does the typical word of faith preacher pass the litmus test on that?

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Because I know that they do believe in the Trinity, but they have a very warped and strange understanding of it.

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I know that they believe that God the Father, at least some of the prominent ones like Kenneth Copeland, God the

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Father has a physical body just like the Mormons believe. Jesus Christ became a demon on the cross and was punished in hell after leaving the cross, after dying, and was actually the first -born -again man in hell.

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Jesus actually required a rebirth or a new birth and things like that that would seem to militate against orthodox understanding of the

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Trinity. You're absolutely right. To answer your question, it depends who you ask.

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There are people in the movement who have an absolutely sound understanding, but that's more and more rare as I'm looking from the outside now.

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There are people, like in England, a gentleman who's very prominent is a man called Colin Urquhart.

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He's a former Church of England vicar, author of a book that was very popular way back called

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When the Spirit Comes. He would have a very orthodox view on some of those things, but still be considered part of the

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Word of Faith movement. But there's people like Kenneth Copeland, you've said, and I shudder when

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I hear what he says. I was even aware of some of the things he said while I was still in the movement.

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Here's why I stayed in. There's no central headquarters. There's no scrutiny or surveillance of the teachers, and so you don't get a letter from Tulsa or somewhere else saying, hey, we heard you taught this on Sunday.

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What about that? You need to answer to us. There's no such thing going on. Although many people ridicule denominations, they do have standards and they do call pastors and preachers to account and say, what is this we're hearing you're teaching?

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That doesn't happen within that movement. And so I could stay in the movement and say, oh my goodness, can't believe someone like him said that.

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I'm glad I don't. And then just move on, because there's no calling to account.

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So if you can see that if you put every false statement together of every

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Word of Faith teacher, you can provide hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of material.

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But I can still stay in the movement because I think, I don't believe that. I don't believe that. He said this.

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I don't believe that. She said this. I don't believe that. So it's very hard to kind of nail this jello to the wall and say this is everybody in that movement is heretical because some are genuine

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Christians and some are just clearly not understanding who God is and propagating a false

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God. And of course, there are those who are independent autonomous churches or should

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I say who lead them or are in them, independent autonomous churches like most

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Baptists would be. The Reform Baptist movement is predominantly made up of independent and autonomous churches, but they would be very quick if a person professing to be a

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Reform Baptist was publicly teaching some kind of dangerous thing, they would be really very public in disassociating themselves from this individual.

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And there are organizations like the Association of Reform Baptist Churches of America and a new one that has started the

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Reform Baptist Network and who would be very quick to remove churches like that from membership in their associations.

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And of course, I think that Reform Baptists may be too quick on the trigger to condemn their fellow brethren at times.

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Perhaps they're overly judgmental, if you will, about a brother who disagrees on areas that should not cause division.

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But it seems that when we being Christians on the planet Earth prior to being in glory with Christ, we're always going to be messing something up here.

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We're either going to be airing on the left or the right, and very few of us are going to get it just exactly correct in regard to being too soft or too judgmental or harsh on our brethren.

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Very good point. Only in heaven will we truly understand that Chris Armstrong was right.

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Well, I have people reminding me almost daily after every show that that's not true. But anyway, we're going to a break right now, and we do have a listener in Scotland waiting for his question to be asked.

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Murray in Kinross, Scotland. I hope you'll be patient, and we'll get to your question after we return from the break.

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I don't know if you've ever been to or have ever heard of Kinross, Scotland. Pastor John?

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I think I've been there, but I'm not sure if I actually been there, but nowhere it is for sure.

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All right, great. Well, we're going to be right back after these messages. If you'd like to join those that have sent in questions, if you'd like to join them by writing your own question and emailing it to us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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Welcome back. This is Chris Zarnes, and if you just tuned us in, today's guest on Iron Sharpens Iron, as you just heard in that ad, is

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon is with us today. He has departed from glory temporarily to be our guest today and discuss a very important subject.

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But obviously, I jest that the voice that you heard in that commercial for Solid Grand Christian Books, who was depicting

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon, was indeed our guest, John Sampson of the

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King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. We are talking about the Word of Faith movement.

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If you'd like to join us on the air with your own question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

37:56

And before we go to our listener in Ken Ross, Scotland, Murray, with his question,

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I just want to announce that the G3 conference is going to be in Atlanta, Georgia, January 19th through the 21st.

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And God willing, I, Chris Zarnes of Iron Sharpens Iron, will be there with an exhibitors booth.

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And I am so excited about this because this is one of the largest rosters of phenomenal speakers at any conference

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I have ever heard of. And I've interviewed over half of these men in the past on this program, and I'm looking forward to,

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God willing, interviewing all of them, if I can. These speakers include

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Paul Washer, who I have not interviewed yet, and I'm hoping to. Stephen J. Lawson, who's been on this program many times.

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Dr. D .A. Carson, who's been on this program. Vody Baucom, who I hope to interview at some point, but I have met him, and he expressed interest in being a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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Of course, my friend for many years, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who has been on this program very often.

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In fact, was my very first guest ever on Iron Sharpens Iron. Tim Challies, who is going to be on the program for the very first time, very shortly, within the next few weeks, in fact.

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And I will give you all an update on what date that is, as soon as I get my calendar open and look at that.

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Conrad M. Bayway, who is probably the most powerful preacher on the planet

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Earth right now. He is a friend of mine since 1995. He's been on this program, and he has preached at the congregation where I was formerly a member on Long Island.

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He is currently the pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

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And if you are able to hear him preach anywhere, I would advise you to do everything that you can to make it to the venue where he is preaching, because he is a truly extraordinarily gifted man of God.

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Phil Johnson, who has probably been on this show more than any other guest. Maybe he rivals

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Steve Camp, who had been on quite a number of times on this broadcast, especially the older version of Iron Sharpens Iron.

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But Phil Johnson, who is the executive director of Grace to You Ministries, the ministry of John MacArthur.

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He is on this roster. Josh Bice, who I just recently interviewed on the program.

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He is actually the one orchestrating this event. And Rosaria Butterfield, who is a former leftist lesbian who came to Christ and is now married to a

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Presbyterian pastor. She has renounced her wicked life prior to her regeneration and has written very prolifically about it.

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And it speaks in conferences and so on, letting those there know how the

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Lord miraculously rescued her from the ideology of leftism and also the sexual perversion of homosexuality.

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And she is also returning to the Iron Sharpens Iron program again very shortly.

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Todd Friel of Wretched Radio, who is going to be on my program this coming

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Monday, God willing, to discuss his book, Stressed Out. And we hope that you join us for that program as well.

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And John Kratz, I've interviewed him on the program in the past. Looking forward to that again. And a number of others.

