From Greenville, South Carolina, we present, Let the Bible Speak. Let the Bible Speak is the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America, preaching Christ in all His fullness. This is Alan Kearns with you once again. Hello and welcome to the broadcast. It's good to have you here as we continue to let the Bible speak on some of the opening scenes of the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Having dealt with his baptism at the hands of John the Baptist, this week we have been considering the fact that the Lord Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit at the very commencement of his ministry. We'll be returning one more time to that subject a little later. Before that, we'll have today's commentary, our hot topic, which is the Health and Wealth Scam. One that's certainly appropriate, the Health and Wealth Scam. But first we have some music, and today we have Pam Dunbar singing as she leads off the broadcast with Spirit of God Descend. Spirit of God, descend upon my heart. Win it from earth, And make me love thee as I ought to love thee. Teach me to love thee as thine angels love, One holy passion filling my heart, And now for today's commentary. I said at the top of the broadcast we're going to deal with the health and wealth scam or at least an aspect of it. Mega churches are fairly plentiful in America. Now London, England is to get its first one. It's being launched by a Nigerian preacher and it's based on a theological scam. Nigeria is home to some of the most sophisticated scam artists in the world. They have carved out a multi-billion dollar industry by scamming rich or would-be rich Americans out of their money by promising them millions of dollars if only they meet the necessary expenses of having the funds released. In the case of the Nigerian preacher with the plans for the London megachurch, he didn't learn his skill from African scam artists but from American charismatics. And like them, he mostly targets the poor, not the rich. What they all have in common is their appeal to the need or the greed that consumes so many hearts. As with many of America's megachurches, the London church will be of the health and wealth variety. The pastor is Matthew Ashimolowo, and his congregation is currently largely comprised of people who stand firmly on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. He tells them that it's God's will that his people all be wealthy and healthy, and, like the rest of the charlatans of the same ilk who prey upon the poor, deceives his people into thinking that the divine wealth plan depends on their giving sacrificially to his so-called ministry. Ironically, Asimolowo has shared the platform with an American health and wealth operator called Creflo Dollar, who is rather derisively known as Dollar by name and Dollar by nature. Asimolowo's financial dealings have been questionable, to say the least, He was forced to pay the British tax collector over $400,000 after he and the charity that he headed, and that operated his church by the way, were found guilty of serious breaches of the United Kingdom's charity laws governing the financial operations of charities. In 2002, the charity was found to have made payments of almost $2,000,000 in breach of trust. That's a quote to companies owned by Ashimolovo. The Charity Commission found, quotes, serious misconduct and seized control of the charity after the church spent some $220,000 celebrating the preacher's birthday including the gift of a $140,000 car. It found the preacher had used the church's visa card to buy a $22,000 timeshare apartment in Florida and enjoyed free accommodation for him and his family, and that payments were made directly from congregational collections before they were banked. In other words, he was fleecing the people. As I've said, they're generally poor people. The poor and desperate are sitting ducks for sharpshooters like the health and wealth charlatans. In many ways, they are the religious equivalent of the poor people who spend what little they have buying useless tickets for the state or national lottery in the hope that their number will come up. The one practice is as evil as the other. Our church, the Free Presbyterian Church of North America, has a mission church in Liberia, where poverty is endemic following years of civil war and social upheaval. Even there, where unemployment is running at about 80% or more, the health and wealth practitioners are hard at work. Well, maybe that's saying too much. They don't really work. unless you count the con artists activities work. They're vigorously and rigorously depriving their poor congregations of what little money and possessions they have. They preach wealth for all, but they're the only ones to possess any of it. And always they ride to their degree of wealth on the poverty of their people. Where our national pastor in Liberia shares the needs of his people and works with his own hands to provide for his family, they let others work while they live off their contributions. Where he shares with his people any gifts that come from our people here in America, they take from their people and tell them the lie that this is God's plan to make them ultimately rich. There's nothing in the gospel of free grace to support such health and wealth claims. They are a way out Pentecostalist charismatic reversion to the superstition of medieval Romanism, paying for grace. Modern health and wealth