But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: - Deuteronomy 28: 15 (KJV)
This just gets worse for Mr. Copeland because the following 53 verses outline the curses God will pronounce upon Israel if they broke this covenant. So in the 28 th of Deuteronomy we have 14 verses outlining blessings for obedience and 53 verses outlining curses for disobedience. The blessings and curses are clearly dependent upon obeying the Mosaic law but for Kenneth Copeland he was able to pluck one Scripture horribly out of context and use it to pretend that God intended to "overtake him" with blessings.
So what is the harm some might wonder? Well remember that in these two examples there were tens of thousands of people listening to these men passing themselves off as preachers. For those in the Copeland audience we will end up with people chasing the temporal riches of this world instead of valuing the eternal blessings of God. You also could see many fall away when the blessings they were seeking don't quite overtake them as they had Mr. Copeland. In the case of Mr. Osteen, we have people inflating their vision of themselves instead of their God. Scripture is given to us to guide us but if it is misused then it can certainly misguide us. Realize that in neither of these examples was there just a difference of opinion on interpretation. Both falsely interpreted Scripture.
That brings us to our last example and the key verses for today. These two verses represent the Biblical story of a man named Jabez. He is never mentioned anywhere else in Scripture. The surrounding verses have nothing to do with him either meaning all of the context we can glean is right there in the key verses. So what can we factually know? Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother gave birth to him in pain. Jabez prayed for four specific things and God agreed and granted the answer to his prayers. That is it. Since all births carry some pain it is possible that his mother was dealing with either exceptional physical pain or she was referring to some other kind of pain - emotional etc.
In 2000 however, Bruce Wilkinson published an entire book based upon these two verses called "The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life." The essential instruction was to repeat the Jabez prayer from Scripture daily for 30 days and see how much God will start to bless your life. The scam is easy to see through because anyone who has anything positive occur will be told it is because of their adherence to this rote prayer regimen and anyone who does not see anything positive will be summarily ignored (plus they bought the book anyway). You may be thinking how silly this sounds but realize that 9 million copies were sold and this became an international best seller. It was the all the Christian rage and churches bought into the lie just like they would years later with the Purpose Driven Life and again today with The Circle Maker. It seems the body is quick to pick up any book of man over the Bible because they get to hear what their itching ears want to hear. This is your best life now! You only need seven steps to a better you! Enlarge your territory! God hasn't answered your prayers? Just draw a bigger circle and demand it!
For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. - 2Timothy 4: 3-4 (NLT)
We chase myths so quickly and easily these days. We do not even stop to examine how things line up with Scripture before jumping in head first. How big was the Jabez wave? It was converted into audio and video formats. Merchandizing included Prayer of Jabez key chains, mugs backpacks, Christmas ornaments, scented candles and an entire line of jewelry! Hallelujah - pass the offering plate! They then wrote a journal, devotional book, female version written by Wilkinson's wife, worship CDs, and Bible study. Three different children's versions were produced to target different age groups because why shouldn't a nine year old be able to demand that God enlarge his territory? Make no mistake about it, this was a big wave that produced big money and warped Scripture in a big way.
So what was the big deal? Well for starters - none of the premise is true! Once again, this is a matter of a mindset seeking a Scripture to use. Wilkinson clearly believes in the heretical prosperity doctrine that is poisoning the church. So he searched Scripture and found this story about a man who had his prayers answered. But why did Jabez receive a positive answer from God? What can we determine from Scripture? There is no indication of repetitive prayer in these verses. Additionally, there is no support for such a notion in the entire Bible. In fact, Jesus taught this:
