The whole message of the NT is to draw your heart to Heaven, not earth.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. Colossians 3:1-2

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1 John 2:15

They choose their words so that each term always refers to some kind of comfort on earth.

• Breakthrough
• I am not under the circumstances, I am above the circumstances
• Authority
• Make a difference
• Children of the king
• Abundant life
• Problem
• Difficulty
• Darkness
• Generational curses

All of these terms and more were used on Friday night. When you hear terms like this, ask yourself, “What is he trying to do to my heart? Where does he want my heart to be?”

This is the greatest problem with the false teachers, but also the easiest way to discover them. Even if you can’t put it into words, you know immediately if they want you to put your heart in Heaven or on earth.

Identifying Prosperity Preachers
Mark #1: They Do Not Stay Long in a Single Verse
Mark #2: They Are Intentionally Vague
Mark #3: They Consistently Disobey Explicit Scriptural Teaching About Tongues
Mark #4: They Prostitute the Old Testament
Mark #5: They Assume Their Listeners Are All Born Again
Mark #6: They Ignore the Great Themes of Scripture
Mark #7: They Have an Aversion to Humility
Mark #8: They Draw the Affections to Earth

Where do we see pride? The translator, microphone, volume level, technology, clothing, mannerisms, and words all say, “Look at me. Notice me. Enjoy the demonstration.” Peter says that all elders should be clothed with humility (1 Peter 5:5), meaning the public demeanor of a pastor should remind us constantly that they are not that important (1 Cor. 3:7).

Considering that no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven without humility (Matt. 18:3-4), why doesn’t every pastor preach about this? Considering that this was a vital and repeated mark of our Savior while on earth (John 13:5; Matt. 11:29; Luke 23:34; Phil. 2:5-8), why doesn’t this come up in some way or another in every sermon? Considering that gospel humility is a near synonym from saving faith, why isn’t this prominent in their preaching?

One easy trap into which nearly all false teachers fall is their intense pride. Just ask yourself from what you see and hear, “Would this man be satisfied if we forgot him, but remembered Jesus Christ?”

Identifying Prosperity Preachers
Mark #1: They Do Not Stay Long in a Single Verse
Mark #2: They Are Intentionally Vague
Mark #3: They Consistently Disobey Explicit Scriptural Teaching About Tongues
Mark #4: They Prostitute the Old Testament
Mark #5: They Assume Their Listeners Are All Born Again
Mark #6: They Ignore the Great Themes of Scripture
Mark #7: They Have an Aversion to Humility
Mark #8: They Draw the Affections to Earth

Here are some themes they do not talk about much.

1. Christ’s death for the sin of sinners
2. The next life: Future judgment in Heaven or Hell
3. Humility, repentance, and saving faith
4. The glory and beauty of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
5. The law of God
6. The Second Coming of Christ
7. The marks of a false teacher
8. The Five Solas
9. Holiness, integrity, and character
10. Election, predestination, and God’s sovereignty

Basically, it is a move away from the great motifs of life and death, Heaven and Hell. At the same time, it is a move toward the lighter ideas of life: happiness, ease, simplicity, comfort, present day—nothing that will leave the people heavy and concerned. A passage like Heb. 9:27-28 won’t be the theme for any conferences.

And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, 28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

In the place of these Biblical saving truths that occupied all the NT preachers, they have a list like this.

1. Personal authority, power, and honor
2. The power of faith to get things
3. Personal dignity and worth
4. Freedom from every kind of discomfort
5. Healing from every kind of difficulty

In other words, heavy is out and light is in. God is out and “me” is in. Sin is out, and prosperity is in.

Identifying Prosperity Preachers
Mark #1: They Do Not Stay Long in a Single Verse
Mark #2: They Are Intentionally Vague
Mark #3: They Consistently Disobey Explicit Scriptural Teaching About Tongues
Mark #4: They Prostitute the Old Testament
Mark #5: They Assume Their Listeners Are All Born Again
Mark #6: They Ignore the Great Themes of Scripture
Mark #7: They Have an Aversion to Humility
Mark #8: They Draw the Affections to Earth

After he was done preaching he told us he wanted to close in prayer. But just before closing our eyes he asked us if we wanted to be saved. Whoever wants to be saved was invited to come forward and “receive Jesus Christ.”

The first problem with that is the context. When they hear those words, they don’t think about repentance, humility, saving faith, committing their lives to Jesus Christ, taking up their cross, denying themselves, or having all their sinful desires exchanged for holiness. Those words at that time simply are another form of God-talk. Religious sounds with no significance.

