Joyce Meyer recently said:
“I’ve got fire in my belly tonight because I know that there’s power in life… in right words, that words are containers fro power. And I don’t care what kind of a mess you’ve got. I am begging you tonight to stop talking about it and start talking about what the word says what you can have. Make yourself a list. Do some homework. Make sure you’ve got a Scripture to back up every one of your confessions. We’re not talking about some magic, goofy, weird new-age thing. I’m talking about doing what the Bible says, calling those things that be not as though they are, prophesying to dead the dry bones in your life. ‘O you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’ Maybe you need to get your checkbook out and say, ‘O you checkbook, hear the word of the Lord. You are not going to stay empty all of your life!’”
Yeah, except it is some magic, goofy thing. And just because Joyce says it isn’t doesn’t mean it’s not.
In Ezekiel 37, God told, Ezekiel to prophesy over a valley of dry bones and they came to life.
“Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live and know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:1-10)
This is a vision concerning the Gospel. The Bible says we are dead in our sins and it is the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that brings us from death to life – the Good News – that in Christ, our sins are forgiven and we have peace with God.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our sins, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:1-10)
Joyce twists the message that saves into a message of financial prosperity. People cheer because she’s telling them what they want to hear.
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. (2 Timothy 4:3)
She and other “Name It and Claim It” preachers are liars and thieves.
Romans 4:17 says,
God… gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
He does that, through His Son, Jesus Christ… when we understand the text.