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If you'd like more information on the G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

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and it's g and the number three conference .com. And I hope to see you there at my exhibitor's booth for Iron Sharpens Iron at the

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G3 Conference. Now I know the place is going to be jam -packed because people know I'm going to be there. So they're going to sell out of tickets very shortly,

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I'm sure. But anyway, why isn't anybody laughing? I guess I should be happy they're not laughing.

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Let's go to our guest, or should I say our listener, in Kinross, Scotland.

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Murray says, let's see, apologies if this was asked earlier in the show, but how would

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Word of Faith teachers interpret bearing his reproach in Hebrews 13 .13?

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Any idea on that, John? I'd have to look it up. While you're looking it up, let me just give out our email address again.

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It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And also,

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Murray, if you're still listening, I would like to know where in England you lived before you moved to Scotland because Murray, in a previous program when he was asking a question, identified himself as a

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Brit who actually moved to Scotland, so he's not a native Scotsman, and perhaps you two lived not far apart from each other when he was in England, who knows.

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But have you located that verse, brother, and do you have any comments on any particular...

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Yeah, it's a verse that says, therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

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And it's a phrase that you see something of in Hebrews 11 as well, which speaks of Moses considering the reproach of Christ, greater wealth, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.

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And here it's talking about the scorn of the world, the scorn of the accusers who would say it's a hopeless thing and a useless thing to serve

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Christ. And certainly Moses was aware of the fact that by choosing to align himself with the people of God, with Israel, he would be receiving the reproach of Egypt.

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They would look on him with scorn. I think that's what it's talking about here in Hebrews 13 as well.

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Let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. The verse in Hebrews 11, which is a similar wording, speaks of the reproach of Christ or the reproach of belonging to Christ.

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The call of commitment to Christ means the world is not going to stand on their sidelines and applaud.

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There's going to be ridicule. There's going to be scorn sent our way, thrown our way.

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So I think that's really what it's talking about. So I'm not sure why Murray asked that question in relationship to word of faith believers, but perhaps he means by that if the word of faith theology is true, you're going to live a life free of that kind of negative reaction.

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Or maybe he is saying that we are the ones guilty of attacking these people that are truly presenting the gospel.

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I'm not really sure why Murray used that verse. I'd like to ask my co -host

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Eric Nielsen a question, since I know he is an elder in an evangelical free church. I wanted to see if Eric you have had any personal experience as a charismatic believer at any time in your walk with Christ or your journey in theology, and if there is an official position of the evangelical free church denomination on the gifts, the signed gifts.

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Well just to answer the first part of your question, no I have never personally had any experience as a charismatic believer.

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I'm a cessationist myself and do not believe that the signed gifts continue into today.

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I believe that they had a specific purpose in the New Testament times, particularly when the apostles were responsible for writing the scriptures.

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But the evangelical free church has believers that are sensationists as well as non -cessationists.

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In fact, we have some people in our own church who believe that they have experienced the signed gifts.

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When we discuss those things, we debate them vigorously, and of course

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I try in my own way to convince them of my position. So do you point these people who believe they have the signed gifts to the exit sign?

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Just a joke there. We don't, but that does bring me a question for Pastor John.

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I have had some experience in the past in discussing, and I don't want to broad brush too much as we've been saying, those who believe in the signed gifts.

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But I found in the past that there are some who actually consider the signed gifts as more the test of orthodoxy than orthodox doctrine.

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And what I mean by that is this. I've met some people who have sympathies toward, for example, oneness

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Pentecostals or people in the word of faith movement. And I may point out, well, this person is not a believer in Christ in that they specifically deny the

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Trinity. But the response that I get back is, well, they don't believe in the

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Trinity, but they manifest the signed gifts in the same way that we as charismatic believers manifest the signed gifts.

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And if the Holy Spirit gives these gifts to them and they give the gifts to us, do you see where my question is there?

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How would you address that, Pastor John? Well, we read through our

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Bibles and it tells us that in the last days there will be blind signs, blind wonders.

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Matthew 24, Jesus speaking of his return. The first thing he mentioned is take heed that you are not deceived.

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And all through the scriptures, it's not just a question of whether something happens that is in any way supernatural as to the test of whether the word that was spoken has its authenticity in God.

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It's verified as being God sent. Does it point us to the true God? And in fact, that's the test of the prophet in the book of Deuteronomy.

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Is this person, not only what they say, does it come to pass in a prophecy? And even if it does come to pass, is this person teaching you to walk with the true

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God, or is it a false God? And if it's a false God, don't be afraid of him. He is not of God.

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And the Lord your God is testing you. The test for orthodoxy is not signs and wonders and miracles, but the truth, the truth of God.

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God as he really is. And so that's where I would point people to, the Bible rather than the signs and wonders that supposedly are taking place.

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And my experience is there's very little in the area of signs and wonders taking place.

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I was actually present one time on stage as one of the pastors at a

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Benny Hinn crusade. Again, it was very, very informative to me to be there for those two nights because the very, very, very, very sick people, the very sick

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I've never seen, the people who are quadriplegic, the people who cannot move a muscle, they're in another room, they're not seen because it would bring people's faith down to see them in that horrible condition that they're in.

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But they would also see that they weren't getting healed. Right, exactly. And if one of them were ever healed, it'll be national news.

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It's not happened. Those who are making that claim are not able to back up the claim by saying, here's this quadriplegic that was healed.

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Here's this person who was totally blind. Here's the documentation. And in our service, they were healed.

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People speak of it all the time, but Jesus was able to do things that even his enemies could not say.

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That was not a real miracle. These were genuine miracles that took place. So all of the talk doesn't mean it's all happening.

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Yeah, I remember Johnny Erickson Tata, who you may be familiar with. She is a quadriplegic and is a very powerful

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Christian writer. Wonderful Christian. And just to jump in,

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I had to repent before the Lord because I had anger in my heart towards her for many years because she would be vocal in explaining her testimony, how she wasn't healed.

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And I thought that this was, when I was in that movement, this was the worst thing possible. I was hoping most people would never hear her name.

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And I had to repent before the Lord because she had an amazing walk with God. And her faith has been tested like mine never has in all the trials

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I've ever had in life. But how sad that in that movement with that thinking, there's this view that unless you're healed, you're not really functioning on all cylinders in the

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Christian life. You're missing something. And yet the grace of God that's been on that lady's life is absolutely monumental.

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And I've had to repent over that. When I was hearing her testimony at, well, the recorded testimony at Grace Community Church, where John MacArthur is the pastor, she was relating to some incident in a healing service,

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Pentecostal healing service, where the people that were clearly, truly disabled and having issues that were not being faked or not something that was,

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I have a slight loss of hearing in my left ear or something like that. People that were, where their disability was patently obvious, they were put in a certain obscured or hidden section of the sanctuary or the auditorium, wherever it was, and so that they would not actually have an opportunity to get healed because they knew that these people would not be healed because they knew that this whole thing was a lie.

