End Times Prophetic, Prophecy, Visions, Dreams, Revelation, Christian Blog

Just to remind everyone that Todd Bentley is not the only scumbag out there - other Florida-based scumbags are still doing the rounds. Good on Pastor Ferreira for having enough integrity to speak out.

This following article is from here

‘God bless your credit card’

By Marthinus van Vuuren, Rapport, 20th July 2008

“Johannesburg - God’s blessing would last only two minutes and it would create 500 churchgoing millionaires or even billionaires - all they had to do was use their credit cards to pay $1,000 in offerings to televangelist Benny Hinn.

Pastor Tommie Ferreira of the AGS Church in Johannesburg was so upset about the “blessing” that, after a week, he wanted to know who of the donors actually had become millionaires.

Ferreira told Rapport he did not mean to bring about Hinn’s downfall.

He merely wanted to know if any of the hundreds of churchgoers who donated amounts of up to $1 000 (about R7 500) to Hinn’s Miracle Crusade last week Saturday had now become millionaires.

About 18 000 people streamed to the Coca-Cola Dome in Randburg to hear Hinn’s message of healing and miracles.

Ferreira, who is a keen choir singer, voluntarily sang in the Miracle Crusade’s choir.

He said one of Hinn’s American guest speakers, Pastor Todd Koontz, spoke about financial burdens and said 500 audience members would receive “an exceptional blessing”.

“He said the service would yield millionaires and billionaires within 24 hours.

“Everyone had to donate $1 000 because an exceptional blessing rested on $1 000.”

Koontz apparently really had the congregation scrambling when he said, “This blessing will be poured out for only two minutes.”

Had credit-card machines

Ferreira said: “People stormed to the front - poor people, rich people, people from all sections of our society.”

Hinn’s co-pastors apparently had credit-card machines ready with which they could take donations.

“He (Koontz) said God would bless the people’s credit cards and they would be able to rule over South Africa with their money.

“Eventually there were no fewer than 1 000 people who made such donations.”

According to Ferreira’s calculations, Hinn must have collected millions of rands with these donations - perhaps more than R7m if each of the 1 000 church-goers donated $1 000 in the hope of becoming millionaires.

Furthermore, after Koontz’s collection of the $1 000 donations, Hinn collected general donations.

Ferreira said: “It makes my hair stand on end.”

He said he could not live with his conscience if he did not speak to others about this possible trickery.

Still collecting money

“I’m not attacking them (Hinn and Koontz). It just really gets my goat when people make unfounded claims and then they’re off with these people’s money.”

Dr Sarel Smit of the AGS church Lofstad in Hursthill, Johannesburg, who supported Ferreira as he spoke to Rapport, was equally worried about the method by which Hinn collected donations.

“Especially at a time like this when there is dire need, people run the risk of losing their faith in the Lord in this way. God will provide for your needs, but not your greed.”

Rapport spoke to an employee in Hinn’s South African office in Durban who said on Friday morning that they were still busy collecting money.

“We’ve had a very good reaction from last weekend,” said the employee, who asked not to be named.

He said that before the collection of the $1 000 donations, Koontz had delivered a message about “you reap what you sow”.

“Americans always talk in dollars. If some of the churchgoers believed that they would not be blessed, then they should not have given their money.

“The church-goers did not have to give $1 000. If they couldn’t afford it, then they could’ve given less. And, some of them did.

Will build an orphanage

“Pastor Todd (Koontz) spoke of good seeds. If you don’t actually sow them, you’ll never have a good harvest.”

The employee told Rapport that Hinn’s congregation soon would build an orphanage in South Africa.

Hinn’s South African office feeds about 1 000 children in Durban daily.

Rapport asked for a recording of Koontz’s sermon, but Hinn’s office said they could only provide one in four to six weeks.”

I came across the followng story and wondered what the German courts would do to men like Todd Bentley, Peter Popoff, Oral Roberts and Richard Roberts, Morris Cerullo, Benny Hinn and all the other liars, fakes, tv whores and charlatans. They promise effectively the same thing albeit they do it in Jesus’ name. Similar cases have been brought in the USA against fake psychics and new age healers - surely Todd Bentley can and should be done under the same laws as he is evidently lied numerous times, and taken money from sick desperate crowds under false pretences?

“MUNICH, Germany — A German court has ordered a self-styled witch to refund a disappointed client her hefty fee for a spell that failed to win back the woman’s partner.

The Munich administrative court said Monday it ruled that the witch must pay back the $1,275 on the grounds she offered a service that was “objectively completely impossible.”

After her boyfriend left her in the fall of 2003, the client consulted the witch on a spell that would bring him back.