The second problem with closing the service that way is far deeper because there was no preaching of Christ and Him crucified! He never told us that Christ died for sinners. He never told us that we were sinners. Instead his entire sermon was based on the assumption that all of us already were—in his words—children of God, children of light, and children of Goshen.

This is the standard way prosperity preachers deal their cards, they assume everyone already understands the rules. They take for granted that we are all God’s children, and then with a tricky spin, they ask for anyone who wants to be saved to come forward. By so doing, they think to deceive those of us who realize there are unbelievers present while at the same time preaching a thoroughly comfortable message which is what they really wanted to do all along.

Identifying Prosperity Preachers
Mark #1: They Do Not Stay Long in a Single Verse
Mark #2: They Are Intentionally Vague
Mark #3: They Consistently Disobey Explicit Scriptural Teaching About Tongues
Mark #4: They Prostitute the Old Testament
Mark #5: They Assume Their Listeners Are All Born Again
Mark #6: They Ignore the Great Themes of Scripture
Mark #7: They Have an Aversion to Humility
Mark #8: They Draw the Affections to Earth

The promises given to Israel are immediately transferred to the church.

For example he read Exodus 4:16:

Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him.

Then, without a pause he snatched up the clause “You will be as God to him,” and switching the pronouns he was ready for action. “You” became every person in the room that night rather than Moses from 3,000 years ago. “Him” became every person with whom you have any tension or disagreement. This is their standard operating procedure when moving through the OT.

They do not ask the most basic questions:

• To whom is this passage written?
• What did it mean to the original audience?
• How does the NT interpret this passage?

Prosperity preachers love using the OT because it was written to an earthly nation. What else should we expect from people who say, “Heaven is boring.”?

Identifying Prosperity Preachers
Mark #1: They Do Not Stay Long in a Single Verse
Mark #2: They Are Intentionally Vague
Mark #3: They Consistently Disobey Explicit Scriptural Teaching About Tongues
Mark #4: They Prostitute the Old Testament
Mark #5: They Assume Their Listeners Are All Born Again
Mark #6: They Ignore the Great Themes of Scripture
Mark #7: They Have an Aversion to Humility
Mark #8: They Draw the Affections to Earth

The man Friday night “spoke in tongues” twice.

If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must interpret; 28 but if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God. 1 Cor. 14:27-28

False teachers want us to think that they are filled with the Holy Spirit. How could the Holy Spirit give them power to do something against His own Word? When they do this, they write in capital letters that they are at best disinterested in obedience, and at worst they actively disregard it. And if they can blatantly step over the clear statements of Scripture, wherein do they prove themselves Christians at all?

Tongues in a setting like this is one more mark of entertainment. The music, the clothing, the language, and the theme all bespeak entertainment. Speaking in tongues is just one more added trick.

Identifying Prosperity Preachers
Mark #1: They Do Not Stay Long in a Single Verse
Mark #2: They Are Intentionally Vague
Mark #3: They Consistently Disobey Explicit Scriptural Teaching About Tongues
Mark #4: They Prostitute the Old Testament
Mark #5: They Assume Their Listeners Are All Born Again
Mark #6: They Ignore the Great Themes of Scripture
Mark #7: They Have an Aversion to Humility
Mark #8: They Draw the Affections to Earth

Their strength is in the shadows. Real light, bright gospel light would blind them. Therefore, they must take broad terms and coerce them into service.

If the verse says “children of light,” then they will shout and repeat “light” as if we all know that “light” refers to earthly comfort and riches. Last night he tried this tactic in lines like this.

• “I’m not going to wait 10 years for my breakthrough.”
• “God wants to make a difference between your house and your neighbor’s because you are children of Goshen.”
• “I am not under the circumstances. I am above the circumstances.”

What did he mean by those terms? They are fuzzy on purpose. In general, they are positive, or could be used positively. But the speaker and the people already have an unspoken agreement formed in their own religious culture, “All positive images refer to physical, earthly comfort.”

The cloud of their language serves another useful purpose. Who can rebuke them if they can always shift their meaning? In that respect, they are on the cutting edge of our post-modern world. Slippery language is the daughter and intentional vagueness is the mother. Many of the listeners know that something is wrong, but they lack the articulation to put their fingers on it. We should expect that because who can nail down a mist?

This vagueness is a strategy because clear logic and tight words are no friend to the false teacher.

