A Tele-Evangelist's Errors

The comments which follow were written to a correspondent about a TV evangelist in the USA. Sid Roth has a TV programme called It’s Supernatural.

(If you are unfamiliar with God's displeasure at Tele-Evangelism, please first read God Is NOT Pleased With Tele-Evangelism! It is an article compilation

with dreams from God about the subject.)

There are a number of errors which we have picked up on already... of Sid Roth's programmes... Here are some that we have noticed:

The Key To End-Time Revival

1) Sid Roth claims that the Jew is the key to the final revival in this age. That's untrue. Martyrdom is the key on the one hand, and raising the dead on the other hand. They are two halves of the same ticket, to counter man's fear of death.

Tertullian said that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." When God brings people back from the grave, and they witness for Jesus, we will see the greatest revival in this age come about. They will testify to the wonderful life beyond the grave, and they will help to dispel men's fear of death, as they proclaim Jesus as the One who has conquered death for us all.

Some people, central to this raising of the dead, will also be killed, adding further to its publicity.

As this revival gains momentum, much persecution will engulf God's people, which will lead into the Great Tribulation. Many Christians will die, but they will learn not to fear death; instead, to fully fear God.

What Sid Roth is referring to, regarding the Jew, is not the revival this side of the Tribulation, but what the revival and the Tribulation lead into – the time when Jew and Gentile will be completely united under Jesus – in the Millennium under His universal rule. Then, all people will be brought to conversion.

False / Counterfeit Revival

2) He also mentions the revival surrounding Toronto and Brownsville. That was a decoy – a partial 'revival' mixed with many counterfeit phenomena performed by the devil. Some of the chief proponents of that 'revival' are false ministers. This is covered in our book Testing The Spirits, and how to identify false ministers is broached in Apostasy in God's Church!

Subtle Pride In

'Anointings' and Seeking Power

3) Sid teaches that the 'anointing' given to gift various individuals in ministry is transferable. Thus, he asked for (I think it was) Fred Price to pray for him to transfer that 'anointing' to him. As Fred prayed, Sid jerked, which is a common manifestation when a person is being delivered from a demon or demons.

Unfortunately, it is the teaching about transference of anointing which has spawned the massive demonic spread of false manifestations in Toronto (TACF), where demons have been spread through indiscriminate laying on of hands. Because of this, the founder of the Vineyard Movement, John Wimber, distanced himself from what was happening and dissociated himself from it. He knew it was demonic, and there was no testing the spirits taking place! Practically none at all!

Similar spawning of demonisation has occurred at Brownsville. But the majority have been deceived about the value of these 'revivals', because the focus has been on physical manifestations. The devil can perform all those, and more! Jesus focuses our attention in true revival upon the spiritual, not the physical. Thus, Toronto et al ended up being a seductive counterfeit. You will see the real revival come about soon, when the dead are raised to give publicity to the message of the true Sabbath, etc., and a deeper obedience and commitment to God.

One further misappropriation to do with anointings is in his emphasis in the prayers at the end of the progs. He encourages people to expect to receive whatever spiritual gifts the person on the show has. That's not appropriate. God gives gifts as HE deems people should receive (1 Cor 12:11). While it is not wrong to desire gifts for the common good – and certainly prophecy is to be much desired for the upbuilding of the local church – it is not right to give the impression to new believers that they can ask for any gift they want, and it is misleading and even dishonest to infer that they can get it.

-228It has selfish and self-seeking overtones which are grounded in pride. To promote pride in any form is the most dangerous ground. It's the first wedge of the devil to destroy a work of God.

Eternal Punishment NOT Punishing

4) One doctrine which he seems to believe, and which is widely taught throughout the Church, is that of eternal punishing – that the wicked continue to suffer endlessly throughout all eternity. That is simply not true, as we explain in Why Hell? and to a lesser extent in Why The Devil and Demons?

The Trinity Concept Is Erroneous

5) There is an allusion to the widely-held Trinity belief, but since he did not elaborate upon it, it is unclear whether he believes in the Trinity as popularly taught. But if he does, that is another error, because in all the introductions to Paul's letters he pays homage to the Father and Son, but NEVER the Holy Spirit as a co-equal Person of the Godhead. If the Holy Spirit were a third Person of a so-called equilateral Trinity, Paul's omission would have been blasphemous.