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Now, let me ask you about that, about the whole issue of deception. There are very few, in fact,

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I can't even think of a word of faith televangelist or a notable person within the ranks of that theology that when

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I, I can't even think of one that when I see them speak, I don't immediately think to myself, this person knows that they are deceiving people.

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There is something so theatrical and so,

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I can't put a label on it, perhaps,

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I mean, the only thing that's striking me right now is nauseating, but I can remember even one time when hearing the recording of Kenneth Copeland and Rodney Howard Brown having a conversation in tongues where they were actually telling each other jokes in tongues and laughing and all that, and I couldn't help but think these people know that they are deceiving the public.

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And in fact, I saw Rodney Howard Brown on two occasions just because I was playing private investigator and wanted to see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears right there what he was saying and doing, and I just could not help but think that he and the pastors that were involved in this meeting had, they all had the common knowledge between them or among them that this was just a total fake, this was just to them like a big joke.

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But I don't know how common that is in your experience, like for instance, were you always sincerely believing that this was all real and did you always present yourself honestly, not that you would be presenting the truth because you were now acknowledging you were teaching a lie, but were you consciously doing that?

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Were you consciously exaggerating or faking anything? That is such a good question. Um, I can only speak personally and I would say

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I cannot observe some people and think to myself these guys are, they know what they're doing, um, but I can only speak to myself saying

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I sincerely, sincerely believe the error. And, um, there's a verse in 2

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Timothy 3 that speaks of imposters, evil people who go from bad to worse.

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I believe it's, uh, 2 Timothy 3 13, just a few verses before the famous verse 16 of all scriptures breathed out by God.

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But verse 13 says while evil people and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

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And if you're, if you can understand this, I think we all can, when you're deceived, you're deceived and you don't realize that you can actually believe the deception.

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There are some who know it's not true, that I have no doubt about that. I, my, my job is not to be the judge of their heart in that sense, but there are people who genuinely believe they're suing us, they're speaking.

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And I have to say that was true for me. I, I had this over -realized eschatology.

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I believe that everybody could be healed here and now, everybody, because of what Jesus did for us at the cross.

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And I sincerely believe that. And yet I don't believe that's true in a sense of all the promises of God.

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Although they are yes and amen, but God is Lord over when those promises take place. And for some, their healing's not going to be this side of the grave.

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It's going to be in heaven. Now, did you believe that you actually had the gift of healing?

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Did you witness things that you believe were authentic healings? I certainly believe

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I saw authentic healings. I wouldn't say I had any special gift. I looked at the verses in 1

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Corinthians 12 as manifestations of the Holy Spirit rather than gifts that I possessed.

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And so my view was that every Christian can walk in these manifestations rather than someone having a specific gift that they could receive.

58:52

Alright, we're going to pick up on some of that train of thought there when we return.

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If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

59:05

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Pastor John Sampson.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

01:03:48

This is Chris Arms, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is Pastor John Sampson.

01:03:56

He is a former Word of Faith pastor and talk show host who came to recognize that these teachings were heretical and dangerous and deadly, and God gave him a heart of repentance and brought him into the doctrines of sovereign grace, which he has now wholeheartedly embraced and which have really transformed himself not only as a

01:04:27

Christian but as a pastor. And it's always my pleasure to have Pastor John Sampson on the show.

01:04:36

And our friend from Kenroth, Scotland clarified his question.

01:04:41

Murray from Kenroth, Scotland wrote in and says, Listening to your earlier comments, it occurred to me that the kind of attitude of heart behind an over -realized eschatology wouldn't sit too well with the attitude of identifying with Christ in his cross and suffering, which can mean discomfort and self -denial.

01:05:07

So that's where he was connecting that verse, Hebrews 13. And he also says,

01:05:17

I'm originally from London and also lived for a while in Guildford in England, and in Scotland I also lived for two years in Edinburgh.

01:05:28

All right, very good. Yeah, I'd agree with that. It's certainly not the case that you can embrace faith worldview and also what the

01:05:38

Bible speaks about regarding suffering. He's right on regarding that. And going back to what

01:05:45

I was, that thread that we were on before, it reminded me of 2

01:05:51

Thessalonians 2 .11, that God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false.

01:06:00

And I was wondering if in your life, in your own personal experience as a word of faith preacher, things were being manifested that seemed miraculous, even perhaps in your own life, that things that are a part of the word of faith message were becoming realities, and they were making it further, it was further committing you to this theology because you were seeing that it was real.

01:06:31

And could you believe that this is possibly the fact that God was turning you over to this delusion?

01:06:41

That's a very good question. I think because there is such a spectrum in the word of faith, there are obviously people who proclaim a different God from the

01:06:52

God of the Bible. I still, you're asking me personally where I was, and I haven't changed my view on the

01:06:59

Trinity, on who God is, who the Lord Jesus Christ is. I believe

01:07:05

I was preaching and proclaiming the true God, yet I was still doing so with error.

01:07:11

And so anything that I saw as answers to prayer, I believe it is the true God who was answering those prayers because that's who

01:07:18

I was praying to. But when we come to one that's Pentecostalism, and when we come to the aberrant things of which we've discussed regarding the view of God, I am very open to the fact that it could well be that anything that takes place could not be a manifestation of the true

01:07:36

God. Answers to prayer to God is different from the enemy performing some things that just keep us in our deception.

01:07:46

And so that's a very good question, and I can't address everybody who's ever preached from a word of faith perspective.

01:07:53

I can only speak from my own perspective and believe that God was amazingly gracious in answering a whole lot of prayers when

01:08:01

I was in error to a large degree. And yet my view of God was, I believe, accurate.

01:08:07

I just had a false understanding of all the promises he made, seeing them as to be realized now.

01:08:16

If I could, I think just to go on from there, one of the things that I think is like light that comes into our hearts on this issue, basing it on that scripture, the entrance of his word gives light.

01:08:28

You can have light exposing darkness, whether it's dominated a room for a day or even a century.

01:08:37

You can have a room that's been just totally pitch black for a century. You don't vacuum the darkness out.

01:08:43

You just turn the light on and light comes. And that's true for us individually.

01:08:49

And the big light that came into my life was God as he really is in his sovereignty.

01:08:56

And that's the kind of faith that looks to God in his sovereignty that I see all through the

01:09:02

Bible. You've got the three Hebrew children, you remember in Daniel chapter three, they were sentenced to the fire of furnace because of their refusal to bow before the image of Nebuchadnezzar.

