Todd Bentley - False Prophet & Damnable Heresy

Many people seek healing, financial success, spiritual experiences, prophetic knowledge and sensual entertainment. Bentley puts on quite a show! Known for his heavenly visions, angelic "partners," mystical tattoos, and irreverent "teaching," he makes them laugh. One of his many Youtube performances includes this outrageous dialogue with an unbiblical "God":

"The woman was standing in the back of the room when the faith of God hit the meeting, and her tumour exploded out of her right leg, slid down her leg onto the floor! ... [God] said, '...I want you to grab that lady's crippled legs and bang them up-and-down on the platform like a baseball bat.' [loud laughter] I walked up and I grabbed her legs, and I started going, BAM! BAM! ...banging them.... She got healed!...

"And there is this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me; the gift of faith came on me. He said, 'Kick her in the face with your biker-boot.' ... I went like this [kicks and shouts] BAM! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God."

Jesus said, "Ye shall know them by their fruits." (Matthew 7:16) But the genuine "fruit of the Spirit" (God's love, goodness, gentleness...) was missing from this brutal show.

Counterfeit angels and demonic visions

Bentley is no stranger to demonic forces. "...twenty-five demons were cast out of me," he said in one of the many videos that document his teachings. "

He claims to have met a dazzling "angel" named Emma. Bentley described their first encounter in his article "Angelic Hosts":

"In the middle of the service... in walks Emma. As I stared at the angels with open eyes, the Lord said, 'Here's Emma.' I'm not kidding. She floated a couple of inches off the floor... emitting brilliant light and colours. Emma carried these bags and began pulling gold out of them. Then, as she walked up and down the aisles of the church, she began putting gold dust on people. 'God, what is happening?' I asked. The Lord answered: 'She is releasing the gold, which is both the revelation and the financial breakthrough that I am bringing into this church.'"

The "god" behind this "angel" is not our Lord! But with the rising popularity of fascinating female "angels", Emma would hardly be hindering Bentley's world-wide popularity. As he wrote in his Personal Message:

"Thousands of leaders and pastors have received impartation. And the fire is spreading throughout the GLOBE! ... This anointing is very contagious and hundreds of churches and ministries are now hosting overflow rooms..."

The Bible warned us that this sort of thing would happen:

"Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)

The crowds who attend Bentley's performances are being tricked! Satanic agents often masquerade as "angels of light," and Satan uses feel-good experiences to deepen the deception. Through these unbiblical meetings, many are "fellowshipping" with demons and this will eventually bring them into indescribable depression and despair in the long run. The enchanting moments of light will prove fleeting, at best, while fear and confusion will darken their days. They will continue to suffer under that cruel master unless God sets them free.

Bentley's tools are occultic. Like a tribal shaman (and like his own former world of "satanic music"), he uses loud rhythmic sounds (drums, etc.), then adds repetitious words and hypnotic music. Pastor Gary Osborne described it in his article, Bentley's "Revival" in Lakeland, Florida:

"The phrase 'stir yourselves up' was used repeatedly.... A woman led in prayer for the service and ... told the people to 'roar like a lion!' ... People everywhere shouted at the top of their lungs.... This same lady was jerking and twitching.... There was also much talk of 'birthing' and 'signs and wonders.'... People were swaying and dancing.... There was a very sensual spirit... People seemed to be in a trance all around me. If the worship leader said, 'raise your hands' everyone did so immediately. If he said, 'drop to your knees' they did.... The music had the people mesmerized....

"At about 8:30 PM... the music leader says, 'I’m feeling drunk.' He then tells the people to say to God, 'Intoxicate me, Lord'.... Now the people are getting truly wild and the leader says, 'Scream!!!' and the people let out a yell.... Finally the worship leader falls to the floor himself...."

"This manipulative process started up again the next evening. Finally, with the crowd thoroughly conditioned to "break out of the box" of Biblical order, Bentley took control. Wearing a t-shirt with the words, "Jesus Gave Me My Tattoos," he announced the presence of "great authority" in the building. "I speak creation," he declared. "I speak new hearts, new livers into existence tonight....""

