The Lot Syndrome



THE LOT SYNDROME
Greed permeates our culture—not only outside the church, but within it. Somehow, we have found ways to justify it, “scripturally”. There are movements among the Body of Christ that have a mantra which speaks to our desire for more. One catch phrase of these groups is: “You possess what you confess”.  In other words, what we speak, we have. If we desire more money, a bigger home, a better car, or wardrobe—career, etc. it belongs to us, all courtesy of our words. We embody that power in our tongues. And, it sounds good, too. Scriptures such as “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” [Proverbs 18:21] and others are used to rationalize the theory that God wants us to have whatever we desire, right now, in this life—that’s the Lot Syndrome. It’s “green grass” all over again. It’s not seeing the forest for the trees.

It is a trap and it is an easy deception that the adversary has used rather skillfully against God’s people. Many of us have not had advantages of education, careers and the comforts of life so we now are finding ways to justify and rationalize greed, scripturally. There is nothing wrong with hard work, and there is nothing inherently wrong, with having nice things—even the finer things in life, but there is something wrong with having them, before meeting the basic needs of our brothers and sisters. Instead, we use these mantras and twisted scriptures to blame them for the fault that belongs at our feet. Real Kingdom living, is not having whatever you want, it is investing back into the Kingdom—and into people that God calls so that they can invest in others, and so on, so that the Kingdom can continue to grow. It isn’t, nor has it ever been accumulating vast amounts of wealth for one’s self. That was never God’s plan—He always made provisions for everyone—including “the poor, the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger among you”. God’s command to provide for the disenfranchised was always without strings, “bootstraps” and expectations but simply a command to give because He has blessed you with the ability to give.

God never promised any of us that we could have whatever we desire, unconditionally. The problem that we are confronting today is a lack of scriptural context. The other problem that we have is a lack of understanding of the origins of the current doctrine of the “Name It, Claim It Movement”. For those who believe its foundations are scriptural, they are not; its foundations are medieval, and skillfully woven by satan who watched and waited for opportunities to trap the apple of God’s eye—and we fell (and continue to fall) for his tactics hook, line and sinker, because they appeal to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye—and the pride of life. It works, and it is easy. It works well on people, who have come through the ravages of slavery, Reconstruction, the Depression, and more recently a sagging economy, and a fiscal crisis. With a twinkle in our eyes, we grasp eagerly at the magic of an incantation that will get us whatever we want.

Some years ago, I read two Christian novels by author Frank Peretti, Piercing the Darkness and This Present Darkness. When I read them, I thought that they were powerful; but I also had the mistaken idea that it could never happen in the African American church—that somehow, we would see through that trick and not be so gullible. I was dead wrong. We have actually been the most susceptible to the trick for the above reasons. In America, because African Americans have (for the most part) been the race who has lagged behind economically for centuries, we were most at risk for the deception. We were the ones who had the greatest desire to acquire more, simply because we never had it—our insight into the “good life” was limited to the images on television until the 1960’s, in general. And, it was right around that time, that the Word of Faith Movement began to explode on the scene in America—it had been there, but into the early 70’s it became more prominent. And, it appealed to us, with promises of health, wealth and prosperity. Still, the deadly plan was conceived long before that time, and here is a timetable to depict that:


Emanuel Swedenborg: “Grandfather of New Thought”
1688-1772
Belief in God as a mystical force, the human mind has the capacity to control the physical world, works-based salvation scheme—ideas that later became core doctrines of New Thought
Scientist and inventor. Born in Sweden; relocated to Holland in 1770 after his doctrines were condemned by the Royal Council. Later he emigrated to England.
Phineas Quimby: “Father of New Thought”
1802-1866
Theory that the mind possesses the ability to create and influence. “If I believe I am sick, I am sick, for my feelings are my sickness, and my sickness is my belief, and my belief is my mind. Therefore, all disease is in the mind or belief.”
Clockmaker. Born in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Moved to Belfast, Maine and had an office in Portland where he practiced his healing arts.
Warren Felt Evans