Marketing and The Money Motive

6) The slick, well-produced TV programmes have much appeal. Sid is capable, sharp, very quick, and intelligent. He knows how to captivate his audience. (But he dominates, which God showed in Helena's dream [see below] is a pitfall.) The accounts of miracles, and what God has done in the lives of many people, are cleverly used to get the attention of the audience, to hold their attention, and then lead them towards buying a product, or book, or video. On the surface one would think there's nothing wrong with that, but the programme is geared around that. That is the pivot – MONEY. The prog becomes a marketing exercise, to subtly, discreetly raise money.

Take a look at the prices he charges for videos and tapes, and even books, and you soon see that in the raw. It is a money raiser.

Jesus never appealed to the general public for money, nor do we. The only places where we mention money to newcomers is in our literature list, or in the form of suggested donations for literature. If we didn't, we would be unwise stewards, and deprive recipients of their reciprocal duty of giving. We would also suffer the continued depletion of our inadequate resources that already occurs because most people DON'T send money when they request our literature (but we send it anyway, going into debt to do so) and most of our demand is from Third World countries where people CANNOT contribute. Up to now, Tonya has sacrificed about 80%- 90% of her wages for the last 9 years to fund our ministry outreach. That will soon come to an end, because she is losing her job in a couple of weeks. [This occurred in October 2004.] God has shown me in a dream that we will have to shelve our ministry until such time as money comes in. We can't keep going on, working in a debt situation. [Money came in soon after this.]

What Sid Roth has going is a well-oiled machine, like all the other charismatic ministries who sell their 'produce' at highly inflated prices, to raise revenue to continue oiling the clever marketing exercise and business machine that they've got going.

People Should Give Money

To Cover Our Costs

While I am on this subject of money. As you know, we have been willing to distribute our literature to people who are poor and cannot afford to reimburse us. But that doesn't mean a price is not paid somewhere. Everything has to be paid for. S and M have helped us with this burden, as have a handful of others. But it's not enough at present.

Where we, or they, provide our literature, such items should not be given away to others without any forethought as to the price that has been paid to make them available. Every believer who receives them ought to be aware of their reciprocal duty to reimburse the one who is feeding them, as Paul outlined in Corinthians 9:6; 8:12; 1 Corinthians 9:7-14. They should be encouraged to donate to cover our costs on their behalf. (And the suggested donations are not highly inflated prices with large profit margins like the charismatics referred to.) The ox does not tread out the grain in order to be starved to death for his services.

Where booklets are given away willy-nilly, as if they are 'freebies', we are actually being short-changed, cheated, and those who take booklets without contributing are stealing. Because the contents are anointed by God, they are not merely stealing from us, they are stealing from God, and will come under judgement unless they repent of their selfish and thoughtless approach. As you know, it's not a light matter to fall into the hands of an angry God. And the last thing we want to see is people fail to benefit from the literature which we so keenly want others to enjoy for the sake of the spiritual riches they contain.

How Many Rely Upon Tele-Evangelists

Helena's dream for your benefit was given the night of 30th Sept. She saw a small tree in a pot. (The tree is a symbol of a ministry; in this instance it's of Sid Roth's ministry.) She saw a person (you) trying to cosy up to this tree and find comfort in the pot. You had a turban on your head (symbol of man-dominated religion; Sikhs wear turbans as a ritual symbol of their religion, and they are influenced by demons in this tradition – the significance for a Christian is that the dependence upon human ritual takes the place of the individual guidance of the Holy Spirit). In this cosy position you became drowsy and fell asleep. Your face was covered with black spots (symbol of demonic influence – like Paul mentions to the Ephesians that the Bride is to get rid of her spots and blemishes). This is caused by the powerful influence of the speaker over the listener / follower, to the extent that an idolatrous transfer of loyalties has taken place.

Jesus' place has been supplanted by the man, who acts as the mediator now. Through the man, he claims to dispense spiritual gifts or anointing and transfer them to his subjects through his prayers. This is what Sid Roth infers by his encouragement to his listeners to receive the anointing from him, or from his guests on his show. He doesn't realise what he is doing. It is a subtle trap of the devil. But it makes listeners dependent upon him, boosts his ratings, and brings him in a steady income, and ensures the continuation of his show.

This is a very subtle pitfall. These tele-evangelists are all doing it, marketing themselves in such a way that THEY are elevated, and subtly taking the place of Jesus. And that is wrong – very wrong! They don't see the pit into which they have fallen, and I believe there is only one way out of it, which is why God will allow their ministries to be destroyed by the Tribulation that is looming not far ahead of us.