01:09:15

And you remember what they said, they said, Oh Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

01:09:22

If this be so, our God, whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand,

01:09:31

O King. That sounds very word of faith, doesn't it? But the next phrase is this, but if not, be it known to you,

01:09:39

O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you set up. And I think we need to catch that.

01:09:46

They were saying in so many words, God will deliver us. We believe he'll protect us.

01:09:52

And we could equally say, I believe that the Lord will heal. I believe the

01:09:58

Lord will restore. I believe the Lord will provide. I believe he'll be miraculous if he needs to be.

01:10:04

We believe he'll protect us miraculously even in the fire. But here's the deal.

01:10:10

Even if he does not, we will not bow to the image.

01:10:15

And that's biblical faith, clinging to the promises he's made there in our

01:10:21

Bibles, while at the same time leaving the results completely in God's hands.

01:10:26

And if I will, if I can, I'd encourage people, just open their

01:10:32

Bibles, read their Bibles, read the wonderful chapter on faith, Hebrews 11, which recalls all of the heroes of both

01:10:41

Old and New Testaments who persevered in faith. And for some, all of them being champions of their faith, notice what their faith did for them.

01:10:49

For some, it was good things. For some, it was very hard things. And if I can just take just about a minute and just walk us through that passage, life,

01:10:59

I think, will come on for many of us. Think of the good things. Who through faith, it says, verse 35 of Hebrews 11.

01:11:07

Who through faith conquered kingdoms. That's good. Enforced justice. That's good.

01:11:13

Obtained promises. That's good. Stopped the mouths of lions. That's good. Quenched the power of fire.

01:11:20

That's good. Escaped the edge of the sword. That's good. Were made strong out of weakness.

01:11:26

That again is good. Became mighty in war. That's good. Put foreign armies to flight.

01:11:32

That's good. Women received back their dead by resurrection. That's good. But now notice the contrast.

01:11:39

For others who were walking in faith, hard things. It says this in verse 35.

01:11:45

Some were tortured. That's hard. Refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life.

01:11:53

That's hard. Others suffered mocking and flogging. That's hard.

01:11:59

And even chains and imprisonment. That's hard. They were stoned. I'd say that's very hard.

01:12:05

They were sawn in two. My goodness, is that hard? They were killed with the sword.

01:12:12

Hard. They went about in skins of sheep and goats. That's hard. They were destitute.

01:12:18

That's hard. Afflicted. That's hard. Mistreated. That's hard.

01:12:24

Of whom the world was not worthy. Wandering about in deserts. That's hard.

01:12:29

And mountains. That's hard. And in dens and caves of the earth. That's hard.

01:12:35

And here's the point of the entire passage. Those who endured the harder things, in no way possessed a lesser faith than those who experienced the good things.

01:12:45

In both cases, their faith in God is noted, applauded.

01:12:52

Their faith allowed some to see dramatic, positive answers to prayer, even the miraculous.

01:12:59

While others endured the harshest possible experiences of life and even the cruelest kinds of death with their trust and hope in God intact.

01:13:09

And that's what true physical faith is. Believing God's promises while leaving all of the results in His hands.

01:13:19

Praise God. Now, forgive me if you mentioned this already on the air, but when it comes to,

01:13:27

I know that you're obviously not a word of faith Pentecostal, but are you a strict cessationist today?

01:13:35

Yes, I am. Okay, good. One of the things I wanted to ask you is what do you think was going on when you were speaking in tongues?

01:13:45

That's a very good question. I think the authentic thing we see in the

01:13:52

New Testament is very different from what my experience was. There was a man,

01:13:58

I still remember his name, John Lloyd, I don't believe he's still with us on earth at this moment, but he was at great pains to get me as a 14, 15 year old lad, young man into this experience and spent many, many minutes provoking me to utter sounds that sounded like gibberish, but he was absolutely convinced when after about 10 or 15 minutes of him cajoling me and pushing me and saying firm words with your mouth,

01:14:33

I was able to do that. And he went away rejoicing as if he'd just won the lottery.

01:14:42

He thought it was wonderful. And I'm thinking, is that it? I can mumble a few words.

01:14:47

And he says, just go back to your bedroom at night and keep, if the

01:14:52

Lord has only given you a few words right now, just keep at it. And eventually you might have a full language, just keep asking the

01:15:00

Lord for it. And over time, if you can mouth those same words over and over and over, you can make yourself say a whole lot of things.

01:15:09

And I don't believe it was authentic. I don't believe it was anything that was of the Holy Spirit.

01:15:15

And there are some people who knew me back then who would be aghast that I would say that, but I just don't see that as certainly what happened in the

01:15:24

New Testament, in the book of Acts chapter two, they were speaking in known languages. And those who were present, the

01:15:32

Jews who were there on the day of Pentecost heard the works of God expressed in a language they knew from where they had just come from.

01:15:40

They were coming from various nations to Jerusalem to attend the feast.

01:15:46

And there they were hearing the gospel presented in a language from where they had just come from.

01:15:53

And that people today say, well, there are tongues of men and tongues of angels, and you could be having an angelic language coming out of your mouth.

01:16:03

And I've heard all of the arguments, but again, I don't see anything that is in any way on the same level as the

01:16:11

New Testament. Now, I'm assuming that there were people in the congregation where you were, when you were a word of faith preacher that would interpret other people's tongues.

01:16:23

Was that going on? Yeah, yeah. And that would be true of any gospel as well.

01:16:28

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Now, did you do that? Did you think that God was giving you an interpretation of somebody else's tongues that they were?

01:16:39

Yes, in the sense that, you know, whatever comes to your mind, you think that's God speaking.

01:16:45

And never heard any audible voice, but thoughts come to your mind.

01:16:51

And, you know, as one person said so well, if God is revealing something, and it's in conformity to his word, it's unnecessary.

01:17:04

And if it's not in conformity to his word, it's downright heretical.

01:17:10

It's either unnecessary or error. And I don't believe there's a third option.

01:17:17

Now, the lesser God of the word of faith, one of the issues that is very disturbing about this movement that I have seen, when

01:17:30

I've heard Kenneth Copeland speak, and the late Kenneth Hagen, and other word of faith people like Creflo Dollar, and Frederick Price, and people like that, um, there is a, we were discussing already the greed that drives much of this theology, there's also a very evil level of pride and arrogance.

01:18:01

And where basically, we are gods, not quite the

01:18:10

God that God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are, but we are gods. And in fact, did not

01:18:17

Kenneth Copeland say, because I heard it with my own ears on television, that God had told him that if he died on the cross, he would have atoned for the sins of men?

01:18:31

Well, I've not heard that statement, but I wouldn't put it past him. I actually heard it right from his mouth on television.

