AVAILABLE FOR SEMINARS AND EXPOSES ABOUT THE WORD OF FAITH MOVEMENT

I spent fourteen years of my life as a pastor and teacher in the Word of Movement, also known as the Prosperity Gospel, the Health and Wealth Gospel, or the Name It Claim It Doctrine.

This teaching has become mainstream and politically correct by such popular television preachers as Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer.

Not many people are aware of the fact that this teaching has its roots in Christian Science and the New Age Movement.

I am an expert in the history and theology of this Movement and would like to make myself available to any pastor, seminary, church or Sunday school class for free.

The Lord has blessed me with a unique and simple format to expose the doctrinal errors and pitfalls of this dangerous Movement which has shipwrecked and bankrupted the faith of thousands.

I have presented this seminar at several churches and every time that I do I end up spending an extra hour or two answering questions from people. At my last seminar which was held at a major Baptist Church, people were standing in line to ask questions. http://www.fbckenner.org/audio/May2010/050210P%20.mp3

Sadly, there are many pastors out there that are alarmed with this Movement, but they are afraid to address these televangelist and their doctrine from the pulpit because of their popularity within their own churches.

I am able to present this material in a manner that is non-offensive and would enjoy coming to your church, seminary, or Sunday school class.

Please feel free to contact me at exfaithhealer@gmail.com

MY FIRST YOUTUBE

195

The New Me

THE LIES THAT BIND......by MichaEL Adams

The lies that bind...

It's difficult to explain the whole concept of 'The Word of Faith' to someone not caught up in the mess that some ministers have made out of the Bible...Think of it as having a hundred dollars meant to feed your kids and someone tells you that if you spent that hundred dollars on lottery tickets that you'd be guaranteed to win millions...

...I know it sounds gullible, and it is, but in the words of a master sales person who knows his/her Bible, they can make the impossible sound possible, the implausible within reach...If only they believed...Not what the Bible says, mind you, what they say the Bible means...They'll throw out Mark 11:24, Hebrews 11:1 and every other scripture that promises you can have whatever it is you want by simply believing it and people buy into this Fairy Tale hook, line, and sinker.

Why?

Because we want to believe...We want to think that we can grab that brass ring without stretching forth a hand to grab it, that we can just say a few words, repeating them over and over again in the hopes that all of our financial, medical, personal needs will be met by a God who has nothing better to do than to drop a couple of grand in your pocket so that you can go out and eat at a nice restaurant, buy clothes that represent success...Faith...Prosperity.

The reality is a little more bitter...Ken Copeland, one of the 'Giants' in the whole Word of Faith movement, once gave a special seminar to the students at Rhema, explaining, with the Bible as backup, that since we were studying to be ministers, men and women of God, that we were doing Gods work and because of this we didn't need to divide our time with that pesky little thing called employment...That we'd be provided all of our needs because we were the chosen, we were the future Apostles and Prophets who would go out and preach this (Then) relatively new interpretation of the scriptures...And believe me when I tell you that, upon hearing this man, a man who'd told us how he'd believed God would give him an airplane and he was given that plane...Granted, it was given to him by his father, a wealthy man in his own right, but, hey...Faith is Faith...It sounded good, it sounded tempting, and most of all it sounded scriptural.

But I had a wife and son that depended upon me, and I honestly didn't think I had that kind of Faith in me...But a lot of my fellow students did and went out, quit their jobs and began that treacherous walk of Faith...And within three months, most of those same people were out of their apartments, their homes, and sent packing back to where they came from because they were broke, because they'd been given a promise from someone who claimed to be spreading the word of God, the 'Word of Faith'...And they were blameless in the tragedies that ended many persons Faith because they just didn't believe enough...They weren't really chosen of God, they simply stepped out of the plan God had for their lives and tried to slip into a role they weren't meant to be in...

...The rich, the wealthy who have the money for medical expenses, for homes too big for them, who have a car for every day of the week because the gullible send them money they don't have can afford to be judgmental, can stand behind the pulpit and say pretty much whatever they want with impunity and rarely ever be held accountable for their actions, for their lies, for their deceptions.

I guess I'm luckier than most...That isn't to say I didn't lose a lot because of the Word of Faith debacle...I lost my family, I lost more money than I'd care to think about, I even lost my Faith for a while, my direction in life because I, like so many others, got caught up in the fever of Faith...I was guilty of believing blindly and had to pay the price. For me, I suppose I only lost what would have eventually been gone from my life in the first place because I turned my back on the Ministry, on what I'd learned at Rhema, and the friends I thought I had, well, they saw me as a pariah, an outcast...A heretic.

