No evangelism, no real anointing

At the 1998 Light the Nation conference in Dallas, Texas, John Arnott reportedly excused his church (formerly known as the Toronto Airport Vineyard and now just called the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship) from street ministry because they were: ’still praying for anointing’.  Before they went out into the streets, or ministering outside the church’s four walls, he said they wanted to have: ‘more of Jesus’s anointing for miracles like healing lepers’ and quote: ‘they were still praying about it…’

It should be noted that this was said over four years into the supposed ‘revival’ that first hit them on January 20th 1994. Thousands from the world-over visited their church to get filled and ‘blessed’, and many went out from them with evangelical zeal and took the so-called ’Toronto Blessing’ into all four corners of the church (you’ll note I did not say ‘into all four corners of the world‘ ). 

I know publically Toronto/the Vineyard’s leadership fudged and said this move of the Spirit was not ‘revival’ but ’renewal’, yet this is not what they really thought: in lots of their own literature they did indeed call it ‘revival’. For example, in 2002 John Arnott writes in a TACF newsletter says: ‘Around 1978 long before revival came (to Toronto)….‘  Even he (a king pin of this movement) claims it is a ‘revival’. 

I always questioned the Toronto Blessing (TB) move was revival, even in the beginning when I was involved in it and before all the bad fruit began to manifest, as the definition of revival is lots of non-Christians getting saved - the TB move was Christians becoming a lot more introspective and staying indoors away from evangelism to play around with God instead. If you don’t believe me, please read my post ‘The least fruitful mission ever’  (coming soon!) where basically a whole summer’s mission with YWAM was devoted to seeking spiritual manifestations over seeking souls saved, and practically nobody came to Christ the whole of that time (highly unusual for any mission I was on). Satan’s strategy in this instance, do not directly oppose the Christians, distract them instead. I am ashamed to say that I did not see this scheme for what it was at the time* – we were all too busy having a good ‘me’ time playing in the ‘anointing’! The devil’s plan worked to a ’t’ and it seems, a similar strategy is still working at Toronto and places like it……how many Christians have been put out of real service by this and other similar diversions?)

Anyway, even if this Toronto move were really all good and was ‘renewal’ as compared to ‘revival’ (and I cannot see this theology of renewal being a biblical idea anway) – renewal supposedly being the church being prepared and made ready before revival hits - how long  do these guys actually need to play about in the ‘Holy Spirit’ before being ready  for works of service such as evangelism, which is what the church has always been commanded to do out of obedience to God whether she feels ‘anointed’ or not? (And note that I John says there is only ONE ANOINTING and those that claim otherwise are false teachers and prophets.)

Any church following John Arnott’s way of thinking are disobeying God by not going out, regardless of their excuses, not to mention they are contradicting TB’s own teaching! I repeatedly heard from them:  ‘This is for the streets…’   yet four years of continuous fun in their house, with huge Christian names coming there night after night, and they are still  not ready for anything but more conferences?! On the Day of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Spirit’s evangelism effect was practically immediate! Something is very wrong somewhere if all they do is talk (and manifest)!

How many ‘catch the fire’ conferences have these guys had already? But what real ‘fire’ have they actually caught and passed on, apart from a zeal without knowledge or manifestations lacking any worthy substance (apart from bad fruit)? Strange fire it is indeed, but whatever fire it is, it has not made them into ministers of flames of fire. It has not burnt the church’s backsides into action (apart from for merchandising activity and an eternal string of conferences), rather this fire has warmed their pews (or carpet) up for them and begged them ’sit’. Does this honestly sound like God to you? Do you not recognise the voice of the evil one instead,  for who else bides the church to sit?

Regardless, the fruit that should have been produced by this ‘mighty move of the Spirit’ has not been produced. Evangelism, conversions, real signs and wonders, adherence to and love of scripture, good teaching, genuine prophecy,  and holiness. So they can quack like a duck, roar like a lion, and bark like a dog – but they cannot do the real biblically attested signs and wonders like healing lepers, and false prophecy abounds? Hmm, that really sounds like the Holy Spirit to me! (It always did bother me that at the time that the ‘Holy Spirit’ was supposedly being freely poured out upon flesh ’on demand’, and when He was seemingly perfectly willing to make you cluck like a chicken or pogo about the room, that He would not heal or do anything really important for you, or indeed biblical  for that matter. He was willing to put on a freak show (literally) and some great entertainment for the masses but not willing to heal? This is a far cry from the Biblical Jesus who said ’I am willing’ to heal - but true healing was nowhere to be found in this rabble that was for sure.)

