Welcome to the Further Gospel Podcast where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I want to welcome our listeners on Apple and Spotify and those of you watching this on our YouTube video podcast format. As always, if you haven't already, please subscribe on YouTube. You'll get not only the podcast that's sent directly to you and notifications about it every time we release a new episode on Mondays, but you'll also get regular videos from us. We don't spam you, we send you free resources, and you'll see all week long the different interviews and teaching resources that are available to you here on YouTube. Okay, we're continuing with the gospel series we've been in. We've covered what is the gospel, which is very important, what the gospel is not, which is helpful for looking at things from counterintuitive angles. And now an interview with a special guest, my friend Pastor Conrad Mbewe, pastors in Zambia, but travels the world preaching the gospel. He is a man loaded with wisdom. He's tenured, he's been faithful, him and his beloved wife, their ministry resume really speaks volumes about their love for the local church and their family and the people they serve, and most of all the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so I got to sit down with him recently and ask him some questions about the devastating effects of the prosperity gospel in Africa and his answer and commentary on that question is going to surprise you, but also take us some places that don't just apply to people that are in Africa or countries that got sucked into the prosperity gospel, but things that apply to all of our hearts, no matter what country we live in. So let's jump in. This is my interview with Pastor Conrad Mbewe. Pastor Conrad Mbewe, so good to have you up for the gospel. Thank you. Thank you for having me today. Oh, yeah. I'm grateful for your ministry, and it's been a blessing. You have personally been such a blessing to me. And I wanted to ask you about something that you're very familiar with and uh that I get asked about a lot as well, but it's such a good uh experience to be on this side of it and hear from you because I think you've spoken about this particular issue for years and years. Uh, but the prosperity gospel, where you minister in Africa, you're in Zambia, but you minister all over the world, you've written extensively on the issue, and you see it up close on the front lines. Uh why is the prosperity gospel such a disease in Africa and why is it such a popular thing as well? And then I would love to hear just you talk a little bit about the the exportation of it even from America and why it has such an appeal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, um when I became a Christian, the the biggest challenge that had been there for uh a good 20, 30 years was uh liberalism that was coming into what we call the mainline churches. Uh, these would have been churches that uh had been initially evangelical, uh, with good gospel preaching in in the Western world. And so the missionaries that first came into Africa would have come with that kind of background. And therefore were given to evangelistic labors, discipling people based on uh the foundation of Christ and so forth. Um but somewhere in the 1970s, going into the 1980s, the the um conservative Pentecostal church came into the vast uh areas of Africa, including in my own country. And when I say uh conservative Pentecostal, you could disagree on the issue of uh post-conversion baptism with the spirit. You could disagree when on their understanding of speaking in tongues, yeah, but generally speaking, once that part was over, you could tell you are with brethren in the Lord. True gospel still preached. Yes. They preach the gospel and so forth. Yes, Armenian, but again, you know, you knew that the gospel was being preached. So in that sense, uh one could live with that. Uh but somewhere going into the 1990s, it's like the gears changed. And by the time we are coming to today, yes, uh complete mayhem has been unleashed on the continent. And often people try therefore to um separate that Pentecostal movement with what they would refer to as the charismatic movement. Um but I always say that one opened the gate for the Trojan horse to come in, and then after that, you know, the the enemy soldiers jumped out of that horse and they've been uh destroying what's been going on. So what's in due season happened has been the growth of the the man of God syndrome. And uh the man of God is really the center of everything now. So uh people have to go to his church in order for them to get the blessings from God. He is the man who is reeking with power. And and and so the whatever it is that they need, whether it's a job or what is often called financial breakthrough, whether it's a marriage partner or if they're not able to have children, whatever it might be. Yeah, it it's he's the person they go to. And um when they go there, yes, there may be some form of preaching, but often it's motivational talk that they end up getting. It might begin with a verse or uh a chapter here or there in the Bible, but it's really just a starting point. Um most of what is going to happen after that, you can't miss the fact that it's a beeline towards something that's missing in your life. Yeah. And this is the place to come and get it. And it's not long before you begin to see that um we have completely moved away from what church once was. And um, the reason this is uh so much the case in the context of Africa is that uh in the West there is some effort at arguing for that position either from some verses in the Bible or some uh effort to tie it up with some history. In our context, they don't have that history, and the whole thing is built on a cushion of ignorance and it's tied up with the medicine man or the traditional healer or the witch doctor, which is very much part of our culture. Um, if you go into the village, you'll find that the center of power is either the chief in the palace or the witch doctor. And often the witch doctor is more powerful because yeah, because he is the one who will be there uh dealing with your your needs that the chief can't handle. So the chief might be able to be an arbitrator in the course of some disputes. Yeah, but this person is the one who's now supposedly explaining to you why every time you have a child, your the child dies. Uh, and and he is able somehow, as he moves the bones around on the ground and throws in a bit of the blood of gods, finally tells you that it's your your mother's brother or something who's jealous about her and so forth. Well, that's basically what uh the so-called prophets are now all about. Yeah. That's the role that they are now playing in the context of the church in Africa. And it's all tied up with, at least they think, the prophets of the Old Testament. So prophecy is supposed to continue. Prophecy is foretelling, or at least mentioning things that people don't know. And therefore, we are the ones who now know what ordinary people don't know, ordinary Christians don't know. And so uh I was joking the other day that lift a foot and a prophet will pop up. In other words, they've become so common. So true. Yes, literally everywhere you turn. And the thing that you can't miss is that they are almost all young people. They will be below the age of 40, generally speaking. And it's clear that it's it's a fairly recent phenomena that's grown over the last 20 uh or 30 years. And they they found that this is lucrative, they found that you know here's a way in which you don't need anybody to appoint you. You just show up one day and claim to have the gift of prophecy. And who is there to question you?