I liked that concept because the blinders had been taken off and I could once again look at the Bible with a fresh point of view...There is now, this world, a time where we're meant to work, we're meant to create, to grow, to live, to experience all that we can because life is far too short to sit around and follow false Dogma...I do believe that all of our needs can and will be met, that sometimes we need help to have things provided for us and miracles do happen...They've happened to and for me many times and I've never taken them for granted...Many a day has come when I had nothing, no money, no home, no direction, but I was always led to safety in one way or another...Sometimes it meant admitting I was wrong, admitting that I was weak, admitting that I needed help and I'd set pride aside and reach out a hand, a heart, and I'd be given a chance to change my life, change the direction I'd been led down.

I don't hate Rhema, I don't begrudge them what they taught us...One of the first things Hagin said to us was that if we simply believed what he was saying because he was saying it, then we were idiots...We needed to check out the scriptures for ourselves.

I did...And as a result I made it through Rhema, not unscathed, not without some pain, some loss and more heartache than I thought I could survive at the time, but wiser...I don't simply believe something because someone tells it to me...I don't blindly follow another human being because human beings are fallible, human beings can lie, can deceive, even when they don't mean to, even when they really believe what they're saying because it worked for them.

Because their father gave them an airplane...Because people who never had the advantage of an education, Biblical or traditional, want to believe in a series of lies, believe in the easy money.

I have to admit, this is a bit personal for me...Not because I've lost this or that, what I've lost I've been able to replace and the love I thought I had, wasn't...No, it's because my father, a man who believes, who has 'Faith', has lost his entire life savings, all of it, because someone told him to believe...And he did...Not because he wanted more for himself, no, he wanted to help out his children, to provide for his grandchildren...His motives were good, honorable...But they've cost him more than just his money.

They've very nearly cost him his Faith.

And that's all he really has left in this world.

There's an old saying: 'If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is...' This goes for the man or woman who is promising you the moon, promising you health, wealth and wisdom...If you give unto them...Give, they say, and it shall be given unto you.

Sometimes.

Not all that often.

Yeah...It's personal.

.

HOW I LOST 88 POUNDS

This time last year, I was fat, drunk, depressed and on anti-depressants. I weighed 286 pounds and drank a whole bottle of Bourbon almost every single night.

I now weigh 206 pounds. I have lost a total of 80 pounds and lost 50 of it from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

In 2008 I lost my church. I had started it in my living room with four people ten years earlier, and had just built a brand new building that could seat over 500 people when things started to unravel for me. (people were leaving in droves because I went from preaching the Prosperity Gospel to the True Gospel)

I lost my church, lost my faith, suffered financial ruin, one of my sons was diagnosed with a brain tumor and the other son ruptured his spleen. All of my friends vanished. My truck got re-poed. (my sons are both well, thank God)

So, I turned to drinking and food for comfort. I went from about 225 to 286, looked horrible, felt horrible, couldn't breathe, couldn't sleep, and couldn't fit into any of my cloths. I was drinking until I passed out. It was the only way that I could sleep. I was also seeing a shrink for depression, OCD, and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

About this time last year, I started experiencing what I would call my Charley Sheen Days. I lost my mind and started acting completely out of character, embarrassing myself and my family. My insurance quit covering my meds, so I quit all of my anti-depressants cold turkey.

Then, around the first of this year, 2011, I just woke up one day and didn't feel like drinking anymore. I just quit. God sovereignly took the desire and need for alcohol away from me. My faith and will power had NOTHING to do with it. I had NO faith, and I had NO will power. It was God alone.

Next, someone told me about an easy diet. It was: No seconds, no sweets, no snacks, except for on days that started with a S. Easy enough! So I followed this plan loosely from about New Years till Memorial Day, and along with walking, lost 21 pounds.

On Memorial Day, I was cleaning carpet for a customer and as usual, I was sweating like an ice cube in a fire. My customer offered me a glass of water, and I turned it down because I had some DIET Mtn Dew in the truck. I drank Diet Mtn Dew all day long.

She said, "Sonny if you will quit drinking DIET drinks, you will lose 10 pounds in a week" so I did. I quit drinking All DIET SODAS and lost 15 pounds in one week! It worked!

So, after losing an additional 15 pounds, I began jogging. Now I HATED running. I had been forced to run when I was in the Marines and hated it with a passion. But, I started jogging slowly, and forced myself to start praying as I ran.