Doesn't he know God's view of such arrogance? Has he no fear of God's judgments on those who serve the purpose of the master deceiver?

"Signs", "wonders" and mystical "healings"

"The glory of God is intense," wrote Bentley in a "Personal Message", "...miracles continue - tumours disappearing nightly, cancers and deaf ears being healed. It has been reported that more than 55 people in wheelchairs are receiving their healing. Another remarkable turn of events - 13 reported resurrections!"

He claims that a male "angel" named "Healing Revival" worked with him in many past healings:

"When he comes I get... the ability to diagnose people's sicknesses with my left hand.... I get very accurate details from God.... And whenever this angel shows up the miracles go off the charts."

Four angels supposedly operated on him during one of his heavenly visions. He saw "a Pillar of fire" rise up through the roof of a church. When "God" told him to "get into the Pillar," he complied -- and landed on an operating table in heaven. The angels tied him down and began surgery:

"[T]hey pick this thing up... and they stuck it in me right here on my neck and it didn’t hurt.... they went right down to my lowards and all of a sudden ... everything inside of me popped out onto the table, my heart, my liver -- like everything.... . [T]he angels start taking these white boxes… and they start stuffing these things inside of me... and I heard the verse 'I desire truth in the inward parts.'”

Bentley's reference to Psalm 51:6 illustrates his blatant Scripture twisting -- a timeless demonic tool. And his "surgery" reminds me of the mystical reports about "alien abductions."

We shouldn't be surprised. Long ago, missionaries to distant tribal cultures described both the source and the effect of shamanic magic. It's not a new phenomenon!

The Bible says, "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." (Ephesians 5:11)

Exposing the darkness can be costly. Church leaders who seek unity, popularity and unbounded fellowship are quick to label us intolerant and judgmental. But the cost is nothing compared to the genuine joy of serving the Lord!

Torment of the Muslim family who converted to Christianity

A Muslim who converted to Christianity was threatened with having his home burned to the ground.

In a hate campaign Islamist fanatics also hurled bricks through the family’s sitting room windows terrorising their five children, all under 10.

His wife was also held hostage inside their home for two hours by a mob who later daubed graffiti on his walls and windows branding him a “Christian bastard”.

But when the hospital nurse complained to police, he said an officer told him: “Stop being a crusader.”

The arson threat was made by a man in 2001. Despite the father fearing for their lives, the officer told him such threats were rarely carried out.

He added that if he was so concerned, he should sell up and move away. Just a few days later the unoccupied house next door to their home in Bradford, West Yorks, was set alight.

The man, Nissar Hussein, 43, was born and raised in Britain by his Pakistani parents - devout Muslims. But in 1996 he and his wife Qubra decided that they wanted to convert to Christianity. In Muslim countries which use sharia law the death penalty can still be applied to apostates - or converts. Living in Britain, the Hussein family thought they’d be safe from such extremism. But their car windows were regularly smashed and the vehicle was even set alight.

Whenever Mr Hussein and his family dared to venture out of their house they would be jostled, abused, attacked and death threats hurled at them. He was at work when his wife was trapped in the house by a mob.

He claims West Yorkshire Police dismissed his concerns out of hand instead of taking action against those responsible. The family’s torment is revealed in a new report by pressure group Christian Solidarity Worldwide into the daily abuses suffered by apostates.

The report, No Place To Call Home, by commentator and apostate Ziya Meral, claims converts “are subject to gross and wide-ranging human rights abuses”.

They include extra-judicial killings by state-related agents or mobs, honour killings by family members, lack of access to services and day-to-day discrimination.

Mr Meral interviewed 28 apostates in various countries for the report, including Mr Hussein. The attacks on the family home and property continued until July 2006 when they finally moved to another part of the city. Mr Hussein said he felt the police had wilfully failed to arrest and charge the attackers, saying it was “not in the public interest”.