preachers are on the same level as John Tetzel, the Pope's seller of indulgences. Indeed, they may be worse. They deserve to be exposed for what they really are, scam artists. who have found an easy way to live high on the hawk. Praise ye Jehovah, who from the beginning what He established in mercy maintains, founding, providing, protecting, abiding, Praise to the Savior, who constant remains. Praise ye Jehovah, who like as a father comforts our sorrows and quiets our fears. Cherishing, restraining, forgiving, sustaining, from the beginning to fullness of years. The January to March issue of the Let the Bible Speak quarterly is available. If you'd like to obtain a free copy of the magazine, you can write to us, or you can call us. Our mailing address is Let the Bible Speak, 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, South Carolina 29615. You may write us by email, and our email address is at Free Prez, F-R-E-E-P-R-E-S, L-T-B-S, at Free Prez dot O-R-G. Or if you'd prefer to call us toll free, you may call us at 866-877-LTBS, that is 866-877-5827. I trust we'll hear soon from you, and that you'll very soon be enjoying reading. the Let the Bible Speak quarterly. Today we complete our study of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Lord Jesus Christ at his baptism. We have seen that that action first identified the Lord Jesus as the Son of God and second equipped him for service. Today we will proceed to note that in the third place it presaged the outpouring of the fullness of the Spirit upon Christ's church. Now, as we pick up the message today, I'm still at point two, the Spirit equipping Christ for service. And I'm noting the implications for Christians of the fact that the Holy Spirit came upon the Lord Jesus, first, as He was in the place of obedience, and second, as He was in the place of prayer. So, let's turn to God's Word. When was Jesus filled with the Holy Ghost? At His baptism. Remember we looked at the significance of that last Sabbath morning? The Lord Jesus at that time was committing himself to fulfill all righteousness. In other words, he was in the place of obedience. One of the biggest obstacles to Christians enjoying the power of the Spirit of God in their lives, both in their struggle with the devil and the flesh and the world, and in their Desire to serve the Lord, one of the biggest obstacles is simply sin. You're not going to make God bless your sin. Disobedience to God, our greatest obstacle in having the blessing of the Holy Ghost on our service. It was when Christ was in the place of obedience that the Spirit came upon Him. And it is not for nothing that we are told in Scripture, Acts 5 verse 32, that the Holy Spirit has been given to them that obey God. The Holy Spirit is not a plaything. He's not an item on the church's entertainment agenda. The Holy Spirit is not given, as the charismatic seem to think, to make you dance and jig around like so many idiots and have so many experiences with the hair raised in your back and, oh, you've all these wonderful feelings and go out and you're unchanged. The Holy Spirit is given to the people of God to give them power to overcome Satan. Then power. to serve Christ with success. The Holy Spirit was given to Christ when He obeyed, but second, the Holy Spirit was given to Christ when He prayed. We are told specifically by Luke that it was as Jesus came up out of the water and was praying that the Holy Ghost came upon Him. Did not the Lord Jesus Himself say in Luke chapter 11 verse 13, If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask Him? I remember years ago in Balamony, there was a young fellow who had just been saved and he had been quickly snapped up by a local assembly of extreme dispensationalists and he had very quickly, within a week or two, been fairly well brainwashed and knowing nothing, yet he was pontificating greatly. One of the very first things they taught him was how sinful it was for a Christian to pray for the Holy Spirit. The idea was, well, you're indwelt by the Spirit, and that's all. If you knew the lives and the service of most of those people, you would understand the lack of power, because they don't pray for the Holy Ghost. We don't pray to be regenerated all over again. That's done. You don't pray for another experience of the new birth. That's once and for all. But oh, how we need to pray as they prayed following the ascension of Christ for the Holy Ghost to descend as promised. Jesus said, God will give the Holy Ghost to them that ask. In Acts 1, what were they doing? They were asking. In Acts 2, what was happening? They were receiving. Now the Spirit has been given to the church. Thank God He has never been withdrawn. But there is a necessity in the life of every individual Christian to know personally, as Jesus did, the mighty descent of the Spirit of God with power upon Him. How else are we going to live in victory over sin? How else are we going to serve God effectively and win the lost for Christ? If we don't have the power of the Spirit of God. But we may obey and pray with confidence, because the last thing I'll say, and say it very briefly, is that descending on the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit presaged the outpouring of His fullness upon the whole church. John said, John chapter 3, that the Father gave the Spirit without measure unto Christ. And it's only because he received the Holy Ghost without measure that Christ was