I had been unable to pray for almost three years, but foreced myself to pray as I ran. Six laps would make three miles, so I dedicated each lap for a certain person or situation to pray for on each lap.

Then I tweeked my diet. I began to eat ONE main meal a day, usually in the evening with my family. I ate whatever Coni cooked or brought home.....BUT.....only one serving. If I got hungry during the day, then I would eat a bag of grapes or cherries, or some other fruit.

I have lost 80 pounds. I am off of all my medications. I am off of anti-depressants. I am off of my blood pressure meds. I jog at least three miles per day. I eat one main meal, with fruit snacks when Im hungry. I do lots of push ups and sit ups. I sleep like a baby and feel AMAZING!!!!!

So basically here is my routine:

I MAKE myself run three miles a day, seven days a week.

I eat one main meal per day, anything that is served, one serving.

I eat fruit whenever Im REALLY hungry.

I NEVER drink DIET SODA! I get MIO drops and put them in water.

I pray when I run, religiously! Ha ha, pun intended.

I rarely drink any booze. I did have a swallow of Tequila when I was in Arizona, and I had a swallow of Vodka at the Lake on the Fourth of July, but I just dont have the desire to drink....plus I dont want the calories!

This is my lifestyle. I intend to keep this routine everyday for the rest of my life. The Docs and experts, the trainers and gurus can say whatever they want to say, My Plan works for Me, and Im sticking to it!

THIS TIME LAST YEAR

This time last year, I weighed 286 pounds, I was drinking a large bottle of Evan Williams Bourbon almost every night,I was being treated by two shrinks, I could not feel God and I wanted to die. I was acting completely out of character, saying and doing things that I would have never done before in a million years.

But God has delievered me! And He did it sovereignly by His power without the help of man. I had very little to do with it. It has been a God Thing.

Since this time last year, I have quit drinking, I have lost 65 pounds, I have come off of every single medication that I was on, I have quit seeing the shrinks and I have my faith in God restored. God did all of this. It was NOT through a preacher, it was NOT through the help and support of my friends, it was NOT because of my faith or my willpower.

It was ALL God 100%, and to God be the Glory. NO man helped me. NO friend helped me. NO program helped me. NO doctor helped me. NO preacher helped me. God Himself has saved me from drinking, depression, gluttony and He is bringing me out of the Great and Terrible Wilderness all by Himself!

I just wanted to thank God for all that He has done for me! Sola Gratia

WHY DO YOUNG PEOPLE DIE?

My daughter Jennifer died when when she was just 14 years old. My father died in his thirties. As a former pastor, I did the funeral of a teenage church member.

Some of us have lost children and grandchildren. We have all asked the question, "Why God"? and there seem to be no answers. The death of a young person is always tragic and especially painful.

I was listening to a preacher on the radio yesterday while I was jogging and he made a statement that really blessed my heart tremendously. In fact, what he said comforted me greatly! But what comforts me might make others mad or even sadder but hopefully it will bring someone suffering some peace.

First he quoted some Scriptures that proclaim that our deaths glorify God. He mentioned the one in Psalms that says precious in the eyes of the Lord are the deaths of His saints. He mentioned the fact that Jesus told Peter that Peter's death would glorify Christ.

Then he went on to quote a missionary by the name of Jim Elliot. I'm not sure of the exact quote but it went something like this: My God is in the business of populating Heaven, and He don't want it to be just full of old folks!"

That really made me feel good! I'm not sure how true that is, but the thought of my daughter still being 14 when I get to Heaven thrills me! The thought of seeing my Dad at 38 is exciting, like in the movie "Field of Dreams"

I do know that when Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, that the disciples did not ask Jesus who those two teenagers were! They knew exactly who Moses and Elijah were. Poor Lazarus recognized his earthly master instantly.

Some people believe that when a young person dies that God was taken by surprise. Some people believe that Satan is sovereign. I do not. I believe that our exact number of days has been previously determined by God, and that we will not live one moment longer or die one moment sooner. No matter the cause of death, the moment cannot be avoided.

Psalms says that our days have been written and measured. Hebrews says that we have been "appointed" once to die.

A man was asked at his darling wife's funeral if he was going to be be mad at God. He said that he would not be mad at God for three reasons:

1) He said, I wouldnt bring her back from Heaven even if I could.
2) God does not make mistakes.
3) I am going to be with her sooner or later anyway.

All believers have this blessed hope, that God has everything all worked out, and that one day, we will all be reunited on the other side. Maybe then our questions will be answered, and maybe then we will no longer care.