01:18:43

Unbelievable heresy, that is. Now, tell us something about that, that whole concept of, they seem to make

01:18:51

God a lot smaller and man a lot bigger in their theology, like even attributing

01:18:56

Kenneth Copeland and his description, this very detailed description of God the

01:19:02

Father being just about the same height and weight as he is, Kenneth Copeland, you know, and that kind of thing.

01:19:09

This is just insanity, isn't it? Absolutely. And again, I heard that and thought, how can someone possibly say those kind of things?

01:19:20

And I just went back to my Bible and read it through the lens that all that I read there was available now, and just thought,

01:19:27

I have no idea where Kenneth Copeland is coming from on that. I'm thankful I don't believe that.

01:19:33

So, you know, it's a strange thing, because there's no litmus test to say you must believe everything in Denmark.

01:19:44

We call it Denmark because it's either Copenhagen, you know,

01:19:50

Copeland or Hagen. There's nothing that says you have to believe that.

01:19:56

And so I remember reading and hearing that kind of a message, and it was someplace where he ministered in either the 70s or the 80s or early 90s, and thinking,

01:20:09

I'm glad I don't believe that. But again, it's shocking that that has been said, and even more shocking that he hasn't corrected that.

01:20:18

To my knowledge, he never has. Yeah, well, I mean, he said God told him this stuff, so I don't know how he would correct it.

01:20:26

It's kind of a hard thing to backpedal on. Yeah, yeah. Now, one of the things that is really disturbing, not that everything else we said today wasn't really disturbing, but the idea that I briefly mentioned about Jesus Christ becoming a demon on Calvary when he was dying on the cross, and I guess that's their take on that he became sin for us.

01:21:03

But they also go back to the raising of the bronze serpent on a stick being a symbol of a demon being on the cross.

01:21:13

If you could go into that very disturbing blasphemy a little bit, that seems to be held by a number of Word of Faith key figures.

01:21:24

I've not heard him say he became a demon. I've heard him say he took on the nature of Satan, which is equally as ridiculous and blasphemous.

01:21:39

He might well have said the word demon. I'm just not aware of it. But the idea that Jesus was in any way something less than the holy spotless

01:21:50

Lamb of God throughout all of those proceedings is very, very, very, not only poor theology, but it crosses the line to become absolute heresy to believe that Jesus was in any way marred in his person.

01:22:08

He was absolutely righteous in and of himself. The Bible speaks of sin being laid on him.

01:22:14

The phrase that they take up and use very literally is the verse in 2nd

01:22:21

Corinthians 5 21. For he that's God made him Jesus who knew no sin to be made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

01:22:33

And they say, well, for us to be made the righteousness of God, which is the other side of the exchange,

01:22:38

Jesus had to be made sin. But again, we need to understand the phrase made sin in the light of what the rest of the

01:22:46

Bible says. And nowhere, nowhere does it say that Jesus' nature was in any way changed on the cross, that evil was put within the soul of Christ.

01:22:58

But Isaiah makes it clear our sins were laid on him. He was perfect and innocent in and of himself, but our sins were laid on him.

01:23:09

1 Peter 2 24. He bore our sins in his body on the tree. That's what we find in scripture.

01:23:15

We don't find anything of this satanic creation or his holy character was in any way polluted.

01:23:26

He was absolute righteousness on the cross and throughout all of the proceedings until the resurrection and nothing in him has ever changed, but our sins were laid on him.

01:23:37

So it's a grievous error to say he became either a demon or a satanic creation.

01:23:45

It's grievous error that is damnable. And I just hope God has mercy on the souls of those who believe it and brings them out, bring them out of that horrendous deception.

01:23:56

Christ is forever the perfect lamb and never, if Jesus was in any way polluted, someone would need to die for him.

01:24:07

But he was always, always the spotless son of God. Amen. And, uh, had you heard as I did

01:24:14

Kenneth Copeland trying to use the account of Moses making the bronze serpent and putting it on a pole in numbers, which is also repeated in the gospel of John.

01:24:28

It's actually just a few verses before John three. And again, we should go where the scripture goes and stop where the scripture stops.

01:24:38

Where as Calvin said, where, where God makes an end of statement, we should seek no further inquiry.

01:24:45

And what we read in John chapter three is that just as Moses raised up the serpent on the pole.

01:24:51

So the son of man be lifted up. Then we need to stop and say, that's what it says.

01:24:56

And that's all that it says. And in the same way, a serpent was lifted up. So Christ was lifted up, but nowhere are we to make the, uh, assumption that Christ became a serpent, but he was lifted up in the same way as the serpent was lifted up.

01:25:16

And so let's stop where the scripture stops. It says he was lifted up like a serpent in the same way that the serpent of old was lifted up.

01:25:28

And that's what it says. And just as you're driving on the road, there are ditches on both sides, stay on the road, stay with what scripture actually says.

01:25:38

Don't build doctrine on possible inferences. Um, again,

01:25:46

John three 14, just a couple of verses before the famous first 16. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so much the son of man be lifted up and whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

01:25:59

That's what the scripture says. It doesn't say anything of what Mr. Copeland is saying happened that Christ became a serpent.

01:26:08

It says, as Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the son of man be lifted up.

01:26:14

That's what it says. Amen. And then of course, they even add to that heretical notion or blasphemous notion that they have of God taking upon the nature of Satan or Christ taking upon the nature of Satan on the cross that he became the first born again man in hell as if Christ needed to become regenerate.

01:26:39

That's ridiculous, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Even, even to voice that just, again, just a course in theology.

01:26:47

And here's what, here's what you find. I don't know of anyone in that faith movement.

01:26:52

I mentioned Colin Urquhart, who might be a little bit different over in England, but I don't know of anyone in terms of Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagen, Fred Price, Kressler Dollar, Benny Hinn, who's had any theological training.

01:27:08

And just seven or eight hours of being exposed to some good, sound theology would get a lot of this out the way.

01:27:17

But there's an aversion to theology because they live by the concept of special revelation knowledge and that God revealed it to certain people like E .W.

01:27:31

Kenyon in older days and then Kenneth Hagen and Kenneth Copeland and they're sitting in their little studios with their

01:27:38

Bibles and God is revealing truth supposedly, but what would just rid them of this horrendous area would be just good, sound theology.

01:27:51

But they've never read a systematic theology in all their lifetime. Well, don't they have a seminary or some kind of a pastoral institute,

01:28:03

REMA, isn't that connected with... Yeah, REMA. Yeah, and I almost went there, which was amazing, but I was actually accepted to go to REMA, which is in Kenneth Hagen's Bible school in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

01:28:19

What would be the qualifications of being accepted there? Um, coming up with the money.

