I was scanning the religious channels a few nights ago and came across three
men standing at a podium … obvious shysters … pitching their spiel about miracle
healing. I only caught the last part. But it seemed if you sent them your loose
coins scattered around the house, they would turn those coins into spiritual
weapons which would facilitate your mental and physical healing. One guy was so
“full of the spirit” he was swollen up and sweating and wiping his face with a
big towel.
These guys were like junior imitators of Benny Hinn, but a lower class
pedigree. As part of their shaky bag of theatrical tricks, they started reading
letters from “previous believers” who had sent in money and discovered
themselves to be miraculously healed.
My heart went out to the sick and dying, those desperate souls searching for
hope beyond the doctor’s grim prognosis. The Bible says that God is
unequivocally capable of miracle healing. So maybe these “television men of God”
had been ordained with a secret that no one else had uncovered. Maybe they were
special.
This was always Benny Hinn’s claim. He was special,
slain in the Spirit, a called-out and set aside conduit through which God’s
healing could flow. Always adorned in milk-white suits and flashy diamond rings,
he claimed his jacket was imbued with the Holy Spirit, and used it to flog
followers to rid them of their life-threatening diseases.
He also claimed to have special insight from God. He told viewers God had
intended babies to come from the sides of women’s bodies, as the rib that
created woman had come out of the side of Adam. But then, God changed his mind.
And since God gave Adam dominion over the birds Adam could fly and was, in fact,
a superman and the first man to reach the moon. Also, God would destroy the
American homosexual community by 1995.
Yet, Hinn still plays to huge audiences, hundreds of millions worldwide. His
crusades have now branched from North America and Europe to include stops in
places like Guatemala, the Philippines, Malaysia and Ghana. The money keeps
rolling in.
Back to the poor, low class, junior imitators. I suspect they are unsaved and
have no internal restraints on the actions they will take to make a dollar. But
think about the saved people who own Daystar and TBN who gladly allow them to
come on as long as they can pay the fee. Who’s really worse?
Finally, and this is the most important point of all, imagine if you were a
true healer from God. With the vibrant, all-consuming love of God in your heart,
wild horses couldn’t keep you away from the hospitals. In other words, you
wouldn’t be on television selling prayer cloths or begging for coins or scaring
people into giving large sums of money to your ministry. Rather, you would be
like a Mother Teresa possessed, running from hospital to hospital, clinic to
clinic and to all the poor, downtrodden, desolate countries and divers places
where people were begging for relief. You wouldn’t be able to sleep because you
didn’t get to that little girl with leukemia or the young boy with Down
syndrome. You would be immersed in using your gift for good … not to pay the
note on your new Creflo Dollar look alike Rolls Royce.
No matter how desperate your mental and physical infirmities have made you,
there is no reason to be taken in by the healing vultures. Their works are
before you, right there on the big screen. Take heed, use sound judgement and
stay away.
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Bestselling author of
Exorcism At Midnight and
Black Church Blues.