“The defendant carried out the corresponding ritual over several months, each time under a full moon, but without success,” a court statement said.

It said the witch denied the client’s claim that she had guaranteed success.

However, the court ruled that was irrelevant because “a love ritual is not suited to influencing a person from a distance.”

Neither woman’s identity was released.”   (The Washington Post, October 30, 2006)

Yet another  contradiction has been found coming out of Todd Bentley’s mouth. That makes numerous big whopping lies all told in the space of just a few weeks at one revival. How can his supporters support this man and his ministry - seriously? Is this what Todd’s glory and anointing makes him do - lie?  One lie is bad enough, but there’s lots of them coming out of his and his associates mouths. It is really serious. I would not accept this from anyone, let alone a so-called Christian minister! All the people who claim the unbiblical ’Gamaliel Approach’ - look at all this bad fruit and judge it NOW. There is plenty enough of it!

Both the following accounts are from Stephen Strader in his OWN words, and edited and agreed by him on his blog. Yet there is a glaring contradiction or two.

From here -

“THE ANGEL OF THE LORD APPEARED TO TODD the second day he was in Florida.

“Two saints appeared with the angel.  The angel told Todd to call Prophet Bob Jones.  Bob already knew that it was the Healing Angel…  his name is called THE WINDS OF CHANGE.  When the WIND begins to blow, people will be blown out of wheelchairs!

“The same angel that came in 1948 has now come to Florida in 2008.  This has only happened one time before in Todd’s ministry.  

[The lie has already been discussed here of Todd's recent claim that he has never said it is the SAME angel with him as was in the 1940s Voice of Healing movement, he has only said it is an angel like  the one who ministered with William Branham - as if that makes any real difference to the angel's unscripturalness anyway. BUT THAT IS A LIE, just like the claim that they have NEVER SAID ANGEL EMMA IS WITH THEM IN LAKELAND - they have!]

The next account of the same experience on Lakeland Day Two is recounted here  -

“On the second day in Florida, the presence in my hotel room changed…  the Healing Angel appeared to me with two mantles…  supernatural revelations…  like William Branham…  and BOLD FAITH…  like AA Allen. ”

Interesting - was it Saints or mantles that the angel turned up with. There is a huge difference between the two that you would not forget or would not confuse! Did two Saints  appear in his hotel room, or was it two mantles?  The only reason why you could get something like this wrong is if you made the story up and lied about it, as lies are not easy to remember and recall without contradiction, especially if you tell as many lies as Todd does, and are as arrogant as he is. 

Regardless, even if this story did not contradict there are huge problems with it. If dead Saints appeared, there is the necromancy/spiritualism element (communicating with the dead) that is forbidden by God - and it was not even as if were a vision in heaven either that you could kind of excuse! (By the way another of Todd’s heros, John G Lake, practised the same - he said it was Ok to communicate with the dead as long as you did not overtly seek it). Secondly, there is the issue of who  these saints are. No doubt, Todd will claim William Branham was one - Branham who was a false prophet, false teacher, liar, charlatan and occultist. Perhaps the other one claimed was AA Allen,  John G Lake, Aimee Semple McPherson or Kathryn Kuhlman. He is on dodgy ground to claim William Branham is a saint. There are various problems with all the others too - A A Allen, John G Lake, Aimee Semple McPherson and Kathryn Kuhlman too (and also I thought Benny Hinn had gotten all Kathrun Kuhlman’s anointing from her grave already).

If the angel appeared with two mantles, and not saints, then there are similar problems because of whose mantles they are claimed to be, plus the obvious question has to be asked - how can Todd Bentley have two  mantles. He only has one call on his life - and he ain’t walking in it, unless he planned from day one to be a son of perdition. So there is still the problem with false theology and false prophecy. But the biggest problem here is the unexplainable gap between the two stories - they cannot both be true.

Index to all Todd Bentley and Lakeland articles here 

The following article is awful BUT not that surprising as if you make it less extreme, I can recognise certain big name ‘Christian’ leaders in the place of cult leader Jiri Adam. There is the same character traits and spiritual abuse, albeit much less extreme and far more seductive in much of the wider church and its leaders.

Authoritarian, sexually abusive and promiscuous and often perverted, spiritually abusive, overly-controlling, silencing - touch not my anointed, domineering as elite anointed gods to the people and lording it over the flock as untouchables, and money grabbing and yet more money grabbing. This following description from the article: ‘They slaved from dawn to dusk building Adam and his wife a luxury home and another house where he had his cult chapel.’   could easily apply to many congregants of the ‘mainstream’ pulpit pimps like Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, E Bernard Jordan, Rev Ike, Paula White, Peter Popoff, Benny Hinn, Juanita Bynum, Thomas Weeks etc - the list goes on and on, through various grades of depravity and selfishness, albeit add in the multiple waterfront mansions, the fleet of gold plated airplanes used for personal holidays, and the luxury commodes and the line of luxury cars. 

