If you asked 100 people whom they thought was the most evil man who ever lived, the majority of them would give the title to Adolf Hitler. The one-time dictator of Germany earned the distinction by being history’s most documented despot.

Hitler is the one who started World War II – the most costly war in human history, which left 60 million people dead. He also implemented the Holocaust – the systematic persecution and genocide of the Jews and other groups he deemed “racially inferior” or “undesirable.”

All evil springs from a revolt against God. Satan is the leader of this rebellion. Hitler sought to destroy the Jews because the devil knows that redemption history works around the Jews. If he could eliminate the Jews, then the plan of God could be derailed.

The next most recognized evil man is Joseph Stalin. At one point, he was the head of the largest dictatorship in history. While Hitler let other people do his dirty work, Stalin was directly involved in the death of millions of people.

How To Get To the Top of the Evil List
The most shocking examples of evil are always attacks against the most innocent members of society. It is always an outrage to hear of children being molested, elderly ladies being mugged and the mentally handicapped being abused.

God is the most powerful being in the universe. He is also the most innocent, being completely free from sin. Anyone who attacks the Lord is committing the most evil act possible.

Someone can wallow in the pig sty of lust, greed, and debauchery and be evil. But until they pick up a lump of mud and fling it at the Creator, they have not truly been to the dark side. Why else would it be so common for people to use the Lord’s name as a curse word?

Satan loves to use men who claim to represent God as vehicles for defaming the Lord. Because the devil knows how holy God is, he may be hesitant to defame the Lord on a personal level. I don’t recall anywhere in the Bible where a demonic being attacks God directly. The devil leaves this task up to man. It is like the old saying, “fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

James Eugene Ewing
I recently discovered a man who has excelled in defaming the Lord. Over a 40-year period, he has rubbed mud in God’s face, and he has helped prevent millions of people from finding eternal redemption. His name is James Eugene Ewing.

Unless you found his page by doing a Google search for “James Eugene Ewing,” I’m sure you have never heard of this man. You would have a better chance of catching Santa Claus coming down the chimney than you would of finding footage of Mr. Ewing. He is the type of person who likes to hide in the shadows.

According to statements from his own ministry, Ewing was born in Texas in 1933, the son of south Texas sharecroppers. He served four years in the Air Force, claiming through his magazine that “many soldiers gave their lives to Christ with Bro. Ewing kneeling by their side in airplanes, in barracks or anyplace.” After his stint in the military, he chartered Camp Meetings Revivals in the Dallas area.

Ewing’s tent-revival crusades were focused on healing and liberation. A full-page ad in the 1963 Tulsa World announced a “Deliverance revival: Gene Ewing coming under one of the world’s largest tents.”

Despite having little formal education, Ewing managed to build a massive direct-mail empire from his mansion in Los Angeles. All his ministry mail is directed to a Tulsa post office box. Ewing’s computerized mailing operation, Saint Matthew’s Churches, mails more than 1 million scam letters per month, many to low-income, uneducated people, while Ewing lives in a $2.2 million, 6,400-square-foot home above Beverly Hills and drives a small fleet of luxury cars.

The Germination of Seed Faith
If you watch much Christian television programming, you may have heard a preacher talking about the “seed faith” principle. This modern movement can be traced back to a meeting that Ewing had with Oral Roberts.

In 1968, donations to Roberts’ ministry had plummeted after Roberts alienated many of his supporters by joining the United Methodist Church. To raise money, Roberts decided to sell the ministry’s corporate airplane.

Ewing came to see Oral about buying the plane. When he arrived at the ministry headquarters, he had something to sell to Roberts. The first thing out his mouth was, “Oral, you are in trouble, and I can help you.” And did he ever.

According to Wayne Robinson, then the vice president of public affairs for the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, “Gene laid out one of the most sophisticated fund-raising campaigns I had ever seen. He said, ‘Oral, I want you to write your supporters and tell them you are going in the prayer tower, and you are going to read their prayer requests and pray over them.’ He stayed there three days. I forget how many hundred thousands of letters we had, but it was huge.”

The core of Ewing’s advice to Roberts was the seed-faith philosophy. “You give to the ministry, and God will reward you with a financial blessing.”

By the following year, income to Roberts’ ministry had doubled, going from $6 million to $12 million. Roberts was so happy with Ewing’s guidance that he gave him the plane.

“God’s Ghostwriter”
Just by helping with Oral Roberts’ ministry, Ewing could be regarded as the father of the modern-day ‘seed-faith’ concept. Many preachers joined the health-and-wealth gospel bandwagon by emulating old Oral.

Unfortunately, Ewing did not stop the Roberts. Once word got out about his magic touch, several other ministers sought his services. T.L. Osborn ran into Ewing at an airport and hired him to direct his fundraising.

