Joseph Prince: Teacher of False Doctrine!

(Excerpt from article: The End Time)

On the Asian continent there is a man called Joseph Prince. He is 50 years old, and is the senior pastor of New Creation Church in Singapore, one of Asia's biggest churches. His website states that 30,000 attend weekly. His TV program Destined to Reign is broadcast in more than 150 countries. He has preached at Joel Osteen's Lakewood facility in Houston, at Hillsong's facility in Australia, as well as in South Africa at the Two Days of Hope Conference. Joseph Prince is big.

Joseph Prince's teachings are bad.

He is a rising star in the Word of Faith movement but has been more successful in crossing over into conservative evangelicalism, says Pastor and discernment specialist Justin Peters.

"He is very articulate. He goes deeper than Joel Osteen, deeper than Osteen's happy talk and platitudes. He has some working knowledge of the biblical languages. A lot of people who want to go deeper than Osteen, they turn to Joseph Prince. He takes many things out of context and flat out stating things as fact that factually are not true. He twists the doctrine of grace, takes it to extremes, often been charged with being antinomian (against the Law), holding a distorted view of grace, preaches easy beliefism along with the prosperity gospel. He is definitely a false teacher." (source)

Here is a specific example of how Prince distorts grace. Prince was on stage with Joel Osteen and Osteen's wife Victoria on TBN television in October 2012. There, Prince misdefined repentance. He said,

"The word repentance is from the Greek word metanoia, which literally means change your mind. Preaching the word without using the word repentance, people's minds are being changed all the time From thinking negatively to thinking positively."

So in effect Prince was teaching that if we go from being a negative thinker to a positive thinker, we have repented. Mr Peters explains Prince's mistake in the clip I'd linked to above that,

"there is a grain of truth there. The word repent does come from the Greek metanoia and it does mean to change one's mind. But it's not from going from pessimist to optimist. Genuine repentance is a change of mind but it is granted by God and results in a change in your heart, in your whole being. Not just being a more optimistic person but an acknowledgement of being a sinner, that sin is heinous, and understanding the holiness of God. When God grants repentance, our mind changes and our heart changes. There is a fruit from that repentance. John said we will bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Not that we work to repent but when God grants it there will be fruit in our lives appropriate with repentance. Prince has a minimalistic and distorted view of repentance." (Source, Peters above).

Here comes the part of the precursor to the antichrist's lie (that he is God and deludes the whole world). Joseph Prince preaches that you can pronounce yourself clean. In his devotional this week, he wrote,

"You see, as believers, when we received Jesus, His blood cleansed us from sin as well as sickness. (Isaiah 53:4–5) But we keep hearing people pronounce sin, sickness, poverty and death over us. We keep hearing people tell us that we are unclean, undeserving, poor, weak, and that it is only natural that we grow old and sickly, and die. God is waiting for a priesthood that will rise up and pronounce His people clean!"

First: Jesus did not clean us from sin and sickness. He forgave our sins, and He cleaned us from the influence of sin and sickness. Only Jesus is free from sin and sickness. We won't be free from sin and sickness until we receive our resurrected body at the rapture. That's why we need the Holy Spirit now on earth, to help us resist sin. We are not free yet because we live in the same sinful flesh as we lived in when we were born and before we came into repentance and into Christ's atoning kingdom. Philippians 1:29 reminds us that it has been granted to us to suffer. So does Peter in 1 Peter 4:12. There are many verses which remind us that it is our portion to suffer these things.

Second: I don't hear 'people' telling me I am poor, weak and unclean. I don't go around telling my friends they are poor, weak, or unclean. I usually tell them they are great, smart, successful and powerful. And they tell me the same. It is what people do. Who I actually hear telling me I am poor, weak, and unclean is Jesus, in the bible. His word tells us that we are these things, even after salvation. Yes, post-salvation we're His children, heirs of His kingdom, but we are not free from sin yet, and therefore not free from its effects. Moreover, we still live on a sinful earth with all its accumulated effects of sin. While we are on earth, we remain conscious of our sins. If we were free from sin, why would we need to pick up our cross daily (Matthew 16:24).

Spurgeon said,

"EVERY new man is two men—every Believer in Christ is what he was and not what he was—the old nature and the new nature exist at the same time in each regenerate individual. That old nature the Apostle calls a man, because it is a complete manhood after the image of fallen Adam. It has the desires, the judgment, the mind, the thoughts, the language and the action of man as he is in his rebellious estate. He calls it the “old man,” because it is as old as Eden’s first transgression."

Third: God does not wait for people to do things before He can get on with His plan. God is sovereign, He does what He wills, when He desires. (Psalm 115:3).

So you can see that Mr Prince has taken verses out of context and preached that our words have a power that they do not have. We are not little gods, pronouncing each other clean. Prince concludes his scripture twist by claiming: "God has cleansed you, so pronounce yourself clean! Right now, put your hand on your heart and pronounce good things over yourself. Say, “I pronounce myself clean, righteous, healed, whole and prosperous by the blood of Jesus!” By your word as a king-priest, every assault against you shall be settled!"

By His standard, we should be able to life a teflon life, impervious to the effects of sin, never having a sickness and prospering in all we do. That is some power that Prince ascribes to us, some grand power! That is the power of God, in fact, and it is the lie. We do not have that power. Satan wants us to think we are like God. He said in the beginning, "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5).

Satan is deluding great swathes of peoples that they have God's power to pronounce things that only God pronounces and thus be like God. That is the lie that is coming out of Asia.

(Excerpt taken from article entitled: "Why are there so many false prophets?")