Steve Hopkins, the pastor of Burnet Bible Church, has had a long history of confronting prosperity gospel personalities. In this podcast, we identify some of the problems with the prosperity gospel in the context of Steves's personal encounters.

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Well welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture, and we'd like to deal with a subject that is related to that and that is the prosperity gospel. What is the gospel and what does the Bible say about this whole matter? The prosperity gospel, of course, claims that Christians will be rich and all they need to do is pray and give and it'll be returned to them. I'll never forget when I was in my twenties, I turned on the TV one night and I heard a famous prosperity gospel preacher in Southern California and the first words I heard out of his mouth were, it's not the love of money that's the root of all evil, it's the lack of money.

That was Reverend Ike, so they called him, very popular. And so, Jason, we're here to talk about the prosperity gospel. And of course, we have Steve Hopkins here with us. Steve, hey. Hey, good to see you guys.

So, we have Steve here because he, in a period of his life, became convicted that he needed to go personally confront various prosperity gospel preachers. Wow. Yeah, how about that? And he did it. And so he has some stories to tell.

You know, many people get disturbed about things, but they don't go to their brother. And I didn't say that to imply that these men were all brothers. But I felt like what Steve did was, it was both courageous and wise and he went way out of his way to do it. And I think that was a wonderful thing, you know, that a Christian man could do. So anyway, so we've got Steve Hopkins.

Steve is a pastor at Burnet Bible Church in Burnet, Texas. Good friend for a long time, represents church and family life in Texas, pulls pastors together. Dear friend, Steve, we really love you. Thanks for joining us. Great to be here and thankful for what you guys are doing.

Thank you, man. So you had the Lord stir you up back in your twenties to go do some personal confrontation. Why don't you tell us about it? Okay. And, and, I wanted to begin with just, just the, the, the quick, a quick note on the drive over here.

So just really, really wanted to, to speak to the, the, the people out there who maybe have been caught up in this. We have a tendency, you know, when I've told these stories of the past, I have a tendency to have people really kind of laugh. And some of it's funny, it's just bizarre when you hear some of the things that's going on, the prosperity movement. But these are souls that are eternal souls that are on their way to heaven or hell, and it's very serious. And I really want to just be mindful of that as I go forward.

And if there's anyone who hears this podcast and maybe they're in that situation or these situations and they're caught up in this, you know, maybe, maybe God will, we'll use it in a good way for them and get them out. That's, that's my hope in my, in my prayer. So, let's see, wow, there were so many. I went to Benny Hinn a couple times, the Benny Hinn Circus I call it, and it really is a circus. And to ORU, or to the city of faith, they used to call it, which I used to call the city of faithlessness out in Tulsa, Oklahoma, two times.

And then a couple of times also to Robert Tilton in Dallas, Texas, where he used to have this big mega church on Stemmins Freeway. But I think I'll start Scott and Jason with Tulsa, one of the trips to Tulsa, because providentially the way that God had it just unfold is to me, it was, you know, I look back on it, it's just, it was of him, I believe it was him, so of God, felt strongly, you know, I see this guy on television, Oral Roberts and Kenneth Copeland and all these guys and they're lying in the name of the Lord, they're saying things that are just perverse in the name of the Lord, they're saying things that are just perverse in the name of the Lord, dreams and visions and things about people and I'm just stirred up. And so I just really felt convicted, I need to go there and just rebuke these guys. I'm just going to go there and rebuke them and just give them scripture and all of your repentance. And, but I didn't have any money.

So, you know, I'm like, Lord, just if you want me to do this, just provide a way for me to do it. And then as I was thinking on it, I said, you know, if you want me to go, let there be a ticket in the newspaper, the Austin American Sazeman, because you used to have a section for tickets for shows and flights and all that, back when you could sell tickets and still go on a plane that way without it being in your name. And they, I opened up the newspaper and there's a ticket to round trip ticket to Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I told the guy, I called the guy and said, Hey, I don't have any money, but I've got this nice jam box. I trade for it's probably worth 50 bucks.

And He said, well, if I can't sell it, then I'll make you the trade. So I'm doing my carpet cleaning work at a hotel with Danny. This call, he says, hey, I want to trade for that jam box. Nobody wants to stick it. All right, so he brought it to me.