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_01So that's definitely grown. And again, the witch doctor is somebody who makes you pass through uh a lot of uh means of healing you from incurable illnesses, at least so they claim, and that's again exactly what's happening in in the the churches. And uh it's it's really become an epidemic.
SPEAKER_00So the culture is set up for it in a way because they have the holy man myth or the so-called man of God, and a lot of the young people are seeing that it's lucrative, so you have a lot of the false prophets and the different people. I've seen I see a lot of them on YouTube or on Instagram or social media, and they have an entourage, yes, they promise that you know you're gonna if you're barren, you'll have a baby, if you need a financial breakthrough, it will happen. And then if you give them money, you sow a seed. Yes, that it will unleash God's blessings. Yeah. I mean, that's the crux of it for them. Yes. How do you combat that? So, what you're doing in Zambia, or what we're doing as a ministry, or what people, what can pastors do, what can people do? How should churches to respond, even the everyday person? Um, how do you counteract something that seems like it's a tsunami?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, well, uh first of all, um what we are grateful for is that generally speaking, people are beginning to question this. And part of why they're questioning it is because they're being defrauded of money. Uh, their women are being sexually abused, and things like that. The average person begins to question because this is not Jesus Christ or the apostles or the pastors that they had abandoned. This is not the way they were functioning or behaving, and so forth. So there are quite a number of people that are beginning to question this. Wow. So that is definitely a great help. Uh but secondly, it's the fact that what they are seeking for, they are actually not getting. So finally they get to the point, of course, they've lost their money, but they get to the point where they they begin to look elsewhere. And in disillusionment, we have the opportunity now to turn to the Bible and say, okay, so this is what the Bible actually says concerning the kind of issues that you are dealing with. And this is not just those of us who are pastors, but it's even our own church members who have been brought up on a regular diet of biblical exposition. They are usually the front runners who are meeting these individuals, beginning to help them, and then um pointing them to the direction of churches where they can genuinely be helped. That's fantastic. Yeah, so that's that's the way it it is. And then when they come, obviously we first of all want to deal with their relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Because most of them, they're not Christians. They were going to that church hoping that this one thing that they were wanting to get, they would get. And then they didn't. So they they then think, okay, maybe this same thing I will get from this other church. And so when they come, uh our argument or teaching that we give them is look, these are felt needs, they'll perish with you. Jesus Christ has come to give us eternal life. Amen. Through his death on the cross, through the power of his spirit, he transforms, he changes our hearts and lives so that even when we don't get these things, in the end, we have him. And he is the ultimate good.
SPEAKER_00So good. I'm so grateful for your wisdom and grateful for your labor and faithfulness all these years on the front lines of this issue. And keep going. Thank you. Keep going strong. Well, I hope that interview was edifying for you and sharpening and encouraging. I want to say a special thank you to Pastor Conrad Maywe for his sacrifice of time to pour out wisdom for our benefit. And as always, thanks to you for listening, watching, for sharing these resources, and for your support of our ministry here for the gospel. We couldn't do it without you. We're grateful for how God is using you. And if you haven't already, check out forthegospel.org. You can check out our team, the backlog of resources. There's videos on the video page, there is blog articles to read on so many different topics that we've written about over the years. And also, you can register for our special event. It's an equipping event on February 1st. It's an all-day Saturday with myself and Vodi Bacham. It's called Not of This World, and we're going to be unloading session after session that's going to equip you, your husband or wife, if you're married, your family, you can bring your teenagers, if you're an educator or a Christian leader, this conference is for you. It's going to be here in Phoenix, Arizona, specifically in Tempe. And right when the weather is getting freezing everywhere else, you can come and enjoy a sunny day on February 1st, and then stay the night and join us at Shepherd's House, where I pastor. Bodhi's going to preach both morning services. We're going to have a time of worship, and we have just confirmed as well that David Zimmer and the Sovereign Grace music crew are going to come out and leave music that weekend. We're so excited to fellowship and also to just rally around God's word. So you can register for that by going to forthegospel.org, clicking on events, and it'll be right there for you to get out here to Phoenix and spend some time with us growing in the Word. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.