One other thing in the dream was that the pot in which his tree was growing was depleted of nutrients. Think about the significance of that! It's a dream from God, stating bluntly what God sees is some that is wrong with Sid's TV ministry outreach.

I'm sorry if this is all rather disturbing to you. I hope you can understand it. The principles underlying what is wrong are covered in our book God's Church – Whose Authority?, but they do take some unravelling and perception to see how they apply in specific cases of evangelism going on around us.

I hope this little explanation helps you.  Malcolm B Heap

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Various Questions

When A Prophet Claims The Father Is Speaking

When a prophet claims to have gotten a message directly from the Father or talks directly to the Father, should we not be suspect of this? Does the Father talk to us? I thought that Jesus was the intermediary, and so the Father talks to us, and us to Him, through Jesus Christ. [And through angels – Editor.]

Linda Newkirk [a false prophetess], as well as other prophets on the internet claim to be talking directly to the Father. This seems to be wrong to me. However, I most certainly can be wrong in this belief. If what I am saying is true, it can be something that points to false prophecy, wouldn't it? USA

Comment: You are right.

In my own experience, it is impossible to know who is talking to you when you receive 'a word'. It's not like having a conversation in the physical. (And anyone who claims they ARE having such a type of conversation, I am very suspicious of, because God does not [usually] talk like that. He speaks cryptically, usually in imagery like in dreams and visions, to convey deeper spiritual insight that words are poor conveyors of. Because the Father is so holy, we unholy vessels CANNOT have a two-way conversation with Him like we would with other mortals!)

Most often you receive an inner prompt and it is nondescript in origin. You don't get a voice in the head saying out loud "This is the Father speaking..." or "Hello, I'm Jesus talking to you..." The words or thoughts just form, don't they? Without any identification.

So, yes, you're right. These people are shysters, making out that they are hearing from the Father. For why? What is their motive? Drawing attention to themselves, and elevating themselves.

After all, people would tend to think: anyone who receives from the Father must be the most important and elevated prophet around, yeah?!! That's what people would think, or what these scoundrels want others to think.

But when Daniel received, in the most dramatic manner, it was an angel talking to him, and yet Daniel was MOST beloved of God (Dan 10:1-11). If anyone was worthy to have direct contact with God, surely it was him!

True that that was under the Old Covenant, in which the Father had not yet revealed Himself to humanity. But it gives us an indicator that we should be content to hear from God through an intermediary.

Like you say, Jesus is our Mediator between God and men, but that is primarily from a perspective of cleansing us of sin so that we can fellowship with God in His holy state. We can pray to the Father and He hears.

Angels are His messengers, so it is most probable that most genuine prophetic words, transmitted through the spirit, come through angels.

The question then arises, which angels are giving these words? It was because of this issue that John adjured the Church late in the first century to TEST the spirits to see whether they were of God or not (1 Jn 4:1).

These people don't test such things. They assume that they could not be deceived. They DON'T WANT TO test them, because they are glad to promote these words that tend to elevate them as the mouthpieces for God the Father, the 'highest prophets' on earth, deserving of the most acclaim!

Those who claim that they are in conversation with God, like any normal conversation with humans, are NOT in conversation with Him at all, but are in communion with familiar spirits, deceiving spirits, evil spirits or demons.

So, yes, you are right to be wary!

Miracles Accompany Sharing MM Literature

L says that when she gives some of your literature to someone, a miracle soon follows! Is that true? Why is that? USA

Comment: Yes, I can believe it. I have heard a number of accounts of this occurring. One reason is that God wants to confirm to the unbelieving that what they are reading is from God, and that they should take keen note. [In the above instance, L later fell away. The miracles were given as a witness to L, just as Jesus’ miracles when He walked this earth condemned those who didn’t believe Him back then. Human nature hasn’t changed!]

The Bible Speaks Contain 'Appetizers'

Comment: The object of The Bible Speaks is not like conventional articles. It's to generate some thoughtfulness in people, by NOT giving all the facts or information on any topic in one sitting. They are 'appetizers'. They are deliberately kept brief, to try and prompt some more probing or questioning on the part of the reader.

The Holy Spirit drops tid bits in from Above, here and there over a wide field, to generate curiosity, thoughtfulness, and introspection. Those who are truly seeking will look further, meditate, and that will give the Holy Spirit a platform to reveal more to them independently of what I have written.

