Another Doctor Who Would Be King
A man’s friend joins Redemption Church led by “Dr.” King and his wife, and the man is still lamenting this event eight years later. We help him to see, not only the error of the religious doctor and his work, but his own error that keeps him bound in darkness.
We received the following inquiry:
Subject: Redemption Church – “Dr.” Ed King
I wonder if you could look into this church to see if they are sound. I have lost a good friend to this church and I worry about him.
Thad
Paul responded:
Hi Thad,
The Redemption Church is just another of the many thousands of the works of men promoted by a false teacher who appeals to manmade credentials (“Dr.” King). The servants of God never call themselves “Doctor” or “Rabbi” or “Father,” as you can see for yourself in the Scriptures.
Look at this blurb under Meet the Pastors:
“Ed King
Ed King is the founder and senior pastor of Redemption Church, a thriving, growing church located in Knoxville, Tennessee. In addition to pastoring and supervising the church staff, Dr. King is president of the Power of the Word television outreach ministry. The show is broadcast nationally and internationally with access to over 1 billion viewers. He resides in Knoxville along with his wife and Co-Pastor, Nora, and their daughter, Laren. Dr. King has done extensive travel in over 60 countries, teaching and preaching the gospel, as well as conducting leadership conferences and evangelistic meetings around the world. He has ministered in large crusades where thousands have received salvation and healing. His strong anointing to teach faith has encouraged and strengthened many in the body of Christ. Pastor King is known to many as a pastor’s pastor and has great insight into church life. He has also been instrumental in helping to plant various new churches.
Dr. King’s knowledge and experience in church leadership has resulted in him teaching and training on leadership in many different settings. These teachings are valuable not only in the church setting, but in all areas of life. God has given him wisdom and insight in helping people with personal finance. He has authored three books: ‘Beyond Faithfulness Into Loyalty’, which is being used by pastors and Bible Schools, ‘Cause & Effect‘, which teaches us on staying free from the curse, and ‘How to be Twice as Happy‘, which is also used in Bible schools.”
Do you hear the boasting? Do you hear the claims to fame based on a man’s righteousness, his many fine qualities and accomplishments? When do you hear these things coming from the lips of any true man of God in the Scriptures – ever?
“On my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses… so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me” (2 Corinthians 12:5-6 ESV).
Ed is precisely what the Lord was talking about in the following two passages:
“And He said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God’” (Luke 16:15 MKJV).
“I have come in My Father’s Name, and you do not receive Me. If another shall come in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe, you who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes from God only?” (John 5:43-44 MKJV)
The man is a liar and isn’t to be trusted. He says of his television outreach ministry, “The show is broadcast nationally and internationally with access to over 1 billion viewers.” While that may be true, it can also be said of any website, because all of them have worldwide access. Ed broadcasts his sermons from http://www.poweroftheword.com/broadcast.html.
And what about having a co-pastor wife, “rededicated to the Lord” at a Billy Graham crusade and ordained by men? See Diabolical Doctrine: Women Are Ministers of God in Spiritual Authority over Men.
Regarding this false teacher and his church, how have you lost your “good friend” – over what issue or in what way? Can you tell us more?
This we can tell you: If you will be a friend to God, then you’ll not be retaining the friendship of those who go whoring after the world in its religious ways and practices.
“Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever desires to be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4 MKJV).
That’s why Jesus entrusted Himself to no man:
“But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all and did not need that anyone should testify of man. For He knew what was in man” (John 2:24-25 MKJV).
If you don’t take up the cross and follow the Lord, you’ll remain in and of the world. But if you take up the cross and follow Him, your friends and family will become those who walk with God:
Mark 3:33-35 MKJV
(33) And He answered them, saying, “Who is My mother, or My brothers?”
(34) And He looked around on those who sat about Him, and said, “Behold My mother and My brothers!
(35) For whoever does the will of God, the same is My brother and My sister and My mother.”
This isn’t to say you can’t have good relations with those in the world, but they simply won’t be your intimates because of a profound difference in nature and separation by the cross of Christ.
“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world–our faith” (1 John 5:4 ESV).
Read The Cross – Only the Death Sentence Will Avail.
Also, have you red The True Marks of a Cult and Diabolical Doctrines? You could share these with your friend, but it would be better not to do so before becoming acquainted with what’s in them yourself. The first place the sword of the Lord is needed is in circumcising our own hearts.
Thad replied:
Hi, Paul,
Thanks for getting back to me in such a timely manner.