And the next day, I was on a plane, dropped down in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I get off the plane there, and there's just this like 15-mile, 14, 15-mile walk, or whatever, and I'm walking part of the way. I hitchhiked part of the way. And then as I'm going along there, I get on this city bus, just a second, I get on a city bus and you know it is headed down that same in that same direction to get as close as I can so I won't have to walk all the way and there's this stop comes up I get on and I have to tell you again, I still had long hair. This is after my rock and roll days, right?

And I had this little wooden cross in my Bible and everything. And I get on this bus, this guy gets on, and as I remember, there's only one seat left, and he gets on and he kind of hobbles down the middle way there and he sits right in front of me. After a while he looks over, he starts kind of looking around at me and he looks around and he goes, where are you from? I said, I'm from Austin, Texas. He goes, what are you doing here?

And I said, well, you really wanna know? I would always say that. You're like, you really wanna know? And they said, yeah, I really wanna know. I said, well, I came here from Austin because I'm going to Oral Robertsville here and I'm going to rebuke Oral Roberts and Kenneth Copeland and all the hosts of false prophets that have come here for the convention this weekend.

False prophets convention. And he was like, you're going to rebuke Oral Roberts? He said, and I said yes, and he says, he goes, We used to live in Southern California, and when we were living in Southern California, he said that we were watching television one day, and Oral Roberts comes on, And Oral Roberts says, there is a woman, he looks right into the camera's eye, he says there's a woman in California who has cancer. He said, my wife had cancer. There's a woman in California, she has cancer.

And the Lord told me that if she'll sell her house and donate the money to this ministry and move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, that she's going to be healed." He said, and my wife looked over at me and she said, that's me. He's talking to me. And he said, well, okay, well, let's do it. They sold their house and they gave the money to, this is his story, that they gave the money to Oral Roberts or to his ministry. And then they moved there.

And he said, two years ago, my wife died. And he said, I have nothing. I don't even have a car, so I have to ride the city bus to get around. So it was very, very tragic. But then he paused and he said, go rebuke him.

Go rebuke him. It just really fired me up more because I thought, wow, to get there, all the providential things that had to happen for me to get there at that very moment, this person turned around and speak to me and tell me that story, it just set a fire on me. So I went on and When I got there, there was a big rock out front, at least there was at that time, of their convention kind of area. He had this big hotel across the street that he had built. I can't remember if it was the Grand Ball or Grand View or Grand something hotel.

And then where everybody would stay. And then they had this big, like mini Coliseum thing that held thousands and thousands of people. And so there's a rock, big rock out there. One of his things that he came up with. And I just climbed up on that rock and I just started preaching over on my Bible, started street preaching from that rock against false prophets, you know, out of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, you know, they're speaking lies in my name, it's lying in the name of the Lord.

I have a commandment to speak what they've spoken. Their dreams are from their own imagination, they're not from me, etc. Etc. And so just preached from that. And then delivered actually some handwritten messages that I had made to the limo drivers as the false prophets came in with the Kenneth Copeland car.

This is, oh sure, the driver said, can you give this to Oral Roberts? Sure, yeah. So I had these handwritten notes. I wasn't able to see those two face to face. But then that evening, over at the hotel, they had a youth rally.

And so I showed up at that and Kenneth Copeland is there and Kenneth Copeland is speaking, he's spewing out all of his just horrific stuff, you know, evil, evil things against the Lord and prosperity gospel stuff and false things about God. They're just, you know, sending a shiver down my spine. And, but I didn't have the guts to go up and rebuke him in front of everybody. And so I'm like, well, maybe I'll get another opportunity. So he kind of goes off this little stage in this little room at the bottom of the hotel there.

And I walk out and there's a lobby there and there's just, there's hundreds of young people there. And this group of guys come around me and they, I look different than them all I guess, whatever They go, they go, they go, we from said Austin, Texas, what's your name, Steven? He said, what are you here for? I said, you really want to know? They said, yeah, we want to know.

I said, well, I came from Texas and I'm here to, to rebuke oral Roberts and Kenneth Copeland and all the hosts of false prophets here that are gathered for this convention. And these guys went ballistic. I had a group of these guys around me, some of them were doing the thing where they'll hit you on the head and try to cast the devil out of you and stuff. And I mean, they were literally saying, they were casting the devil out of me. We're gonna cast the devil out, you know, out of him, come out of him in Jesus' name and all this stuff.

And it just kind of really beaten me up a little bit. And I let them kind of just get worked out, work fizzled out a little bit. And then after they kind of stopped, and I said, you guys done? They're like, yeah. And I said, I said, well, I said, so, so one of two things has to be true here.