“We were down to counting pencils and paper clips until Gene came along,” boasted Osborn.

Ewing’s flair for effective, dramatic direct-mail appeals won him jobs writing for evangelists including Robert Tilton, Rex Humbard and “Rev. Ike.” In many cases, the letters were identical but contained different signatures.

The Trinity Foundation, which is run by Ole Anthony, was the first to dub Ewing as “God’s Ghostwriter.” Anthony managed to find a single letter that nine different televangelists had claimed as their own. The only difference was the signature.

“We had nine different televangelists essentially sending out the same letter,” Anthony said. “He (Ewing) makes most of his money by selling these packages to televangelists.”

Never mind the fact that many of the letters speak of revelations that God directed the sender [insert name] to give the recipient. The only name that matters to these hucksters is the one on the seed-faith check.

“Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter” (Isa. 56:11).

A Skunk by Another Name Still Stinks the Same
The most obvious evidence that Ewing is crook at heart is the number of name changes for his ministry. The vast majority of religious organizations stick with the same name; Ewing goes through a new one every few years.

Here are a few examples of ministry names that have been linked to him:

• Church of Compassion
• Rev. Ewing’s Evangelistic Ministries Inc.
• Church by Mail Inc.
• Church and Bible Study in the Home by Mail
• Twentieth Century Advertising Agency
• Saint Matthew’s Churches

The frequent name change seems to be designed to ditch the IRS. When the Feds begin to investigate one of his corporate entities, he relocates his operations under a new one.

Over the years, the IRS has questioned the legitimacy of many of Ewing’s organizations, but has failed to take any action. In one court filing, the IRS argued that funds generated by Church by Mail “inure to the benefit of private individuals.” Another IRS brief stated that, “Ewing and McElrath (his partner) sit at the top of a very lucrative set of organizations which they totally control without interference.”

The listed address for two of Ewing ministries points to the headquarters of his lawyer, J.C. Joyce. His current ministry, Saint Matthew’s Churches, was also incorporated at Joyce’s Tulsa law office.

Every Gimmick Under the Sun
When I first came to faith is Jesus Christ, I spent much time listening to Christian radio. Being eager for information, I wrote to all the programs that invited listeners to contact them. Many of the men on these programs were clients of Ewing who sent me an endless series of appeals for money.

Even as a baby Christian, I could tell that these prosperity preachers were wolves in sheep’s clothing. Their only purpose in writing me was to get money.

To them, the Bible is just a tool for extracting funds. While Bank jobbers use guns, they utilize Scripture to pull these heists.

Ewing came up with an endless number of gimmicks to be mailed out by ministries. What made them appealing was their context to Bible verses. Some mailings would contain items like prayer cloths, “Jesus eyes” handkerchiefs, fake golden coins, miracle water or oil, communion wafers, a prayer rug made out of paper, and “sackcloth billfolds.”

To conceal these letters from family members who might have better financial sense, the recipients were told to open the letters in private and not discuss them with others: “Try to take it to a room or somewhere where you can be alone with the Lord.” Other mailings asked for a donation before opening a second letter marked “Personal and private.”

One mailing from Ewing included a $10,000 “faith check.” The bogus check was from the “Bank of Heaven.” Of course, the bank president was God, the Father, the vice president was Jesus, and the secretary and treasurer was The Holy Ghost.

“Place the faith check in your wallet and keep it there until the blessing unfolds,” the letter states.

“Whisper the name of Jesus three times as you write your name on the back of your Faith Check.”

A lot of Ewing’s ideas seem as if they were inspired by a book of witchcraft. The Bible does not tell us to make practice of “repetitious” prayer. The Lord is not like a slot machine; you don’t keep blindly pulling His arm until He finally pays off. We receive God’s blessing by seeking Him on a personal level.

The Day of Reckoning
I’ve never been temped to go down the prosperity path. Even as I read of the wealth some of these folks have raked in, and of the luxurious lives they lead, I want nothing to do with it.

No amount of money is enough to make it worth losing your eternal soul. I can’t imagine how someone who preys upon the poorest and most desperate people in our society can be regarded as Christian brothers or sisters.

“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 16:25).

The funny thing about men who are truly evil: They tend to envision themselves in a positive light. Somehow they manage to find a way to view their evil deeds as helping their victims.

I imagine that James Eugene Ewing someday expects the doors of heaven to swing wide open for him. After all, he is the one who brought great hope to people who replied to his prosperity mailings.

The reality is that Ewing has done a huge amount of damage to the Kingdom of God. The teachings that he set in motion decades ago have grown in monstrous organizations. The Trinity Broadcasting Network is a haven for evangelists who have adopted his principles. It reaches tens of millions of people around the globe.

