That long introduction leads into this last delusion I referenced - hyper grace. It is one of the newer movements in the modern church and one of the fastest growing. The undisputed king of hyper-grace is Joseph Prince. Between his personal ministry and his church, his annual revenue is probably well in excess of 60 million dollars per year. Finances aside, the Prince heresy is one of the most insidious and the most dangerous. All one has to do is try and have a theological discussion with a Prince adherent. You have better luck getting through to a Jehovah Witness. It is by far the strongest delusion I see out there today. You can have a rational discussion with someone who believes in Word Faith or even prosperity doctrines. I think that might be because those false doctrines add something to Scripture where hyper-grace is leaven that has been interjected directly into Scripture. It fosters a different Gospel altogether, which Prince readily admits he preaches. It sounds so good to the itching ears because it reinforces the false notion that the law no longer matters to Christians. It sounds so correct because it uses every Scripture on grace to prop itself up. The issue of course is not with grace, which is at the core of sound doctrine. The issue is when grace is abused to justify false teachings that lead people astray from the truth. Not just the selective verses you like - the entire truth. The interesting thing when one follows the metamorphosis of Prince's preaching we can start to see the cracks in the armor when one insists on approaching the Bible strictly to prove your view is right. Joseph Prince's early preaching was centered on the plethora of Bible verses regarding grace and as such it was often difficult to spot the leaven. Now however, years later, he has been forced to start using the rest of the Bible and as he does we see one egregious mutilation of the Word after another - all claimed to have been given to him by direct revelation from God. Just this year we have documented the following absurd claims:
1) Ananias and Sapphira were unbelievers according to Prince. They have to be or else his whole theology falls apart. Because according to Prince, God doesn't punish believers.
2) That people who follow his teaching are part of the "Benjamin Generation" where God will provide five times the temporal blessings, five changes of anointings and that God will "serve you."
3) That God sent the flood as an act of mercy not wrath, because Noah was the only pure bred human left and God wanted to preserve humanity.
4) That repentance merely means to "consent to be loved."
5) That the warnings to the Church of Laodicea in Revelation 3 is actually speaking against mixing law and grace.
There are more but the point has been made. In order to continue to prop up his false gospel, he is now forced to create doctrine where it does not exist and make up the Bible as he goes along. When you start to peel away the layers of misinformation it seems that there are just some fundamental errors underlying his gospel and they deal with understanding the role of wrath, chastisement and reaping. Let's take a closer look at these and what the Bible says about them.
In Prince's teaching on the "Benjamin Generation" he claimed, as he usually does, that God has no more wrath because of the work on the cross. This is the closest he gets to the truth. We are not living in the time of wrath because of the grace of God. His wrath is coming though. God does not change and we know wrath is one of His attributes. Just ask Sodom and Gomorrah. Likewise however it is important here to realize that this time of grace is for everyone:
