Who started the Charismatic Movement? Where did it's teachings come from, that are so different from what the Bible teaches?
Oral Roberts was the founder of our current charismatic movement. Every single charismatic teacher's teachings can be tied back to Oral Roberts. He was the one who started all the false teachings that are taught now; like that God wants you to be rich and never sick, that you can name it and claim it and treat God like a Jeanie, that signs, wonders and miracles are meant to be a normal every day thing in the Christian life etc. Here is something also scary and shocking, he wrote a "Holy Bible with commentary by Oral Roberts." Meaning he has footnotes essentially telling people what the Bible means on almost every verse. That might explain why a teacher I just heard said 1 Cor. 12 is meant to say "spirituals" rather then spiritual gifts and that changes the whole meaning of the passage. I wonder if he got that concept from the Oral Roberts Bible. :( He was an Assembly of God pastor arguing that a person cannot get any other spiritual gift until he gets tongues. That was probably a teaching of Oral Roberts that now every charismatic person copies without even thinking about it.
Here's my theory. Roberts started out genuinely saved, but then started to love money more than God and then lost his salvation due to loving money. Then he may have seen visions of Jesus but it was most likely demonic spirits telling him to teach all these things. Or then what he thought was God's voice telling him things because demonic voices in his head. Why would Satan tell him to preach the things he did toward the end of his ministry? Because it's a false gospel. It teaches people to believe in a god that isn't God. It teaches people to please themselves rather than take up their cross daily. Even at the beginning, when he was probably truly saved, he most likely still had a desire to get rich, as we all somewhat do. So he acted like he was doing miracles to get people to give to his ministry more. But he knew he was just acting. He was a very good actor for sure, but his miracles were not genuine. He knew people weren't really getting healed, but he acted like they were, in order to get more money from people.
I watched a tent meeting of his from 1955 where he is in Billings, Montana on YouTube. Of all the places to go why Montana? But to his credit he definitely was a great speaker. No one was convulsing and shaking at least in his "healings." But the healings he attempted were very minor, like a sprained ankle or healing partly deaf people. He asks after if they can hear and of course they can. They weren't totally deaf, just partly deaf. He prays for alcoholics to not be alcoholic anymore but of course no one will know if they keep drinking or not. I don't get why massive crowds could be that gullible back then. Partly the people just cheered because they were on television I'm sure. Maybe they were told to cheer. But he didn't actually heal anyone from what I could tell in that meeting. Anyways it still seemed from his preaching that he started off truly saved, as all charismatic preachers seem to, but then they get insanely rich from all the donations and I think they loose their salvation then due to loving money more than God. Paul warned about this: 1 Tim. 6:10 "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." I'm guessing that's what happened with Oral Roberts and Todd Bentley and Benny Hinn etc. For this reason I am quite glad I have never been rich and have never really wanted to be. I have always had slightly more then I needed, but not way more than I needed and praise God for that I think. Because it seems to happen a lot that when people are relatively poor and start out with God they are on fire, but then they get rich because they don't give away as money as they probably should, and they start to love money more than God.
Here is some about the life and work of Oral Roberts from an article online,
"Oral Roberts proclaims the Word of Faith doctrine, associated with the prosperity gospel. Oral Roberts and his family lived for over fifty years of donations from Christians, given for the work of God. How much of that money given to the work of God, is used for the personal benefit of Oral Roberts and his family?
Roberts had a luxurious lifestyle, he wore expensive suits and shoes, rings with diamonds and solid gold bracelets. He had a house in Tulsa and in Palm Springs ($ 1,000,000), flew in a plane through the country of 2 million and was a member of elite club (membership $ 20,000)
He taught that God wants all believers to be rich, healthy and happy. He declared that if you give money, especially donations to his ministry, that you would get a financial reward from God. He supported the Toronto Blessing and the "bartender" of the Holy Spirit Howerd Rodney Brown.
He is a great example for people in the deliverance ministry and healing ministries. He claims many cures, but there is no evidence of an apparent cure. (Deformities, missing limbs, Down syndrome, etc.) All of his healings are mysterious and undetectable, during his healing campaigns were the blind, wheelchair users and terminally ill not healed . More than fifty years of false claims, but the Christian world still has Oral Roberts in high esteem, despite the failures they find him a great man of God.
He said God gave direct revelation to him to support his ministry. Many prophecies that he expressed have not come true.
Oral Roberts claimed in 1977 that he had received a vision from God telling him to build the “City of Faith Medical Center”. He claimed that he saw a 900 meters high Jesus, who said that the city of faith would succeed. Four years later, in 1981, he opened the city of faith.
Oral Roberts said in 1983 that Jesus Christ appeared to him in person (not a vision) and told him to find a cure for cancer. 1986 Oral Roberts said God had told him "I want you to use the ORU medical school for my medical presence on earth." That he had to get $ 8 million for the institute because God would otherwise take Oral home. In January Oral made the call to the faithful and Roberts said on April 1 that he had received $ 9,100,000 from God.
In 1988, however, he stopped giving scholarships and in 1989 he closed the city of faith because of bankruptcy.
In 2004 Oral Roberts was in the program of Benny Hinn - This Is Your Day – in which he said that he had seen in a vision a dark cloud over New York. That would be a wake up call, in order to tell people that Christ would come soon. Oral Roberts was a regular guest on Benny Hinn and others on God TV.
All in all, he was nothing but a heretic who preached the Word of Faith doctrine, which gave a large contribution to this doctrine and the charismatic movement."
So from that I think it's clear he may have started out saved but lost his salvation due to loving money. Because if the real Jesus had appeared to him his projects would not have failed. It was most likely a demon that he thought was Jesus that appeared to him. "Satan masquerades as an angel of light." He lost his discernment probably when he lost his salvation due to loving money.
Jesus said in John 15:5, "Apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." I think that was what happened to Oral Roberts. He gained the whole world but lost his soul.
I pray, dear God, that anyone who has been greatly influenced by Oral Roberts will read this blog and will think twice about his teachings. I pray the blinders will fall off of people's eyes so that they will have eyes to truly see. I pray they will see past the 120 books he published and anything he did accomplish. I pray they will see the truth and the truth will set them free from all the lies that he taught. I pray that teachers who teach what he taught will stop and will teach the true gospel rather then the pleasing prosperity gospel. I pray you will open the eyes of everyone and anyone who reads this blog and that it would be passed on to many, many people. In Jesus' name amen!
May God bless you all!
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