01:28:28

Why did I know that was going to be the answer to that? Yeah, and my dad, he was going to sponsor me going, found out it wasn't a residential place, you had to live off campus and only for that reason he wouldn't provide funds for me to go.

01:28:46

But I see that as God's providence and I went to a seminary, a Bible college in England, which 90 % of the lecturers were all

01:28:54

Reformed. God has his ways and means, but at REMA, you study

01:29:02

Kenneth Hagen books. You don't study theology, you have no idea of church history.

01:29:09

Church history for many in the Word faith began with Billy Graham, and so there's no understanding of the greats of church history who are also gifts to the people of God.

01:29:24

As Ephesians 4 makes clear, Christ ascended, he gave gifts to man. Some of them are teachers and pastors and evangelists and the five -fold ministry presented there in Ephesians, and yet some of them are gifts that he gave in ancient days, and we're silly if we don't partake of the gift of some of these men of God who poured their whole lives into the scriptures and its study, and they're gifts to us.

01:29:52

That doesn't mean that they're always right, but when some of the big hitters in church history, the

01:29:57

Luthers, the Calvins, the Augustines, the Spurgeons, the Jonathan Edwards, when they all agree on a particular topic, it could be they're all wrong.

01:30:07

It could be they're all wrong, but it causes at least some pause to say, why would these men with these minds pouring their lives over the scripture believe this silly idea?

01:30:21

Let's have a look and see why they believed it, and what I've found is they had very big reasons as to why they believed it, and we're very foolish if we think that God's been waiting for us to give us new revelation.

01:30:35

That's usually when we're going to find out. And we have to go to our final break right now, and this is your last opportunity to email us a question.

01:30:43

If you'd like to have a question asked of and answered by our guest,

01:30:50

John Sampson, email it to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:30:56

and please include your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

01:31:01

USA. Don't go away, we will be right back after these messages with Pastor John Sampson.

01:31:08

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God, or am

01:31:13

I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

01:31:22

We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

01:31:29

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

01:31:38

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

01:31:44

We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

01:31:57

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

01:32:03

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528 -5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

01:32:15

TV program entitled, Resting in Grace. You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org,

01:32:21

that's providencebaptistchurchma .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

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We help members live generously and strengthen the communities where they live, work, and worship. Learn more about the thriving story by contacting me,

01:33:01

Mike Gallagher, financial consultant, at 717 -254 -6433.

01:33:08

Again, 717 -254 -6433. Faith, finances, and generosity.

01:33:24

That's the Thriving Story. Lynnbrook Baptist Church on 225

01:33:39

Earl Avenue in Lynnbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century.

01:33:44

Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

01:33:51

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people in healing.

01:33:59

We're a diverse family of all ages. Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ. In fellowship, play, and together.

01:34:05

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Lynnbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

01:34:12

Call Lynnbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

01:34:19

Or visit lynnbrookbaptist .org. That's lynnbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzin, and if you just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes or so, we've been interviewing

01:34:30

Pastor John Sampson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

01:34:35

He is a former word of faith preacher, evangelist, and talk show host who became transformed in his understanding of biblical theology by the mercy of God and was delivered out of that heretical and deadly system and is now a theologically reformed and baptistic pastor in Arizona.

01:35:00

It happens to be the new home church of my friend Rich Pierce, the president of Alpha and Omega Ministries, where Dr.

01:35:09

James R. White is the resident apologist, and it's just good to have developed this friendship over the past year, and I really thank

01:35:21

God for it, brother, and always love having you on the program. It's a joy.

01:35:26

Thank you. And I always love it when you fill in for James White on the dividing line and look forward to hearing and seeing that again.

01:35:35

And let me just once again remind our listeners that January 19th through the 21st, 2017, the

01:35:44

G3 conference is going to be held in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

01:35:50

Protestant Reformation. That's in Atlanta, Georgia, and there's a whole roster of phenomenal speakers, including one we just were discussing,

01:36:00

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and many more, and I hope that you will investigate this conference and come.

01:36:09

We'd love to see you, and I hope that if you do come or are already registered that you'll make it a point to come over to the exhibitors table that I will be manning for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:36:24

I'll actually be right next to the Alliance of Confessing Evangelical Exhibitors table and helping them with distributing literature as well.

01:36:36

And for more details, go to G3conference .com, G, the number three, conference .com,

01:36:43

and you'll have all the information you need about the G3 2017 conference.

01:36:51

Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island has another question for you. He asks, do you think a good passage of scripture to use against scammers is

01:37:01

Matthew 19 -24, where our Lord teaches that it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom?

01:37:11

Yeah, I think that's one of many passages I would go to. I think it brings out a truth that I'd also go to First Timothy that speaks of those who want to get rich fall into many evil desires, and that's another passage, but I certainly would agree that's a good passage to use.

01:37:35

If you think about it, the unconverted soul is very happy with the promise of wealth, and there's no change needed in the heart to embrace money and more money and more money.

01:37:53

So what are you asking the non -Christian to give up if you say come to Christ and you'll be healthy and wealthy?

01:38:00

Nothing at all. Yeah, that's right. There's no need of a conversion, is there?

01:38:06

Yeah, what is the take up your cross and follow me about if your life is going to be dramatically changed for the better in a physical way and in a monetary way and all that kind of stuff?

01:38:19

Yeah, one of the scriptures they use a lot is Jesus came to get... the thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy.

01:38:27

I've come that you may have life and have it more abundantly. I believe it's John 10 and verse 10, but I like to point out

01:38:33

Jesus said, I came to give you life, but he didn't say I came to give you lifestyle.

01:38:41

That's a good point. We have Jeff in Clinton Township, Michigan, who asks a question that I don't, you know,

01:38:52

I don't know if I ever asked you what your eschatology is today, but Jeff asks, I assume that most

01:38:59

Word of Faith folks adhere to a pre -millennial secret rapture eschatology.

01:39:05

How did you come to your current understanding of eschatology? And I will add to that, what is it?

01:39:10

Because I don't know what you're... I don't know what you're... Yeah, that would be true that I've never heard anything but a dispensational approach to in the

01:39:22

Word of Faith. I'm racking my brains and I can't remember anything of that.

01:39:29

My current understanding is that there are two ages.

01:39:37

There's this age and the age to come. And I look at the book of Revelation in its setting of a very apocalyptic book.

01:39:47

And most of the things we really read of there is picture language when there's beasts with heads coming up out of the water, out of the sea.

01:39:57

I don't think any of us are actually standing by San Diego beach trying to see those things as a fulfillment of prophecy.

01:40:06

And it's speaking of... it's picture language a lot. And so my current understanding is that the

01:40:17

Revelation 20, which is the key passage regarding the millennium, is speaking of a thousand -year reign, which is a figurative statement in a figurative book.