I recently talked to one pastor from Zambia who testified that the prosperity teaching has been very destructive to the church in Africa. He confirmed that many Christians have become inactive in the faith, choosing rather to sit around and listen to American preachers.

If Ewing had any concept of the massive hole he was digging for himself, he probably would have long ago retired from the business. He continues to add to his judgment because he obviously likes swindling people.

In the end, the main anguish of hell for people like Ewing will not be caused when they roast in an eternal flame. Their ultimate pain will be when they realize how easy it would have been to do the right thing. After all, they had the word of truth, they had the ambition, they had the financial resources, and they had the organization–but they did nothing to advance the name of Jesus.

“Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” (Mat. 18:7).

Bible Prophecy vs The Environment – Destroying the World
The past several years, prophecy-minded Christians have frequently been attacked by liberal groups for being hostile to the environment. We are portrayed as being so concerned about heavenly matters that we support decisions that lead to environmental degradation.

Some folks on the extreme left have even directly blamed sites like Rapture Ready for wanting to destroy the earth. Commentator Bill Moyer was recently giving a speech at Harvard Medical School, and during his address, he revealed a common misconception liberals have about Bible prophecy.

According to Mr. Moyers, people who agree with RR feel called to help bring about a global calamity. “Millions of Christian fundamentalists believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed – even hastened – as a sign of the coming apocalypse.”

I don’t know of any Christian group that actively calls for environmental destruction. We all have to live on the same planet and breathe the same air. It is in our common interest to have a world free of deadly contaminants.

God gave man dominion over the earth, and we are to be good stewards of what has been entrusted into our hands. If we fundamentalists are any less optimistic about environmental issues than Moyers, it is because we are aware of the earth’s ultimate fate.

The Fallacy of the Environmental Movement
The environmentalism we see today has roots in the earlier conservationist and preservationist movements. Leaders like Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot feared we were “exhausting our natural resources.” Roosevelt helped establish several parks and federal reserves. Starting in the 1960s, activists added a neo-Marxist theology to various ecological concerns, creating the modern environmentalist movement.

This utopian visions that environmentalists try to convey today have little do with saving the earth. Their views on environmental issues are heavily tied to political agendas and are often counterproductive to the causes they claim to represent.

One of their most error-filled assertions is the idea that technology has lowered our quality of life. They believe if we could just turn back the hands of time to the days before industrialization, we would find that utopian world.

Any fair examination of history will reveal that innovation has been very beneficial to mankind. Advancements in science are directly responsible for unprecedented improvements in human health, nutrition, and life expectancy. The life expectancy didn’t go from 45 years in the Middle Ages to 77 years today because of poisons from man-made chemicals.

I visited a number of environmentalist websites and I found that the majority are fixated on assigning blame and forever being in the opposition on hot button issues. Groups like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, and Ruckus Society specialize in highlighting the problems, while offering no solutions.

If they were to take a stand on a thorny issue, they might have to commit themselves to a workable solution. Sometime the wisdom of Solomon is required to find a resolution to an environmental dilemma that weighs the needs of man vs. the protection of nature.

Nuclear Nuttiness
Nuclear power is a very good example of how the environmental movement uses pseudo-science allegations to win support. Because most people don”t understand how atomic energy works, it is easy for environmentalists to use fear tactics to turn the public against all things nuclear.

Nuclear power’s safety record can speak for itself. In the 49 years that we’ve had commercial nuclear power in North America, there has never been a single fatality directly related to nuclear energy. Of the few reported accidents at nuclear reactors, no incident has ever breached the containment vessel.

Coal, the most widely used method of generating power in America, has not had such a spotless record. Each year, thousands of people die from coal-related mining accidents and health issues. In China, as many as 20,000 die each year from the mining of coal.

As a result of the oil shock of 1970s, over 129 nuclear reactors went into the planning stages. When the #2 reactor at Three Mile Island suffered a partial core meltdown in 1979, the nuclear industry when into a tailspin. Environmentalists worked endlessly to erect financial and regulatory hurdles that made it impossible for any new reactors to gain an operating license.

The nation of France has proven the reliability of nuclear technology. Because that nation has few energy resources, the French government pushed ahead with its atomic program. Currently, France derives 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy. France is also the world’s largest electricity exporter.

Now that global warming has become a major concern, you would think environmentalists would be willing to turn the Grand Canyon into a uranium mine to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Judging by their fanatic disdain for anything with a half-life, the Statue of Liberty would have to be up to her torch in glacier melt before they would have any second thoughts about nuclear energy.

Radioactive waste is key area where environmentalists attack nuclear power. Currently, 42,000 tons of high-level waste are being stored at 126 temporary sites around the nation. This material just builds up because environmental red tape has prevented the construction of a long-term store facility.