But we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Cor. 4:2-4

Identifying Prosperity Preachers
Mark #1: They Do Not Stay Long in a Single Verse
Mark #2: They Are Intentionally Vague
Mark #3: They Consistently Disobey Explicit Scriptural Teaching About Tongues
Mark #4: They Prostitute the Old Testament
Mark #5: They Assume Their Listeners Are All Born Again
Mark #6: They Ignore the Great Themes of Scripture
Mark #7: They Have an Aversion to Humility
Mark #8: They Draw the Affections to Earth

Prosperity preachers cannot explain verses in their context. Taking a paragraph and opening up its meaning is as foreign to them as a time of silence in a modern church.

Friday night, for example, the speaker did use many verses. (Psalm 27:1-2; Rom. 8:28-30; John 12:46; 1 John 1:5; Exodus 4:16; Psalm 114:3; Exodus 10:21-23; Exodus 11:7; 3 John 2; and others) However, in each case he referenced them quickly, drew out some positive image, and applied it to the earthly prosperity of his audience. In each case, taking more time to look at the context would have disabused him of the meaning he was trying to cast on the audience.

When the plague of darkness came on Egypt but not on Goshen, he declared that we were all children of Goshen on whom “light” would shine. This was repeated for rhetorical effect at the loudest decibels. “Speak Goshen over your life. Speak Goshen over your family. Speak Goshen over your Children. Speak Goshen over your country.” Never mind that Goshen was the slaves’ dwelling—a kind of ancient squatter camp where one ethnic group lived in oppression.

Then he effortlessly applied another verse he had previously misinterpreted with this line, “When someone is sick, they must be healed because you are a god to the world.”

Using the same hermeneutic as at other times, he had us open to Psalm 114:3 “The sea looked at it and fled.” He immediately interpreted the “sea” as anything that makes our lives uncomfortable.

Moving quickly from verse to verse may not be a problem in a rare sermon if the preacher actually knows what the verse is saying. But with prosperity preachers, they use verses in order to draw men’s hearts to the earth. Though I have heard them use scores of verses by now, I cannot think of a single time when a single preacher appealed to a verse without this intended effect.

In other words, no prosperity preacher teaches verse by verse through Scripture.

Identifying Prosperity Preachers
Mark #1: They Do Not Stay Long in a Single Verse
Mark #2: They Are Intentionally Vague
Mark #3: They Consistently Disobey Explicit Scriptural Teaching About Tongues
Mark #4: They Prostitute the Old Testament
Mark #5: They Assume Their Listeners Are All Born Again
Mark #6: They Ignore the Great Themes of Scripture
Mark #7: They Have an Aversion to Humility
Mark #8: They Draw the Affections to Earth

Our Lord warned us that many false teachers would be performing miracles, casting out demons, and preaching in the name of Jesus (Matt. 7:21-22). Peter, the leader of the apostles, told us that false prophets who love money would be very common as well as popular (2 Pet. 2:1-2, 14). John says that “many false prophets are gone into the world,” and because of this we must test every pastor (1 John 4:1). Paul warns us that false pastors “plunge men into ruin and destruction.” (1 Tim. 6:5, 9-10) The founders of our faith all warned us about false teachers. So who are these false teachers?

We have been warned, but most people want us to think that we must live in a cloud without any chance of really knowing who these people are. ”Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.” (1 Cor. 14:20)

Last Friday I went to another crusade—I have been to many in the past. But I tried to ask some questions during the evening such as:

• “Why are so many people tricked by this?”
• “How can the average Christian discern when he is dealing with a false teacher?”

To answer those questions, I have compiled a list of eight observations to discern when an angel of light is really a tool of Satan. The marks are ranked according to their danger. The worst are at the end. Secondly, not every false teacher shows all these marks all the time, but they all show many of these marks often.

We can know who false teachers are. We can identify them, and we must identify them because the souls of men and the glory of God are at stake.

Our Lord told us,

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 “For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36 and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. 37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Matt. 10:34-37

Do we love Jesus Christ enough to stand against those who twist His words?

I’ll post one per day for the next week or so.

Identifying Prosperity Preachers
Mark #1: They Do Not Stay Long in a Single Verse
Mark #2: They Are Intentionally Vague
Mark #3: They Consistently Disobey Explicit Scriptural Teaching About Tongues
Mark #4: They Prostitute the Old Testament
Mark #5: They Assume Their Listeners Are All Born Again
Mark #6: They Ignore the Great Themes of Scripture
Mark #7: They Have an Aversion to Humility
Mark #8: They Draw the Affections to Earth