Either I'm not possessed by the devil. You guys aren't prophets with the power to cast demons out. Because I'm still saying the same thing. You guys are following false prophets. You're following guys who are teaching lies in the name of the Lord, and you also need to repent.

And then there was another round of the speaking in tongues and striking me on the head and all this sort of thing. That night, I remember I slept outside on the sidewalk. I slept on park benches there. I slept one time when there was a storm in a laundry room in an apartment complex. But one time that night, 17 degrees outside, bought newspapers to cover myself.

And then the next day, kind of went back. This went over a period of days that they had these guys coming in and speaking. So that was one of the trips. And then another one was to Benny Hinn, Benny Hinn in Beaumont, Texas. This one was actually, wasn't in the late 80s as that one was, this was in the 90s.

And it must've been right after I had begun to pastor because I remember there was a guy from our, that was attending the church. He wasn't a member, but he was a guy that was attending. And I said one day to him, I said, Hey, you know, I'm going to go up to this, to Benny Hinn here and his deal. They're doing an HBO special that I've heard and he's gonna be filmed by HBO. I said, I think I'll just go and rebuke him on the stage there in front of HBO cameras and call him to repentance.

And I said, you wanna go with me and drive and whatever and have accountability, et cetera, et cetera. He's like, yeah, man, I'll go with you. And he was kind of a hippie type and whatever. And like I used to be, and we're driving along to get there and the place is packed out. And we get to the outside doors there and they're not letting anybody else in so kind of walked around There's these glass doors the place and and it's like Lord if you want me to do this, you're gonna have to know Provide a way for me to get inside an open door or something and right after I pray This the guy came out the door and then we just zipped in.

We just zipped in, the door shut, and so it was capacity, but we were still able to get in. And I go in, get in this row, there's thousands and thousands of people, and then he comes out, starts doing all of this stuff and he always starts off with a kind of regular gospel message and then the circus begins and everything gets really, really crazy and demonic. And I'm trying to assess what I should do here. And I'm looking down, here's all these people on the floor. They have a section where all these people are in the front are like the people that are gonna be on film.

And then there's a section where there's no one there. And then there's the section of what they call special needs. And they're kept away from the cameras. And these are people, they're paralyzed, they're just tragic, tragic, tragic cases, just bring tears to your eyes. They never make it in front of the cameras.

They never get wheeled up on the stage. And it was just burning with just grief for them and everything, but at the same time, his lies and just the whole charade. And all of a sudden they start singing this song. Hallelujah, hallelujah. And they sing like 50 times, hallelujah.

Anybody feel the song? And so they're singing this song and I see everybody in this auditorium, everybody's, you know, got their eyes closed and they're all doing this. And I'm going, maybe it has a good time to kind of to walk down there. So I reached over and I kind of went, hey, Michael, Michael. And I turned around and Michael was going, oh no, oh no.

I just left him. I said, okay. I just went by myself. So I went down the floor there and just went up to one by one, was just going to these people that were in wheelchairs and just tragic situations and just went along praying for them. Not praying, of course, that they were going to be instantaneously healed.

Oh Lord, please help this soul. Please, please be with them. Please help them, God. Please deliver them and their relatives from this false, this false prophet, this false doctrine, and just just praying, just praying for them and and then I saw Solomon, I said you know I'm just gonna, I'm going, I'm just, I'm going right now And I started towards the front of the stage. And as I did, I saw a man come out, a man come out and had like the ear thing in his ear, whatever, and he has his eye right on me.

And he put his hand up in the air and he's kind of like this, some guys were over here, boom, there were guys all over me just, I mean, instantly, you know, and they were blocking me. They were like, where are you going? So I'm going to the stage. No, you're not. And I said, okay.

So I kind of backed up and waited and they kept an eye on me until the end. And just as they finished everything at the very end, I made my way around to the right-hand side. There were stairs going up to the platform there. And Benny Henn had just exited out the back curtain and I was able to get up those steps and I walked straight up to a guy, you can look him up on the internet, I assume he's still alive, his name is Steve Brock. And he was Benny Henn's right hand man, they did this stuff together, you know, knocking people down and all the stuff they do in their in their circus and and I just went up to him and and there were people that were trying to shake his hand you know from up on the stage and I just walked up and I put out my hand.

He took my hand, my hand. I said, I said, Steve rocks. Yeah. I said, my name is Steven Hopkins. I said, I came from Austin, Texas.