01:40:31

And so I would be a, or how you say it, a millennial in my approach to eschatology.

01:40:38

By the way, do you know what the difference is between an optimistic amillennialist and a pessimistic amillennialist is?

01:40:46

No, please tell me. An optimistic amillennialist is an aaaah millennialist.

01:40:53

A pessimistic amillennialist is an aaaah millennialist. That's wonderful.

01:41:00

I have this story of a Methodist, a Baptist, and a Word of Faith guy, and they all found themselves in hell.

01:41:09

And the story goes like this. The Methodist says, I can't believe I'm here. I've helped the community. I served in the children's church, and I just can't believe

01:41:18

I'm here. I did everything according to Methodism, and I just, I don't understand this. The Baptist says, well, it's hard for you.

01:41:26

How much harder for me? I've been baptized by full immersion, and I can't understand why

01:41:31

I'm here. So they turned to the Word of Faith guy, and they said, well, what about you? He said, you're not going to get me to confess

01:41:38

I'm in hell. That is funny.

01:41:44

Now, one of the things that I want you to address before we run out of time is the disturbing similarity between Word of Faith theology and the occult.

01:41:58

This whole idea of speaking things into existence, the very practices that they promote very often sound like voodoo, like casting spells.

01:42:15

Is this a stretch for me to be saying that? Am I overreaching or going over the top in this?

01:42:24

There's certainly many similarities. Here's what's happened.

01:42:31

They've built a skyscraper on a dime of real estate again here. What they've done is they've taken certain verses that speak of the power of the tongue, and they've taken them in a very wooden and literalistic way.

01:42:47

And so there's a verse in Mark 11 that at the end of verse 23, it says, you shall have what you say, and that's

01:42:56

Jesus. And so they take that, and it's so similar to the mind sciences and false religion that it's very creepy.

01:43:05

But there are Christians who say, well, Jesus said it, I believe it, that's it. And yet it comes from a mindset that looks at the scripture for these things to be so, and they find what isn't there.

01:43:22

They look in Romans 4, and it speaks of Abraham, and calling those things that be not as though they were.

01:43:30

And they take that as an invitation to speak life into our situation, and healing into our bodies, and prosperity into our bank account.

01:43:41

And they've again seen some truth, but have taken it to such an extreme that it becomes heretical, to the point where it is unrecognizable from what is actually said and taught by scripture.

01:43:55

There's nothing in Romans 4 that invites the Christian to speak into existence things that are not yet in existence, so that we might have them.

01:44:05

But that's what happens when you have that mindset. You think that's what's being said there. But you read

01:44:11

Romans 4 in any translation, and you have to do absolute hula hoops and gyrations to try and come up with that.

01:44:18

But when you've got the mentality that God gave Adam in the garden dominion, and he was to rule by the seeds of his words, that's the concept of the word of faith.

01:44:31

With those glasses on, which are faulty glasses, you begin to find things that actually are not there in the scripture.

01:44:42

Would you say that there is specifically anything about the word of faith theology that is absolutely damning, that would prevent someone from entering eternal glory with Christ?

01:44:56

Absolutely, and my qualification would be, because there's such a spectrum in the movement, it depends on which preacher you're listening to.

01:45:06

There are some who are, I believe, genuinely converted while in the movement.

01:45:12

That might be a certain percent, I don't know how much, but I believe that there are genuine disciples of Christ in that movement, although there is much, much out of there.

01:45:25

There are also those who are the con -men, the con -women, the

01:45:30

Mike Murdoch's, and the Paula Widers. Oh boy, that Mike Murdoch, he gives me the creeps.

01:45:36

That guy is all about money, all about money. Right, and there are obvious people who are charlatans, but there are people who are genuine.

01:45:49

But when someone denies the deity of Christ, when they deny the trinity, it's obvious there's not a

01:45:59

Christian expression in any way at all taking place. And so the way to combat that is the light of God's word, to see his truth, to study the attributes of God.

01:46:11

And I would just encourage people to study the sovereignty of God especially. For me, when

01:46:17

I understood just how sovereign God is, as he's revealed himself in scripture, it's like this huge theological rock thrown into my pool.

01:46:27

And the ramifications as the waves began to hit the shore, I just thought, oh, there's an interesting rock that's been thrown in.

01:46:35

But it began to affect this doctrine, and that doctrine, and this one over here, and that one over there.

01:46:41

And I began to see that God is not just sovereign in the area of divine election, but he's sovereign in everything.

01:46:49

He's sovereign over the land, over the sea, over everything that takes place. Jesus said, not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from your father, which is the third century way of talking about the most insignificant thing that could happen.

01:47:04

Some sparrow falling to the ground in the forest. That couldn't happen outside of God's direct control, or in some way he was overseeing the whole thing.

01:47:16

And we need to embrace what scripture says, and all that scripture says. And my argument with the word of faith is, it's not the word of God that's being proclaimed, but favorite parts of the word of God.

01:47:30

There's nothing in the word of faith that can even understand the concept of martyrdom.

01:47:36

But you read Revelation 12. I mean, martyrdom doesn't go with having the best of this world, does it?

01:47:42

Right. The exact opposite of that. Yeah, exactly. You know, but Revelation chapter 12 speaks of those who are martyred as overcoming the devil, not surrendering to him.

01:47:55

And God is not punishing them and saying, you know what, you didn't speak life, and that's why you're dying today.

01:48:02

But that's the concept of the word of faith. If I'm experiencing less than God's perfection in this world,

01:48:09

I'm doing something wrong. I need to learn more about the laws that govern this universe that God has put here.

01:48:16

But Revelation 12, again, it's like the light comes on. They, the believers, overcame him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony.

01:48:25

And the rest of the verse says this, and they loved not their lives, even unto death. For God, these were

01:48:32

Christians who held true to the faith. They were not faithless people or people of lesser faith.

01:48:39

They overcame the devil, even in martyrdom. It's as if God can look down at their lives as their heads are cut off, and saying, look what faith they have.

01:48:50

That's the exact opposite of what you find in the word of faith movement that says, only when we experience good in this world, are we receiving or operating in true faith.

01:49:03

That is not the case. So let's read all of our Bibles. Let's read Genesis all the way to Revelation.

01:49:08

Let's not just look at proof texts that are taken out of context. Death and life in the power of the tongue.

01:49:15

Well, sure it is. But we need to understand what that means and not build these skyscraper doctrines when there's very little land on which to build.

01:49:25

Praise God. By the way, you know that I have organized over the years a number of public moderated theological debates, most of them involving

01:49:37

Dr. James R. White, our mutual friend. Yes. Do you know if any of these prominent people within the word of faith movement do debates?