1817-1889
Student & patient of Quimby. Prolific writer of New Thought material. He wrote: Mental Cure, Mental Medicine and Soul and Body . He was known as "the recording angel of metaphysics".
Born in Rockingham, Vermont. Writer and founder of a mind-cure sanitarium in Salisbury, Massachusetts
Ralph Waldo Trine: “Evangelist of New Thought”
1866-1958
Rejects the uniqueness of Scripture by claiming that Buddha’s writings were duly inspired. Trine advocated theological pluralism, (Jesus Christ is not the only way to salvation, and every religion is the same; further all organized religions possess the truth and one must find unity in the “Infinite”). Trine focuses on the moral teachings of Jesus Christ rather on the work and person of Jesus Christ and the cross—he rejects the cross and the Gospel as archaic  and irrelevant. For Trine, peace with God and higher knowledge are obtained by tapping in to universal laws and becoming conscious of of man’s oneness with the Father.
Born in Northern Illinois, Trine became involved with metaphysics after marrying and relocating to New York. He wrote more than a dozen books and became a leader and visionary in the New Thought Movement, eventually settling in Claremont, California with his wife, Grace, a poet. 
Mary Baker Eddy
1821-1910
Founded the First Church of Christ (or Christian Science) and published the Christian Science Monitor. Eddy started the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, in Boston. She was also a Quimby patient and shared his view that disease is rooted in a mental cause, but differed theistically.
Born in Bow, New Hampshire. Taught over 800 students in Boston her theory that God never meant for humans to employ medicine, medical intervention or hygiene. Her case being that Jesus never used them.
Charles Emerson
1837-1908
Founded Emerson College after attending Boston University’s School of Oratory where New Thought flourished  and many of the leading proponents both attended and taught. There he studied Delsarte and Swedenborg. Emerson was a minister in the Unitarian church. 
Born in Vermont, and raised as a Congregationalist, he began preaching in the Congregationalist church at 19, then later in the Unitarian church at Chelsea Massachusetts while attending the Boston School of Oratory and studying under his mentor, Lewis B. Monroe.
Charles Fillmore
1854-1948
In 1889, he started the publication, Modern Thought. Later he founded Unity Church and organization with his wife, Myrtle and they became the first ministers in the metaphysical church. Fillmore believed himself to be the reincarnation of Paul of Tarsus. He authored several books, including: Atom-Smashing Power of Mind, The Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, Prosperity, and The Twelve Powers of Man.
Born in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and having very little formal education, Fillmore was intrigued by mysticism at an early age and read many books on spiritualism, Eastern religions, and metaphysics. Later, he moved his family to Kansas City, Missouri, and he and his wife New Thought classes taught by Dr. E.B. Weeks.
Wallace D. Wattles
1860-1911
“Whatever may be said in praise of poverty, the fact remains that it is not possible to live a really complete or successful life unless one is rich”. Wattles wrote The Science of Getting Rich after studying various New Thought writers and formulating his “monistic theory of the cosmos”. Wattles practiced and taught creative visualization in which one uses his or her imagination to visualize specific behaviors or events (desired) occurring in one's life.
Born in Illinois, and lived in Indiana and Tennessee, in addition to authoring two books Wattles made an attempt at political office running on a Socialist Party ticket, in Indiana.
E. W. Kenyon: “The Father of the Prosperity Gospel”
1867- 1948
Kenyon was an evangelist, pastor and founder of Bethel Bible Institute in Spencer Massachusetts. Kenyon is the link between New Thought and today’s Word of Faith Movement. Kenyon combined New Thought philosophy with what was then contemporary theology and the Prosperity Movement was birthed. Although Kenyon’s writings reveal a level of critique against new Thought philosophy, they also demonstrate that, consciously or not, he incorporated New Thought teachings into his theological system. This is evidenced by Kenyon’s advocacy of positive confession theology, his deficient view of the atonement, and his elevation of human beings as well as his explicit teachings on health and wealth”.  D. R. McConnell, A Different Gospel: A Historical and Biblical Analysis of the Modern Faith Movement (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988, p. 45).
Born in Hadley, New York, Kenyon attended the Boston School of Oratory where New Thought was predominate.
“What I confess, I possess”.
John Kennington, who knew Kenyon stated that he recognized the strong similarities between New Thought (New Age) teaching and Kenyon’s teaching, and also stated that Kenyon admitted his leaning toward the philosophy. (McConnell, A Different Gospel, p. 25). 
Norman Vincent Peale
1898-1993
The Power of Positive Thinking; Guide to Confident Living were among the books written by Dr. Peale. Peale had no problem admitting his New Thought influence.  His books were widely read by mainstream Christians. Chapters such as:  Believe in Yourself, Expect the Best and Get It, Inflow of New Thoughts Can Make You, How to Draw Upon that Higher Power, How to Achieve a Calm Center of Your Life, How to Think Your Way to Success, and Change Your Thoughts and You Change Everything  reveal his New Thought philosophy on life.
Born in Bowersville, Ohio, Peale was the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, a Dutch Reformed Church (Calvinistic).
Kennneth Hagin: “Evangelist of the Prosperity Gospel”
1917-2003
Hagin mixed Kenyon’s teachings with Scripture to make his revelations acceptable to the church; the danger lies in the authority assumed by leaders within the movement. Because of their special and personal revelations they become immune to criticism to those who might be skeptical or have questions. In his book How to Write Your Own Ticket with God, Hagin claims that Jesus’ appeared to him with the message: “Say it. Do it. Receive it. Tell it.” He reported various incidents of encounters with Jesus, as well as dying and seeing the horrors of hell, in 1933. He was so immersed in the teachings of E.W. Kenyon that he was accused of plagiarizing his writings. Hagin believed that Jesus wasn’t unique in His designation as God incarnate: stating, “Every man who has been born again is an incarnation and Christianity is a miracle. The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth”.
  
Born in McKinney, Texas; moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1966. Evangelist, pastor. 
Founded Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Rhema Correspondence Bible School; Word of Faith magazine; established the RHEMA Prayer and Healing Center  and Kenneth E. Hagin Ministries.

By the standards of the current Prosperity Movement, those listed among the most faithful in the 11th chapter of Hebrews would be faithless--with so much suffering. Peter's very elect saints by today's standards, would be condemned as unbelieving, being oppressed, enslaved, and often tortured, too. How different is today's gospel, in contrast!
 
It isn't a new "revelation"--just post-biblical (and anti-biblical), nor is it godly


1 John 2 King James Version (KJV)

1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.
Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.
He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.
10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
11 But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
12 I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.
13 I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.
14 I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.
15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
20 But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.
21 I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
24 Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.
25 And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
26 These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.
27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
28 And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
29 If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.

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