Said, and, I want to call you to repentance. Could you lying in the name of the Lord? You guys know you're doing it. You're Lying in the name of the Lord you guys know you're doing it you're lying in the name of the Lord You're saying thus saith the Lord when God has not spoken You're robbing widows houses and stealing from the poor and you're doing it in the name of the Lord and you need to repent You're gonna face God in the judgment one day and he pulled his took his hand just pulled his hand like I was I was holding On are he just pulled his hand on this and he goes don't touch me just like that And I just looked at him and I turned around. And when I turned around, he goes, turn back.

And I said, I said nothing, I just kept walking. He goes, I said, turn around. And then there was a police officer who was coming up the steps he was hearing all this going on he he goes he goes he goes the man's talking to you I said I'm not interested in what he has to say so if I've said everything that I want to say to him. And I went down the steps and the security guy followed me out into the parking lot. I went back, went out in the parking lot.

I lost the other guy. I never saw him again. I don't know how he got home. And I went back to my car. That parked away.

I had parked way out at the, because there was hardly any parking, but I parked way out in the middle of nowhere. And I'll tell you what happened. I walk out there and when I'm coming up to my car, there's one van that's parked next to my vehicle. And right before I get to it, here comes this guy and he's running along and he's carrying a wheelchair. And we're out in the middle of nowhere, this is not even very close to the place, and he grabs that wheelchair and he opens the back door and he throws it in and he turns around and looks at it and I go, you were on the stage, you couldn't walk.

And he just laughed, just broke out laughing, got in the car and drove off or the van drove off just crazy stuff so just a real shame how many people have been led astray and how much money these guys have made, you know, lying in the name of our Lord. Another one of the trips was to Dallas. I went twice to Robert Tilton. I don't know if you all ever heard of Robert Tilton. He was a wild one.

And we were at the house there with my wife, and again, he felt really under-convinced. I need to go and just talk to this man and, and, and call him to repentance and, and all. And, but I don't have the money to do it. So like, Lord, if there's something you want me to do, then I'm not to have some way to do this. And a guy called me, I was cleaning carpets again at the time.

And he called and he said, hey, the guy from this hotel, we were for, he said, I've got a sofa that has to be cleaned right now. So I can't come over there. So I'll bring it to you. So he brought it, put it on our front porch, cleaned this for him, gave me 40 bucks, used the gas money, and went to Dallas. So I get to Dallas, and when I get to this church, I use that term lightly, I get to this church where Tilton is the pastor, I meet this guy out front, and he's like, what are you, he goes, where are you from?

I said, I'm from Austin, Texas. What are you doing here? So do you really want to know? Well, I said well, and I told him I'm here to review Robert Tilton. He goes really And I kind of told some of the reasons why you know, it's scriptural reasons Why and he goes he goes, you know, you believe this.

I said, what? He goes, you are me five years ago, or so many years ago. So really I said, yeah, I was really under conviction that I should bring these things to them. But then I just fell back under the spell. So I went in and had sat down and there was a morning service and an evening one and I had went to the morning one, didn't have the guts to do anything yet.

I just was just very, very nervous. They had cameras rolling and they had thousands of people and I was just trying to get the strength to be able to go up there or whatever. And I'm sitting there listening and they had this false teacher there from England, as I remember. He was bringing a false message and I just was just, I just, I got up and I walked out and I went over to this, there was a gravel pit across the street there. I just fell on my face and just laid there and prayed for a while and came back in the evening service.

When I came back, there was that man and I said, I'm going down and I walked down the aisle, walked down the aisle and Bob Tilton was on the front row on the right hand side, if you're facing the front of the auditorium or facing the stage and I went down. He was the only one sitting on the front. There was no one sitting on the front with him and they had these little like desk type seats, you know, they had a little thing that you could put your Bible or something on and I went and I sat down directly next to him and he was just startled and the guy that was preaching on the platform stopped And he kind of looked over and then everything got quiet and then Bob kind of like this, he's like, keep going or whatever. So he kept going and he looked over at me and he said, what's your name? I said, my name's Stephen.

He goes, where are you from? I said, I'm from Austin, Texas. I said, and I used his wording that he would say on TV all the time. He would always say, I've got a message for you from God, like this. And so I said, my name is Steve, and I came from Austin, Texas.

I said, I've got a message for you from God, from God's word. And he just kind of stopped and kind of froze, he was looking at me and he kind of froze for a second. And then all of a sudden he just regained all his composure and he goes, well, Stephen, why don't we just step back here behind the double doors, get that message from God and see what he's got to say. That's what he said. It was so funny.