For the past 28 years, the U.S. Department of Energy has been preparing a site in Yucca Mountain, Nevada to be the permanent resting place for the nation’s nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain is located in a remote desert in Nye County, Nevada. It is about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The project has so far cost $7 billion, and it will not be open until 2012 at the earliest. The main factor delaying this elaborate hole in the ground is the desire for the site to be able to contain radioactive waste for more than 100,000 years.

Long before the waste would ever get a chance to reach the surface, our nation would be devastated by a series of geological disasters. The Yellowstone caldera will someday explode with a force up to 2,500 times the magnitude of the 1980 Mount St. Helen’s eruption. A full-scale eruption of the Yellowstone caldera would instantly kill millions of people and cause catastrophic climatic change around the globe.

It’s certainly not safe to have waste stored at 129 facilities. The longer environmental groups hold this nuclear waste in limbo, the more likely there will be a disaster.

The Answer is Not Blowing in the Wind
About the only technology environmentalists promote is anything related to so-called “green energy” – devices that harvest power from the sun and wind.

We are told by these folks that the only way to save us from global warming and our dependency on Middle East oil is to erect more solar panels and wind turbines. The production of power from renewable resources may have a certain amount of sex appeal, but they greatly lack the ability to meet our energy needs.

Unless there is some miracle breakthrough, power generated by wind and sun will never amount to no more than 2 percent of energy needs. The amount of electrical power generated by these two sources is measured in millions of megawatts, but our current requirement runs in the trillions of megawatts. It would take a huge number of windmills to power something like a steel plant.

Solar power might have limited use in sunny states like Arizona, but it will never work for most other states. In the winter, some areas of the country have overcast skies. Here in Nebraska, the sky is cloudy about 60 to 70 percent of the time. The lower sun angle and the colder average temperature is another problem.

Wind power also has drawbacks. We can only produce power from a breeze that falls within a certain range–too much wind, and the turbine has to shut down. If there’s not enough wind, the blades won’t turn.

There is always the issue of noise pollution. There is a windmill farm near my hometown of Storm Lake, Iowa. Whenever I’m up in that region, I can hear the swooshing sound produced by the turbines a mile from their location. I’d slowly go mad if I had to constantly listen to that noise.

Green energy also has a high maintenance cost. Solar cells get dirty or wear out, and wind turbines breakdown from exposure to the elements.

Sin Is the Core Problem
As much as environmentalists try to save the earth, their efforts will ultimately end in total failure. The Bible predicts that during the tribulation hour, the world will come to near complete ruin. The destruction will be so wide scale, the prophet Isaiah warned, that men would become as rare as fine gold.

By only addressing the symptoms of man’s misdeeds, environmentalists are doing nothing to correct the root problem: sin. Without the transforming power of Jesus Christ, the environment will be resigned to its determined fate.

God has given fair warning about how the transgression of His law will lead to wide-scale judgment. If environmentalists wanted to do some lasting good, they would be wise to devote their energy to evangelizing lost souls.

Even nature itself is under the curse of sin. When Adam fell, the animal world fell with him. As much as we like our cuddly creatures, we should never forget their fallen state. One guy who failed to realize this fact ended up getting killed by a bear he was trying to save.

Back to Babylon
I am strongly against Christians embracing the environmental movement. It’s easy to relate to a desire to save the earth. Unfortunately, the designers of this movement have a political agenda that few true Christians would find compatible with the Bible.

The true goal of the environmental movement is to draw the world into a central body that would set the rules. This plan is part of the devil’s master scheme to recreate the type of control he had during the time of the Babylonian Empire. The only way to get back to Babylon is to push for world unity.

The environmental movement is a perfect disguise because it asks nations to surrender their sovereignty for a cause seemingly beneficial to all nations. Recently, a group of well-known evangelical leaders fell for this ploy by deciding to back an initiative to fight global warming.

The main job of a Christian leader is to guide lost souls to redemption. I can only ask where the Bible even hints that saving the whales and fighting global warming are part of the Great Commission. Dealing with environmental problems needs to be left to the politicians. In my view, any preacher who decides to get involved in environmental issues is like a heart surgeon who suddenly leaves an operation to fix a clogged toilet.

A New Earth
In 2 Peter, we are told that someday the earth will undergo a fiery renovation. All of nature and everything man has created will be completely destroyed.

“..The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness” (2 Pet. 3:10-11).

I know that environmentalists would bristle at the idea of a refurbished earth being the ultimate solution to all ecological problems. If the world is going to be “dissolved,” there is no need for us to become too attached to it.

The only lasting issue is whether each of us will be around to see the day when the lion lies down with the lamb and every stream runs crystal clear with pure water. Knowing that the earth will eventually be put back in order, we need to be concerned with the preservation of our eternal souls.

“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mat. 16:26).