able, fulfilling the words of John the Baptist, to baptize with the Holy Ghost. Christ is the head. We are the body. Do you remember how this is put in Psalm 133? If Christ is the head, it's only from the head that the blessing of the Spirit can reach the body. Now, the symbolism is different, but the meaning is the same in Psalm 133, where the Spirit of God and the unity in the body that He gives is, verse 2, like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments. At the end of verse 3, there the Lord commanded the blessing. Now get the picture. The Spirit poured upon the head. From the head it flows to the body. And there the Lord commands the blessing. In the Gospels, We've read them this morning. We read of the anointing of the head. In Acts chapter 2, you read how the anointing reaches the body. And because the anointing has reached the body, every man and woman who is in union with Jesus Christ has a right to the fullness of the Holy Ghost and of His power. If you're in union with Christ, you are not meant to live in defeat under Satan. You are not meant to live as the victim of the devil, as the hostage of your own lusts. As the plaything of the world, you are meant to live in the victory of your living Christ by the very same method and power that He had, namely the power of the Spirit of God. And if you are living in union with Christ, you are not meant to serve without power. You're not meant to go out there afraid to open your mouth for Christ, unable to sow the gospel seed. And if you sow it, expect nothing to happen. You are meant, if you're living in union with Christ, to have the power of the Spirit of God upon you to serve Him. Your life can count for God. Your service can count for God. And whether you can count up all the benefits and blessings that God confers upon the world through your service in life or not is immaterial. We are all going out to that great day where we'll meet the Lord. And what I said of preachers will be true generally of us all when we bring up what we have lived for before the Lord. It's either going to stand the test of the judgment day or it's not. What a tragedy to live your life for 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 years and have nothing to show for it. What a tragedy! How many people are going out that way? Sea of people, but have nothing to show for their lives, or very little. Men and women, it ought not so to be. The Holy Spirit has come. He has anointed our living head. From the head, He has flowed down to the body. The Spirit of God has come upon the body of Christ as it came upon the head of Christ. In other words, there is power for us to live right, and there is power for us to serve with effectiveness. in the sphere in which God has placed us. Trust this morning that you'll see that the basis, if you don't get this, you'll get absolutely no good out of anything I said today. If you do get this, it will all come together. I trust that you will see that the only basis for your experience of the Spirit It's not your mystical temperament. It's not your ability, as some preachers tell you, to visualize. The basis of your experience of the Holy Ghost is union with Christ. He's the head, we're the body. Union with Christ, the basis for our assurance that the Spirit of God and His power are as much for us as they were for our Savior. May God turn our eyes upon our Christ and upon our union with Him. Bring us to that place of obedience and that place of prayer where receiving the Holy Ghost I like a dove, for he will not dwell where the blood has not cleansed. But coming like a dove, or to change the figure, to use the Old Testament figure, where the blood has cleansed, the oil will come with power. The Holy Ghost will dwell upon us, fill us, Give us victory and use us for the honor of our great God and Savior. You have been listening to Let the Bible Speak, the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. I hope that you found today's broadcasting a blessing to your heart. If you'd like to email us, our email address is ltbs at freeprez.org. Or if you'd prefer, you may write us at Let The Bible Speak, 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, South Carolina, 29615. We would love to hear from you. If you'd like to know how to be saved and how to be sure you're saved, we'd like to send you my booklet, A New Beginning, and I think that you'll find it very helpful. Each quarter we publish a free full-color magazine, Let the Bible Speak Quarterly, with a good variety of Bible teaching and testimony. It's available to all who request it. If you'd like to receive more information about the Free Presbyterian Church of North America and its ministry, We'd like to send you our booklet, Separated Unto the Gospel. Or if you'd like to have tape or CD copies of the messages here in Let the Bible Speak, you may have them by contacting us. Or you may visit us on the web at letthebiblespeakradio.com. Now that's a lot of information to digest all at once, but you can find it all on our website, LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. There you'll be able to listen to and download our programs, visit our online bookstore, and read a text version of each day's commentary. So visit us today at LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. This is Alan Kern saying, thank you for listening. I trust that you'll join us each day at this time, Monday through Friday, as we let the Bible speak.