If one puts on the TV and turns to BET usually late on a Sunday night, one can watch a myriad of “prosperity gospel” preachers spread a heretical message that financial blessings come from God and are proof of God’s care for man, and in order to “open” those blessings one has to give money to the particular preacher in question. For all of the legitimate complaints about “when in the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from Purgatory springs” from the Renaissance era, these people have noting on the modern American prosperity Gospel preacher.
There are many of these pastors in the US and, inspired by the American scam/business model, around the world. One of these is Peter Popoff, a German-born scammer who has for decades ran commercials and had “revivals” where he promotes his “miracle spring water” and claims miraculous healings for those who imbibe or use it however they do.
This is not to say that miracles do not exist, or that there are particular charisms attached to particular objects. The problem with Popoff is that he is a scammer and dishonest, for he knows that there is no blessings at all attached to these objects, and it is debatable that he believes in God because he is known for making other outlandish claims and has been caught openly deceiving people by pretending that God speaks to him when it was a microphone in his ear.
Miracles are real, but they are rare and comes as gifts from God for specific purposes working with man for the benefit of man’s salvation. They are not something that one can force the hand of God to create, and they are not something that one can choose to have happen at a particular time, and they certainly are not done for selfish things. This is the way of Cabbalism and all witchcraft, which believes that one can force the hand of God to act by a series of words, objects, and rituals aligned in a particular order, suggesting that the objects are more powerful than He who created them. Anybody who does attempt to do this is not working with the hand of God, but is attempting to summon devils who do not perform true “miracles”, but manipulations of the world due to their metaphysically higher position than the human race, and it all comes at the cost of one’s own soul.
The scammer’s commercials have been on television for years, but thankfully the U.K.’s Office of Communications, also known as Ofcom, has intervened in Mr. Popoff’s legal scam by imposing upon a satellite television service provider a fine of over $32,000 for airing Popoff hawking his “miracle spring water”.
“Ben TV broadcast Peter Popoff Ministries, a program featuring footage from televangelist Peter Popoff’s religious services. The program contained frequent invitations for viewers to order ‘free miracle spring water’ and a number of testimonies from individuals who claimed, or strongly implied, using the water had cured serious illnesses, including cancer,” Ofcom said.
“Ofcom considered that the claims made in the program had the potential to cause harm to members of the audience who may have been led to believe that the ‘miracle spring water’ alone was sufficient to cure their health conditions and that it was unnecessary to rely on, or continue receiving, conventional medical treatment,” the authority continued.
BEN TV is describes itself as Europe’s first ethnic oriented television channel. Its programming is designed to “empower, transform and challenge the conventional perception of Africa, Caribbean and African-descendants in the Diaspora.”
In their assessment of the Popoff episode, the regulatory body concluded that “Greener Technology Limited did not take steps to provide adequate protection” to vulnerable viewers from exploitation.
“There was a material risk that susceptible members of the audience may have been improperly exploited by the program. Ofcom also concluded that the program promoted a product — the ‘miracle spring water’ in breach of the Broadcasting Code,” Ofcom added.
In addition to the fine, Greener Technology Limited was also directed not to repeat the program again and broadcast a statement on Ofcom’s findings. (source)
One thing that is noticed when watching Popoff’s commercials is that many of the people in his audience are black, and sometimes hispanics. He intentionally targets those communities because not only do many of the still believe in God in some way, but also because he believes they are easier to deceive.
When one reads history textbooks, one hears about “burning witches” or “burning heretics”, and while many people in the modern world will look and say “look at those religious fools”, it is the modern man who is the fool because he neither believes in God nor is he willing to fight to assert that which he believes to be objective truth.
I am not saying that one should just go out and murder people, or that fighting is good. To the contrary, it is absolutely critical to work through as best as possible, even if it takes many years, one’s difference with another. However, there is a difference between attempting to resolve differences, and openly promoting believes that are blatantly perverse or evil, or are connected to financial scams that manipulate the good will of others for personal gain and using blasphemy to do so.
It is true that the willful murder of the innocent and sodomy are both crimes which the Bible states “cry out to Heaven for vengeance.” Yet also one should not forget how Christ, meek and humble of heart as He is, flew into a rage only once, which was when at the temple he saw moneychanging, usury, and other forms of financial fraud take place. This speaks to the other two crimes against Heaven that are mentioned in Scripture, which is the oppression of the poor, widow, and orphan, and the depriving of the working man of his justly earned wages.
Financial scams in the name of God are as just as evil as usury. Yet this is also how Popoff makes his income.
There have been scams throughout Christian history- from Catholic priests/monks/nuns of bad will to Eastern Orthodox fraudsters and sodomites to the proliferation of Protestant Pastors preaching prosperity.
The message of the Gospel is repent or perish.
Popoff’s history of perverse criminality is evident. It is only too light of a sentence that he was finally removed from television in the UK, for his actions are objectively, in the historical and theological sense of Sacred Scripture and Tradition, worthy of death.