I was young (and naive) in my christian walk about 8 years ago. I had a friendship with man through work which quickly grew into a family friendship. They attended a different church while we became members of a come as you are church which focused on expository preaching. At that time, I was unaware of the many churches with perverted doctrines. My friend and I continued to grow in Christ and share our growth experiences when one day he asked me to watch a live simulcast on the internet. Still naive, I said I would try and then forgot about it. While at my desk several weeks later, I suddenly remembered and it just happened to be 10 minutes before the program started. It was a man named Andrew Wommack located somewhere in the Southwest. After I listened, something was just not feeling right and I started looking him up on the internet. That is when a bunch of alarms started going off.
I reached out to my friend afterwards by simply saying that he needed to be careful. He got very argumentative and we started in on this debate via email when it finally reached a point that he refused to contact me in any way. That was 6 years ago and I have prayed for him on a regular basis. He is a good soul and has a great family and I hate to even think about the crushing blow he will receive once his house of cards comes crushing down.
After the incident, I started reading several books by MacArthur, Henegraff, and others. I have also researched his pastor hoping to find something that would speed up the process of exposing him. It kills me to think that he is leading so many sheep astray and I feel that I need to do all that I can.
Thad
Paul wrote back:
Hi Thad,
You haven’t asked anything in your most recent letter, but we feel obliged to alert you to your present state. You’ve taken the altogether wrong approach to your former friend and his present church, along with its pastor. You say the pastor is responsible for many sheep being deceived, but those “many” (such as your friend) aren’t the sheep of God. To presume so is great error, because they’re mainly the tares spoken of in the Bible, gathered together by the design of Almighty God.
Matthew 13:37-43 EMTV
(37) He answered and said to them: “He that sows the good seed is the Son of Man.
(38) And the field is the world, and the good seed, these are the sons of the Kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the evil one.
(39) The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.
(40) Therefore just as the tares are gathered and burned with fire, thus it will be at the end of this age.
(41) The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and those who work iniquity,
(42) and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
(43) Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
To oppose the gathering of tares is to oppose the work God is doing by bringing the false ones together for judgment. (To oppose their error and expose their lies is another thing altogether, however, particularly if we do so by the Spirit of God.)
Is your friend indeed a true believer? Here’s what the Lord, on Whom your friend professes to believe, has to say:
John 10:3-5 MKJV
(3) “The doorkeeper opens to him, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
(4) And when he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him. For they know his voice.
(5) And they will not follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
“He who is of God hears God’s Words. Therefore you do not hear them because you are not of God” (John 8:47 MKJV).
Here are the Scriptures that apply, which you need to take to heart:
2 Thessalonians 2:7-12 EMTV
(7) For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He Who now restrains will continue until one comes out of the midst.
(8) And then the lawless one will be unveiled, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth, and will destroy by the brightness of His coming,
(9) whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,
(10) and in all deception of unrighteousness among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
(11) And because of this, God will send them strong delusion, in order for them to believe the lie,
(12) so that they all might be damned who did not believe the truth, but delighted in unrighteousness.
If God has sent the strong delusion on your friend and his companions through the pastor of Redemption Church and the likes of Andrew Wommack (see God Is Sovereign: Man Is Presumptuous), why are you pining after a sinner (“no man is good”) who has been brought under judgment, unless you’re a tare as well? In which case, you need to hear the True Gospel and repent rather than concerning yourself with the speck in others’ eyes. You’ve passed off this concern as the righteous love of God, but He doesn’t see it that way at all. It is the lust of the flesh in all its glory.
Aren’t you aware that Hanegraaf (Bible Worship Used by Men to Cover Evil) and MacArthur (Presuming Carnal Knowledge Is Godly) are also false teachers? The same goes for Carter Conlon (A Captive of Babylon and His Clone), whose video is the top entry on your blog. Sure, these men preach some truths, as Satan always does, coming as an angel of light, but you are enmeshed in the same works of men that your friend is, just another flavor. What makes you think you are escaping the judgment of God?
But unlike your friend, you are now hearing the truth. We speak these things not to your condemnation, but for your sake, to bring you to the awareness of your need of the Lord, Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There’s no life in your religion or religious works, such as the things posted on your blog.
Have you been reading at all on our website, Thad? It would greatly benefit you to do so, provided you do so by faith, which comes by hearing the Word of God we preach.
Paul
Sometime after this letter Thad’s blog was removed from the web.
And today (November 20, 2014), as we “go to press” with this posting, we see the following on Ed King’s website:
If that isn’t representative of Satan the destroyer – celebrating the birth of the anti-Christ by partaking of a buffet fit to induce a diabetic coma – what is?
See That Devilish Spirit of Christmas and Is Your Profession of Faith Vain, Christian?