Exhortation by Kenneth Hagins

Here are a few of the points Hagin made in The
Midas Touch:
1. Financial prosperity is not a sign of God’s
blessing. Hagin wrote: “If wealth alone were a sign
of spirituality, then drug traffickers and crime
bosses would be spiritual giants. Material wealth
can be connected to the blessings of God or it can
be totally disconnected from the blessings of God.”
2. People should never give in order to get. Hagin
was critical of those who “try to make the offering
plate some kind of heavenly vending machine.” He
denounced those who link giving to getting,
especially those who give cars to get new cars or
who give suits to get new suits. He wrote: “There is
no spiritual formula to sow a Ford and reap a
Mercedes.”
3. It is not biblical to “name your seed” in an
offering. Hagin was horrified by this practice, which
was popularized in faith conferences during the
1980s. Faith preachers sometimes tell donors that
when they give in an offering they should claim a
specific benefit to get a blessing in return. Hagin
rejected this idea and said that focusing on what
you are going to receive “corrupts the very attitude
of our giving nature.”
4. The “hundredfold return” is not a biblical concept.
Hagin did the math and figured out that if this
bizarre notion were true, “we would have Christians
walking around with not billions or trillions of dollars,
but quadrillions of dollars!” He rejected the popular
teaching that a believer should claim a specific
monetary payback rate.
5. Preachers who claim to have a “debt-breaking”
anointing should not be trusted. Hagin was
perplexed by ministers who promise “supernatural
debt cancellation” to those who give in certain
offerings. He wrote in The Midas Touch: “There is
not one bit of Scripture I know about that validates
such a practice. I’m afraid it is simply a scheme to
raise money for the preacher, and ultimately it can
turn out to be dangerous and destructive for all
involved.”
(Many evangelists who appear on Christian
television today use this bogus claim. Usually they
insist that the miraculous debt cancellation will
occur only if a person “gives right now,” as if the
anointing for this miracle suddenly evaporates after
the prime time viewing hour. This manipulative
claim is more akin to witchcraft than Christian
belief.)
Hagin condemned other hairbrained gimmicks
designed to trick audiences into emptying their
wallets. He was especially incensed when a
preacher told his radio listeners that he would take
their prayer requests to Jesus’ empty tomb in
Jerusalem and pray over them there—if donors
included a special love gift. “What that radio
preacher really wanted was more people to send in
offerings,” Hagin wrote.
Thanks to the recent resurgence in bizarre donation
schemes promoted by American charismatics, the
prosperity gospel is back under the nation’s
microscope. It’s time to revisit Hagin’s concerns
and find a biblical balance.
Hagin told his followers: “Overemphasizing or
adding to what the Bible actually teaches invariably
does more harm than good.” If the man who
pioneered the modern concept of biblical prosperity
blew the whistle on his own movement, wouldn’t it
make sense for us to listen to his admonition?