And I was like, all right, he stands up and he puts his hand out, you know, like, like this to go back to the two doors and this right hand side of the, of that stage platform. And I stood up and I'm starting to walk through it, walk ahead like that. And as soon as I do, he reached his hands up in the air and he goes like this. And then 12 guys are all over me. There were security guys all over me.

And they grabbing it. It was like slow motion when I got to the door, kind of stopped for a second, Andy, and it was like just slow motion, kind of stopped and I caught his eye. He got mine. I said, you deceived me. And he went like this, Bob Tilton, look at me, he went, just like that.

He just winked at me, he went, oh boy. Y'all know, y'all ever seen him on TV? He's the worst of the worst. I'm telling you, he was, he beat all of them. He beats all, He tops them all.

Anyways, he took me out into the back and questioned me. I told him. I told Bob Beeman, I think was the name of the associate pastor guy or whatever there. I told him, I said, this is why I'm here. You know, you guys are false prophets.

You're lying in the name of the Lord. You're saying, let's stay at the Lord when God hasn't spoken. You're robbing with those houses. You're stealing from the poor. You're doing it all in the name of the Lord.

And God's gonna deal with you. Eventually God will deal with you as he deals with false prophets. Amen. You know, Steve, you know, as we kind of wind up here, those are just remarkable stories. I know you have more.

And I praise the Lord for a man who, you know, acts on his convictions and speaks desires to jump through a lot of hoops to speak the truth to someone. Is there a text of scripture that you would leave us with just to help anybody who's trying to think this through? Is there anything that rises to the top? I know there are many texts that the prosperity gospel preachers use. You know, Jesus came to, he was poor making many rich.

You can be rich too. I know that's one of the classic verses. What, what, what, what, what scripture would you leave us with? Well, you know, in, in Hebrews chapter one, that the, the, the Lord, you know, spoke to us in times past, his prophets, but in these last days through his son. Something that Christians, and I was hoping to get this out, that Christians need to understand is that we've all been affected by this, the prosperity gospel and by their teachings.

We've been affected by it and we have Christians who are running around and know they mean well, they're saying God told me, God said, God spoke to me and then they're putting quotation marks around words that are not in the Bible. It's something that we need to repent of, we need to repent of. Deuteronomy chapter 18, I think it's verse 20, dealt with a man for three years in our congregation who was eventually disciplined by the church because he continued to put quotation marks around the things that God has not said and say, God has said this. God told me, God spoke to me, God said. And I know when Christians say this, many times they're saying, I feel really motivated.

I understand what God thought, what God impresses us to do things and he brings scriptures to mind, but when we say God said and we put quotation marks around us, that's like, you know, first Scott chapter one verse two, or first Jason, you know, chapter one verse two, we can't do that. We can't do that. So that would be another one would be the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not spoken, you know, that that prophet shall die and the death penalty was prescribed for false prophecy, for false prophets. So it's in the category of murder. It's in the category of some of these horrendous things for which the capital is what we deserve.

So I just would say, you know, for Christians to be careful, be very careful when you, how you present the convictions that you have in your life of things that God would have you to do. Do the things He leads you to do in accordance with His Word, but don't say, Thus saith the Lord, or don't say, God has said or told me this or that. Amen. Scott, I was thinking about 2 Corinthians 2, 17, where Paul writes, For we are not as so many peddling the Word of God. So this is not new.

Many in the days of the Apostle Paul were peddling the Word of God, were enriching themselves off of poor people and widows. So it's not new. I don't know if you've ever had the impulse, too bad it's not true, Too bad God doesn't want all of us to be wealthy and healthy all the time. It's actually not too bad. The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men.

What God is doing in the world to bring glory to Himself is better than that, actually. It's not bad news that the prosperity gospel is a false gospel. The good news is so much better. We haven't been cheated out of anything. And you know, the Lord has given us His word, He's given us a sufficient word, it's all we really need.

And you know, one of our problems is that we want something above and beyond what God's already said. And God has given us all we need. He hasn't given us all there is, but he's given us all that we need. And these false prophets are a tremendous illustration of people who want way more than God. And so Steve, thank you so much.

I pray that God would continue to expose these false prophets and that people would trust in a holy, sufficient, life-giving Word of truth alone. So thank you, Steve. Thank you, Jason. And thank you for joining us at the Church and Family Life podcast. We hope to see you next time.

Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up. Hope you can join us. Go to ChurchAndFamilyLife.com. See you