This dichotomy reminds me of a John Wimber healing conference I went to in 1995 at the height of the Toronto Blessing. John Wimber, dying of cancer, was a speaker there, and was having to constantly spray his throat with some medication as he had throat cancer and his throat would dry out otherwise without this spray. Other Vineyard leaders also were very sick and dying around this time. Despite the fact this was a healing and signs and wonders conference with the top speakers and ‘healers’ from the Vineyard there, nobody  there out of hundreds in attendance I am aware of was healed, but most manifested very strangely …. some healing  conference it was.  Yet healing is supposed to be one of the main signs and wonders worked by and through the Spirit. So the Holy Spirit would come in power there to make my friend wave her arms around like a windmill etc but would not heal her of the deafness she had had since childhood? That’s logical! The Holy Spirit would make another of my friend’s pogo about, but not heal her thyroid disease.?The Holy Spirit would touch someone in a wheelchair and make them twitch or roar but not make them walk again? Humbug! T’was not the Holy Spirit doing all these things, it was Satan’s counterfeit – a grand distraction sidetracking from the true! And a very cruel sarcastic joke and huge one at that. No wonder  Satan was laughing in the vision I had (see below).

Does the Toronto leadership’s admittal that they cannot really heal the sick not make them wonder what anointing and what spirits they have actually  been playing around in all of this time – for surely if it were the Spirit of God that were with them to this high degree over the years since 1994, then they would have been able by now to do the real miracles and signs and wonders they yearn for? For are even they admitting that the jerking about (literally) is not enough – for either the church or the streets? For if it were truly the power of God, that possessed real power to change lives, why hesitate to pass this onto the lost? How many jerkings leading to nothing do they need before they wake up and smell the coffee? How many faith disappointments will make them realise that their primary leading spirit now is not the Spirit of God? How many false prophecies have to fail to come to pass before the people involved in this movement realise they have been ‘had’? 

Unfortunately I know a significant number of long-time Christians who lost their faith because of Toronto and fell away in a very short space of time – they got all worked up and then inevitably crashed and were left disappointed and bitter. Rather than blame a bad spirit for leading them off-course, they blamed God instead… others may not have fallen away from church but the bad fruit in their sexual behaviour and other things is only too evident. Look at all the financial corruption that came out of Brownsville, another supposed revival hotspot – not to mention the church splitting and other unholy stuff that went on there. The Ted Haggard’s of the world may also be Toronto’s bad fruit, along with the false teachers and prophets and sects that have arisen out of the ‘blessing’, not to mention the millions of others led astray or cast aside into disappointment.

For any that have doubted me when I have said in previous posts this TB move was definitely not of God, I say to you John Arnott’s own words on the evangelism issue convict them, and not only that they hang, draw and quarter them.

A church that does not evangelise, and does not feel ‘led’ to evangelise, is a disobedient church, and one that is not in treck with the Holy Spirit. I refer to I John yet again: a paraphrase of this can be: ‘No genuine works, no real anointing.’   As far as the apostle John is concerned, there is no other alternative. 

See also http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2007/08/04/the-toronto-blessingor-curse/

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* However God did warn me about Toronto several times at the time  it hit (and just before it) and I am ashamed to say I did not listen properly and saught to justify it because Christian leaders I then respected were advocating it.

1) The first night I learned of it and saw it, while reflecting on it, I clearly saw a vision of Satan laughing about the Toronto Blessing – the interpretation being that he (and not God) was behind it. 

2) The manifestations I had first seen purported to be from God, I knew were demonic from previous experience during deliverence sessions. They were interupting people worshipping and praising God, and the barking and yelping had occured at the time when Gods presense becomes so manifest people just want to bask in in silent awe for a few minutes. Instead they became distracted looking at a freak show.

3) About a year before the ‘blessing’ hit my church, I had a dream in which I saw a strange militaristic force of people invading the church, waving banners and dressed in weird colours and singing odd songs marching through. They were ‘alien’ in the sense that there was something very wrong with them though they claimed to be Christians. In the dream I was standing in a part of the church that I never ever stood in. Yet the night the TB hit my church, I was standing in exactly that same spot – I think it must have been the only seat available that night, there was no reason otherwise I would have sat there.