It's another avenue to reach people, because some people have a very poor attention span and tire easily. So, short, sharp 'articlettes' can have some impact.

A dream given to Helena represented this series as a lot of pebbles. Pebbles have various uses. To those lacking in spiritual initiative, they have no use whatsoever. They just lie on the sea shore, getting shoved around by the waves. But to the artistic they are provocative and beautiful. So, the spiritual analogy is that to the discerning and spiritually enterprising they are full of interest and have several uplifting and positive uses. They contain gems radiating heavenly light.

Kassahun wrote about a dream which God gave him in August 2004 about this. It was in Newsletter 27, p 14. He was reading The Bible Speaks, 2 one Friday evening and sharing some of its contents on the Sabbath with some brothers there with him. On the Saturday night God gave him a dream. He said:

"In that dream I was sharing the messages from this booklet in a large congregation. I already realized that most of them were not prepared to accept what I was telling them.

"They wanted to see some miracles occur to believe what I am sharing from the booklet. Suddenly there came a flash of light from that booklet which gradually began to fill the house.

"Because of the white light we couldn't see each other. I could hear praises and many 'hallelujahs' from those who were doubtful a moment before. When that light disappeared I saw all were bowed on the ground. It was a great scene.

"When I awoke from my sleep, I knelt down there and thanked God. Yes, your pen has been moved by God..."

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Some Dreams Out Of Africa

Here are some dreams which God gave Kassahun Ayele

at the time when I compiled the above.

Nov. 16/04. Church Leaders' Autocratic Control.

Five elderly men [church leaders] were threatening a young man. They were telling him that they would cast him out of their church if he continued to visit other religious groups. Anger filled me and I told them that they are denying the right of the individual which God has given him freely. I took the person with me and went out.

Comment: Sadly, a typical approach of many churches which are merely cults. They are intolerant of others. A large number of churches have an autocratic approach and insist on you submitting to the authority of the church leader. The abuse is satanic and explained in God’s Church – Whose Authority?

Nov. 17/04. Prophets Rejected.

I was in the midst of several men and women. I heard one of them quoting from the book of Jeremiah and they said that Jeremiah was a false prophet. I told him that he is not right about Jeremiah and began to explain the book. Those who were convinced by my explanation began to oppose the others. The atmosphere was becoming tense. I sensed that soon there will be conflict among themselves. I told those who were convinced to come with me. We left at once.

Comment: Some Christians are so deluded by modern teachings of grace that they think stern prophetic messages of judgement are false. Prophets are rejected, except by the few. Those who refuse to change and accept the full truth will cause splits when others accept a greater fulness of truth.

Nov. 18/04. Destruction Coming.

I was in a field of many olive trees. Suddenly a powerful wind came and uprooted all of them. The place where I stood became a mess. Meaning: The Great Tribulation will uproot many churches and Christians' lives.

Nov. 19/04. Drought and Dearth Coming.

I was digging the ground to get some water.

Nov. 20/04. Christians Soon To Be Killed.

I saw a young man whom I knew, was killed and his corpse laid on the street. Armed men were protecting the corpse so I couldn't get close to it.

November 22, 2004. Military Presence.

A squad of soldiers was following me wherever I went. I was wondering if they were spying or protecting me from some danger.

Comment: Probably the former.

November 23, 2004. Malcolm, Prophet No 5.

Someone gave me a paper. On that paper there were 12 prophets named. The name of Malcolm was written as No 5. The names of the others were completely new to me.

Meaning: God uses several prophets. I [Malcolm] am merely one. Five is a numeric symbol of preparation. My task, like John the Baptist's was, is to prepare the Way (Matt 11:10,14). The Commission God assigned to me (which is explained more in Dreams and Visions From God and in Revelations From God About Midnight Ministries, is to put in writing an accurate doctrinal foundation for the Church, which is so misguided and filled with misunderstandings and error).

November 26, 2004. Midnight Is Nearly Upon Us!

I saw the earth and on it was a clock marking the time. The needle of this clock had moved forward and it was nearly pointing to the final hour. The hour of midnight is very close! [Midnight here symbolises the end of this civilisation.]  

Further Reading: Understanding The Book of Revelation (Rev)

God’s Church – Whose Authority? (GC) The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints (FOD)

God Is Not Pleased With Tele-Evangelism (Tel) Apostasy In God’s Church! (Apo)

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