01:49:48

Do you think that there would be a likelihood that I would have success approaching any of them to do a public moderated debate?

01:49:55

I think you could try, but my initial reaction would be they would not wish to do so because they wouldn't want people to hear the other side.

01:50:07

Here's what I've heard people say in that movement, based on Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

01:50:16

They twist that and then say unbelief comes by hearing something else.

01:50:23

And so they would not want, if there's a 20 minute floral presentation of the word of faith, they would not want a 20 minute presentation against it taking place because it could undermine people's faith.

01:50:36

So their very worldview might militate against the debate. Well, you know, it seems that the stark contrast exists, that exists between reform theology, the doctrines of sovereign grace, which we would call the doctrines of the

01:50:56

Bible, and the word of faith theology. The contrast couldn't be more palpable, it couldn't be more obvious that they, in their theology, diminish man,

01:51:11

I'm sorry, diminish God and his status and power and exalt man in his status and power.

01:51:19

Whereas the doctrines of grace, the gospel of the reformation, the gospel that we would say is the gospel of Jesus Christ and of the scriptures, the gospel that the

01:51:30

Apostle Paul proclaimed, and that the greatest evangelists who have ever lived throughout history have proclaimed, it exalts

01:51:40

God to his rightful place of authority over all things and reveals man's low state of helplessness, of evil, of sinfulness, and of being entirely in need of God for a transformation, for a new heart, for a new birth, and that our salvation and our

01:52:13

Christian life is owed 100 percent to the mercy and grace of God.

01:52:20

Whereas even if a word -of -faith Pentecostal were to say that he owes it all to God, it's clearly not consistent with their theology.

01:52:31

Absolutely, you said that so well, I would just want to repeat it, except it would just be a repeat of what you said.

01:52:38

It's so, so true. I think, too, the bondage of those in the movement,

01:52:44

I'm looking back on people and families that I supposedly ministered to, and when someone received healing, it was wonderful, and I see just as much healing today because God is so merciful in answering prayers.

01:53:00

But I also had to do funerals. I remember one of the first, in fact, the first funeral

01:53:06

I did in the United States was of a 14 -year -old girl who fell off a horse and her head was dragged because her feet were caught in the stirrups, and it was very tragic.

01:53:19

What do you say in a word -of -faith movement when you're a pastor? You have to just keep your mouth shut, but everybody around is thinking, what did this person do?

01:53:29

What did the family do that allowed the devil to do what he did? And it's the most horrible and horrific kind of bondage in legalism to think that our words have caused the death of this one.

01:53:45

Something we said has brought death into the family, because the Bible says death and life are in the power of the tongue.

01:53:51

This is not just an error that is something that can be believed in the classroom and it has no ramifications.

01:54:02

These are real people, and I look back with tears in my eyes of those

01:54:07

I was not able to help because my theology prevented me. I couldn't come alongside them and just grieve.

01:54:14

I couldn't come alongside them and say God has a purpose here because what was clear to us in that movement was the devil has reigned here.

01:54:24

The devil has overcome us in some way. We've let the devil in. And that's not only tragic, but it's more than unhelpful.

01:54:34

It's just barbaric. And so the movement itself is something

01:54:39

I'd urge every Christian who can read a Bible to read their Bible and as Revelation says, come out of her my people, come out of her my people.

01:54:49

This is bondage. This is in the effort to help people, it actually brings the most vicious form of legalism to think your words caused the death of your child.

01:55:02

And I want to look, I wish I could look everybody I've ministered to in the eye and just say,

01:55:07

I'm sorry, I didn't know what I didn't know. But I'm on a quest now to just turn the light on.

01:55:14

That's why I'm writing a book to hopefully help people see the error and come into the light where God is sovereign, he's king, he rules and reigns and he is our comfort, even in the most harshest of times.

01:55:29

And even if the devil has been in operation, as Martin Luther said, even the devil is

01:55:35

God's devil. Lord over the devil. And the truth of God's sovereignty needs to be heard.

01:55:42

Because to not embrace this is to embrace a false God. Andrew Womack says, the greatest heresy hitting the body of Christ is the teaching on God's sovereignty.

01:55:54

I would say he and I, though he stayed in my house, I have to say he and I now serve different gods.

01:56:02

You know, before we go, I just wanted to quote right from a transcript of Kenneth Copeland that I had brought up earlier, the quote that you had not heard, where Kenneth Copeland could have atoned in his mind for the sins of man.

01:56:16

Well, this was from the audio book of Hank Hanegraaff's Christianity in Crisis, where he had a recording of Kenneth Copeland.

01:56:25

And this is the written transcript of it. The Spirit of God spoke to me, and he said, son, realize this.

01:56:33

Now follow me in this. Don't let your tradition trip you up. He said, think this way.

01:56:39

A twice -born man whooped Satan in his own domain. And I threw my

01:56:45

Bible like that. And I said, what? He said, a born -again man defeated

01:56:51

Satan. The firstborn of many brethren defeated him. He said, you are the very image and the very copy of that one.

01:57:00

I said, goodness gracious, sakes alive. I began to see what had gone on in there.

01:57:06

And I said, well, now you don't mean you couldn't dare mean that I could have done the same thing?

01:57:13

He said, oh, yeah. If you'd normally had the knowledge of the Word of God that he did, you could have done the same thing, because you're a reborn man too.

01:57:26

And that is the blasphemous quote from Kenneth Copeland that I was referring to before, that you could hear for yourself on the audio book of Christianity in Crisis.

01:57:36

But if you could, in 45 seconds or so, just conclude,

01:57:42

Pastor Sampson, with what you want most etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today. Well, I'm still getting over the terrible nature of what you just said.

01:57:53

My goodness, what a quote. It's so blasphemous. I would just point people to the truth of God, to study his

01:58:00

Word, to cry out to God for his truth. For anyone still involved in that movement, seek the

01:58:08

Word of God. Don't go anywhere but the Bible, and allow what it says to permeate your mind, filter down into your heart.

01:58:17

See God as he really is, this majestic, sovereign Lord who, and Isaiah, is one who brings everything he wills to pass.

01:58:25

He's not this lesser God who is just hoping that someone on earth can agree with him to allow the laws of the universe to be positively activated by their words.

01:58:38

And we're out of time, brother. And we're out of time. And your website, your website is kingschurchaz .com,

01:58:45

kingschurchaz .com. Thank you, Eric Nielsen, for being my co -host today. And Eric's church's website is communityefc .org,

01:58:53

communityefc .org. We hope you all always remember, for the rest of your lives, that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:58:59

Savior than you are a sinner. I hope you all have a very safe, blessed, and joyful, and God -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.