The report concludes that apostates suffer a host of serious abuses from their families, communities and nations because of traditional Islamic beliefs, increasing radicalism within Islam, the roles of shame and honour and the belief that converting to another religion is a betrayal of Islam. Mr Meral says: “This report is not about Islam, nor is it written to be used as a critical attack on Islam. It is designed to highlight the immense suffering of these individuals and analyses of the factors contributing to their persecution.”

West Yorkshire Police said it could not comment on the claims made by Mr Hussein in the report.

Churches Back Plan to Unite Under Pope

According to The Times newspaper, radical proposals to reunite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope are to be published this year.

Read the article here.

A Letter From the President of the Chinese House Church Alliance

The president of the Chinese House Church Alliance has written this letter to the international community regarding religious freedom and the upcoming Olympics in China.

Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats ?

"An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years it has developed at an abnormal rate, even for evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing, than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out as the Puritans did, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses.

My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church - if it is a Christian work why did not Christ speak of it? 'Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature'. That is clear enough, so it would have been if He had added, 'and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel'. No such words, however, are to he found. It did not seem to occur to Him. Then again, 'He gave some apostles, some prophets, some pastors and teachers, for the work of the ministry'. Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no martyr roll.

Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the Church to the world? 'Ye are the salt', not the sugar candy - something the world will spit out, not swallow. Short and sharp was the utterance 'Let the dead bury their dead'. He was in awful earnestness!

Had he introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into His mission, He would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear Him say, 'Run after these people, Peter, and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow - something short and attractive with little preaching - we will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick, Peter, we must get the people somehow!' Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them. In vain will the epistles be searched to find any trace of the gospel of amusement. Their message is. 'Come out, keep out, keep clean out' - anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon.

After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the Church had a prayer meeting, but they did not pray, 'Lord, grant unto thy servants that by a wise and disc by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are'. If they ceased not for preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments - scattered by persecution they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down, that is the only difference! Lord, clear the Church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her and bring us back to apostolic methods.

Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to effect the end desired. It works among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the Church met them half way, speak and testify. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment had been God's link in the chain of their conversion, stand up! There are none to answer! The mission of amusement produces no converts.

The need of the hour for today's ministry is believing scholarship, joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is Biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire."

~ Charles H. Spurgeon

A Call to Truth!

While Martin Luther called the Church back to the truth of Scripture and the simplicity of the gospel, modern movements like the “Emerging Church” uphold “mystery” and question the traditional understanding of the gospel.

“We want to embrace mystery rather than conquer it,” declare leaders within this movement. One prominent Emerging figure was quoted in Christianity Today: “I don’t think we’ve got the gospel right yet ...I don’t think the liberals have it right. But I don’t think we have it right either. None of us has arrived at orthodoxy.”

Emerging Churches are an informal network of worldwide Christian communities who believe God’s way for today’s generation is to focus more on relationships and emerging ideas than hard-and-fast truths and traditional statements of faith. They favour dialogue over doctrine and are filled with people who say traditional Church no longer works for them. Inside their walls, you’ll typically find couches in place of pews, conversation instead of preaching, compromise in place of convictions, and questions in place of truth.

An evangelical writer and pastor recently expressed his deep concern about the Emerging Church - "While those leading the movement say that the gospel can’t be clearly known, they presume to know one thing for certain: “The Bible doesn’t mean what traditional people think it means.”"

The Emerging Church is just one of the latest assaults on the truth and certainty of God’s Word. They are saying, in effect, that God may have spoken, but He mumbled, and we’re not really sure what He said.

But, saying that Scripture is not clear is just another way to undermine biblical authority!

The Emergent movement is not an intellectual movement. This is not a movement that has discovered evidence that overturns inspiration, evidence that overturns inerrancy or authority. This is a movement born of people who do not want to accept the clarity of Scripture.

“Solomon’s Porch”, ‘pastored’ by Doug Pagitt, is a popular Emerging Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This and other Emerging Churches seek to embrace mystery and put less emphasis on truth.

