Speaking of stooges and audience plants….

Yesterday, in this article here: http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/todd-bentley-prophesying-bad-cold-reading/,  I wrote on certain psychics or so-called ‘Christian’ ministers using plants in their audience who would pretend to be healed, or pretend to respond to a prophetic word  or whatever. Peter Popoff was caught in the act faking it, but like I said many ministers in the public eye have never been caught, although let’s face it, a lot of the public know   already well know they are charlatans. I remember reading a news article that Benny Hinn was accused of using plants in the audience in Asia – by an ex plant.  According to a recent excellent documentary, the infamous Jim Jones of the doomed People’s Temple cult, was incredibly charismatic and used plants in his services. They pretended they were healed to authenticate Jones’ ministry/anointing – and it was all part of mind control to deepen Jim Jones sway and control over people. I watched footage of the People’s Temple services from the early years, including of the alleged healings, and it did not look unlike many other ‘normal’ pentecostal churches, and Jim Jones seemed no more megalomaniac then than some pastors I have encountered. The doctrine was off, and the pastor was controlling and egotistical, but that’s not as rare as it should be in Pentecostalism. There was a bit of spiritual abuse and control, but again, on the surface at least, particularly in sectors of the black church (the People’s Temple was particularly attractive to African Americans), domineering leadership and over-control are accepted and tolerated, and even expected   by some in the congregation. There was some sexual misdeeds, but again not unusual in the modern church. (The latest famous figure to bite the dust is Bishop Michael Reid of Peniel UK who has been carrying on an adulterous affair with a woman in his congregation for eight  years! It is incredibly sad to read of yet another affair….and for eight years at that, which is continual sustained hypocrisy and deception.)  There was some homosexual and bisexual behaviour by Jim Jones - but, ditto, not unusual, think Ted Haggard or ‘prophet’ of the Latter Rain, Paul Cain, accepted back onto the prophetic platform only too easily, despite years of lies (Paul Cain claimed that all his sexual feelings had been taken away by the Lord and he did not get them any longer – this was part of the testimony of his calling). There were threats and dirty dealings, not unusual again. There were claims to not needing the Bible any longer – ditto, not unusual – pp Rick Joyner and the new prophets who claim a greater revelation and anointing in their ‘new wineskins’ which are superior to the ‘old’.

It is so easy to say in retrospect: People’s Temple were obviously so doctrinally off, and bad and cultlike and mind controlling – they were,  but pre the mass suicide tragedy in Guyana,  if one was a casual observer in one of their services in the earlier years, would they have really stood out as dangerous, let alone more dangerous than anyone else, given the many other over controlling and domineering ‘Christian’ fellowships? One wonders what would happen if I’d blogged about them then…..a few ‘touch not my anointeds’ would appear on here, no doubt, saying how ‘unloving’, ‘judgmental’ and ‘divisive’ I was being for speaking out. A few might threaten me with ‘judgment’ – eg death - but that’s not unlike many of the modern new prophet’s supporters (as can be seen on this blog’s comments).  It would only be after Guyana that I would be vindicated to the majority, and even praised for speaking out about Jim Jones. Yet many modern church leaders today in the public eye  are no less dangerous than Jim Jones – some are worse, they dress as lambs but are at heart dragons. People of the flock are no different now, – if anything less discerning, not more so – and will still blindly follow dictatators and as obedient sheep commit appalling acts if commanded to (the infamous psychology experiments using the electric shocks comes to mind, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment). There will   be bloodshed in the future if some of these key names in the dominionist New Apostolic movement get their way – they have even said   so publically – the civil war in the church with the blues against the greys which I will write more on another time as per Bob Jones prophecy - yet the church is just totally asleep and oblivious to their intentions, even when they talk openly about it. Even their own supporters in this movement don’t all realise what is happening or where this is wanting  to go. (Whether it will get there, is up to God). They have been lulled to sleep and braindeadness by the false and seductive poison spread by the Latter Rain prophets. I watched someone speak at IHOP about a month ago at their Passion for Jesus Conference (specifically, it was Lou Engle on the section shown on March 8th) talking about how God wants them to … kill people,  yes KILL – you heard right – LITERALLY KILL- and nobody even blinked, let alone murmured and God TV kept showing the conference. He said it twice too. Did the audience hear it? Did it go over their heads? Did they care? Did they agree? And then, if so, we are talking of many more dying than died at Guyana. If the Guyana tragedy had not happened, if the political situation had not heated up and Jim Jones had been less involved in politics and was a bit more subtle, would he now be on TBN or the God Channel, or featured in the centre-spread of Charisma Magazine?   Would he look any different to any of the others?

Anyway, I came across this timely article from www.sowetan.co.za, dated April 7th 2008 about plants -

‘A wife who is desperate to see her husband healed spent the whole of yesterday at the Christ Embassy Church in Randburg, Johannesburg, just to see whether other people would be healed by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome.

This after her husband Paul Sambo had attended the church’s school of healing for about two weeks but was told he would not pass because he slept in class.

Sambowas diagnosed with spine cancer in February this year. A relative who did not wish to be named said Sambofelt helpless after he was diagnosed with cancer.

“He had hoped that the ‘Night of Bliss’ would give him a new life. Now he just seems confused,” she said.

Pastor Chris hosted Night of Bliss, an all-night prayer meeting at the Johannesburg Stadium two weeks ago. Though Sambo seemed keen to speak to Sowetan when we visited him at the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto yesterday, he seemed a little confused.

His wife Julie told Sowetan that her husband had now lost hope of getting healed.

“My husband had hopes of getting healed one day but not any more.” she said. “The ‘Night of Bliss’ did not help my husband in any way.”

Sambo’s story comes after Friday’s article about a man who told Sowetan that he had been promised R10000 to pretend he was wheelchair-bound. He would then receive Pastor Chris’ healing on the Night of Bliss. According to the man he was to sit in a wheelchair and pretend he was paralysed until Pastor Chris came up to pray for him. Then he would jump up and walk. The man said he refused because he had faith in God and God alone. There were also allegations that all the people that were healed at the seminar were hired by the church. The man said the church did this to draw crowds.”