This kind of thinking is very deceptive. If God’s Word is not clear, then we’re not responsible to follow it.

It allows them not to take a position on homosexuality, premarital sex, or anything, besides ‘Let’s light some candles and incense, think good thoughts about Jesus, and give to the poor.’

Furthermore, to claim that the Bible is not sufficiently clear is to assault God’s own wisdom and integrity.

Sadly, some Christian bookstores now devote entire sections to books promoting the Emerging Church movement.

There are several reasons for the movement’s explosive growth:

• If they don’t believe anything, they can’t offend anybody.
• They’re not under any mandate to say anything in particular.
• They play on the bad experiences and disappointments of a number of people raised in the Church.
• They basically can define themselves by experiences that are familiar to the culture.

“Just Give Me Jesus - But Don’t Make Me Change My Ways” This is a metaphor for the whole movement. A young lady stated that she “loves Donald Miller, the author of Blue like Jazz, because [she] wants to be religious but isn’t prepared to let religion alter her lifestyle.” “I’m a Jesus girl,” she said. “But I also like to go out and do tequila shots with my friends.”

Doubting God’s Word - from the Beginning?

Is this truth war unique to today’s post-modern culture?

No, the assault has never stopped since the Garden of Eden. It just escalates and escalates and escalates. It takes different forms and moves in whatever direction the mood of the mob - the spirit of the age - dictates.

Not only have people questioned God’s Word from the beginning of time, but many Christians today doubt God from the beginning of His Word. Such doubt is usually the result of a very flawed view of Scripture. For example, just take note how few Christian colleges continue to believe and promote the literal creation account.

The Emerging Church promotes a different version of Church history. According to the Emergent movement, the great men of faith end up becoming fools. And the fools who compromise and who don’t take a stand become the heroes. It’s an attempt at turning history on its head. They try desperately to undo the Reformation so they can go back to a quasi-Christian, medieval ‘spirituality’.

The Church today is much more susceptible to false teachers, doctrinal saboteurs, and spiritual terrorism than any other generation in Church history. Biblical ignorance within the Church is deeper and more widespread than at any other time since the Protestant Reformation.

As a result of the last twenty years of the seeker-friendly movement, which stripped Bible teaching, especially expository teaching, out of the pulpit, we have now ended up with a very, very marginally knowledgeable Church, largely made up of unconverted people.

Many pastors today simply tell a lot of stories with powerless, silly little cultural insights. They seem to think that their own inventions have more power than the Word of God.

However, no matter what deviations Satan comes up with, God’s Word endureth forever! [1st Peter 1:25]

Truly, genuinely born again Christians have the obligation to protect and defend that truth. It is our duty to guard, proclaim, and pass that truth on to the next generation. We who love God and believe His Word must awaken to the reality of the battle that is raging all around us. We must do our part in the ages-old truth war. We are under a sacred obligation to join the battle and earnestly contend for the faith!

Division Is Not Always Bad

“When to unite and when to divide, that is the question, and a right answer requires the wisdom of a Solomon.

Some settle the problem by rule of thumb: All union is good and all division bad. It's that easy. But obviously this effortless way of dealing with the matter ignores the lessons of history and overlooks some of the deep spiritual laws by which men live.

If good men were all for union and bad men for division, or vice versa, that would simplify things for us. Or if it could be shown that God always unites and the devil always divides it would be easy to find our way around in this confused and confusing world. But that is not how things are.

To divide what should be divided and unite what should be united is the part of wisdom. Unions of dissimilar elements is never good even where it is possible, nor is the arbitrary division of elements that are alike; and this is as certainly true of things moral and religious as of things political or scientific.

The first divider was God who at the creation divided the light from the darkness. This division set the direction for all God's dealings in nature and in grace. Light and darkness are incompatible; to try to have both in the same place at once is to try the impossible and end by having neither the one nor the other, but dimness rather, and obscurity.

In the world of men there are at present scarcely any sharp outlines. The race is fallen. Sin has brought confusion. The wheat grows with the tares, the sheep and the goats coexist, the farms of the just and the unjust lie side by side in the landscape, the mission is next door to the saloon.

But things will not always be so. The hour is coming when the sheep with be divided from the goats and the tares separated from the wheat. God will again divide the light from the darkness and all things will run to their kind. Tares will go into the fire with tares and wheat into the garner with wheat. The dimness will lift like a fog and all outlines will appear. Hell will be seen to be hell all the way through, and heaven revealed as the one home of all who bear the nature of the one God.

For that time we with patience wait. In the meanwhile for each of us, and for the church wherever she appears in human society, the constantly recurring question must be: What shall we unite with and from what shall we separate? The question of coexistence does not enter here, but the question of union and fellowship does. The wheat grows in the same field with the tares, but shall the two cross-pollinate? The sheep graze near the goats, but shall they seek to interbreed? The unjust and the just enjoy the same rain and sunshine, but shall they forget their deep moral differences and intermarry?

Sadly, to these questions the popular answer is yes. Union for union's sake, and men shall be brothers be for a' that. Unity is so devoutly to be desired that no price is too high to pay for it and nothing is important enough to keep us apart. Truth is slain to provide a feast to celebrate the marriage of heaven and hell, and all to support a concept of unity which has no basis in the Word of God.

The Spirit-illuminated church will have none of this! In a fallen world like ours unity is no treasure to be purchased at the price of compromise. Loyalty to God, faithfulness and truth and the preservation of a good conscience are jewels more precious than gold of Ophir or diamonds from the mine. For these jewels men have suffered the loss of property, imprisonment and even death; for them, even in recent times, behind the various curtains, followers of Christ have paid the last full measure of devotion and quietly died, unknown to and unsung by the great world, but known to God and dear to His Father heart.

In the day that shall declare the secrets of all souls these shall come forth to receive the deeds done in the body. Surely such as these are wiser philosophers than the religious camp followers of meaningless unity who have not the courage to stand against the vogues and who bleat for brotherhood only because it happens to be for the time popular.

When confused sheep start over a cliff the individual sheep can save himself only by separating from the flock. Perfect unity at such a time can only mean total destruction for all. The wise sheep, to save his own hide, disaffiliates.

Power lies in the union of things similar and the division of things dissimilar. Maybe what we need in religious circles today is not more union but some wise and courageous division. Everyone desires peace but it could be that revival will follow the sword.”

~ A W Tozer

When False Teachers Seem Good

When Joel Osteen smiles at the masses he is deceiving with his false gospel of prosperity, he seems so good, so kind and so concerned for others.

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But true love for others contains a desire that they know truth. Truth is defined by God’s Word. That is our standard. Without this standard, we can’t even know what truth is. This is where the emerging church is – drifting on a tide of change and personal preference. They have no standard and they tell you that it doesn’t matter.

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Imagine a pilot flying with no fixed standard. All his good intentions, compassion for his passengers, all his sincerity won’t matter one bit if he is off course when he tries to land. An artificial horizon is used in aircraft to determine the plane’s orientation relative to the ground. It indicates pitch and roll and is one of the most important things in the cockpit when pilots fly by instruments. It is also critical for those flying by visual flight rules.

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Yes, fixed standards are important. Think of a surgeon in an operating room conducting brain surgery. Should he re-imagine the process of operating on a human brain because he is "post-modern" and rejects all that black and white thinking of the past? Should he abandon all written protocol in his job and just embrace the mystery some day when a life is on the line?

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Imagine a Premiership football match where the rules are “re-imagined” and there are no longer any firm guidelines for play. No standards. What a mess.

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When it is eternity on the line and souls will either live forever in hell or with Christ in heaven, how much more important is it that we deal with the standards that God has laid down in His Word?

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When false teachers smile and try to charm you with their great teeth and hair and their brilliant new take on Christ and the church, there’s only one word of advice I have for you.

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Run!