The sexual misconduct charge could also be applied to many ministers - I could reel off several big names who have fallen this year, in mainstream churches, who have not just commited adultery with one woman (bad enough), but with multiple women, sometimes against their will or at the very least co-erced via pastoral persuasion, and some who have also beaten these women to disciple them, usually when they were nude. It is not just the Roman Catholic church who has child sexual abuse scandals. Just last week a pastor in, I think Texas, was caught out soliciting sex from a 13 year old girl. An evangelical church not that far from me has an assistant pastor who has abused his daughter for years but nobody will listen. Let’s not forget what ‘prophets’ Bob Jones did with women and Paul Cain did with men ‘in the name of the Lord’. Many more ministers are yet to be exposed including a certain big name prophet. IHOP, whom both Cain and Jones are or were associated with, is getting more and more cultic, young people being told to cut off all contact with their families for at least a year.

The sad thing is, that because the case below is an obvious cult, it will be condemned by the church. Some Christians reading this article may daydream themselves as neighbours to the cult, thinking they would somehow supernaturally know about the horrors and would never put up with it and  would boldly rebuke it and/or report the abuse to the police and rescue these poor people - yet similar (albeit usually less extreme) things go on on their own church doorstep in full sight  and they continually turn a blind eye, even justify it. Church: stop tolerating these things and rid yourself of those who abuse you, and stop allowing yourself to be abused, and stop abusing others! Pastors have forgotten how to be shepherds, and instead are tyrants. And the church does nothing.

“A sect leader kept five women as slaves for 20 years and left them looking like concentration camp victims. One was worked to death and sickened detectives say the starved survivors are like Auschwitz inmates. Police are understood to be questioning the women about any sexual abuse by the cult leader, who called himself “God”.

And while the brutalised victims slaved for him, Jiri Adam, 74, forced them to sign over all their homes, property and cash to him. As they grew older, Adam even plundered their pensions. The self-styled commandant is now facing 12 years in jail on slavery charges.

The secret camp was only discovered when one of the women escaped and tried to get medical treatment. Shocked medics in the Czech city of Brno called in the cops. Police spokesman Oldrich Kriz said of the women: “I would compare their state to that of concentration camp victims in World War II.”

Religious fanatic Adam was a member of the sinister Grail Movement and described himself as his victims’ God. When one neighbour tried to persuade the women to rest, furious Adam raged at him: “We don’t need God here. I’m God.”

Adam recruited the women to his mind-bending cult before making them his personal slaves. They lived in a ramshackle shed on Adam’s land with no lighting, heat or water. They slaved from dawn to dusk building Adam and his wife a luxury home and another house where he had his cult chapel. Any spare time was spent doing back-breaking work on Adam’s vineyard. He gave them only bread and water to live on with just a spoonful of honey for supper. Disobedience was snuffed out by withdrawing food altogether. Doctors say the women may never recover from the muscle wasting caused by starvation.

The secretive Grail Movement are recognised as an official religion in the Czech Republic despite a sinister reputation. Last year, they were involved in a child abuse scandal when a follower was arrested for keeping her eight-year-old son chained in a dungeon.”

Daily Record, May 29, 2008

The Grail Movement follows the teachings of Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, a German also known as Abd-ru-shin, who from 1923-38 wrote the Grail Message, which depicts man as a being whose spirit can return to its source in heaven by performing good deeds on Earth. It claims to have at least 10,000 followers worldwide, including several hundred in Britain.

I agree with this article containing a prophetic word by Bryan Hupperts, and am particularly struck by the poisoned river element as it echoes what I have seen in visions on the current apostasy. This post is courtesy of: http://theredskywarning.blogspot.com/2008/05/lakeland-outpouring-is-winnowing-field.html   Thank you Bryan, and thank you for your courage.

“In early 1991 I was listening to a tape by Paul Cain describing how God changed his body chemistry so he would not desire women. Most took this as a call to celibacy. I was disturbed by his phrasing and began to pray over what he said and finally got a definite warning from the Holy Spirit: This man is unclean. Stay away form him.

With my Foursquare/Vineyard background, you can imagine how well this went over with pastors and saints who wondered why I refused to jump into “the river.” I was put out of ministry, given the left foot of fellowship on several occasions for touching God’s Anointed. My motives and character were continually attacked. Finally, Paul was outed as an alcoholic and homosexual. God’s warning came true.

In 1999 I was given a vision of a flowing river. Upstream, many prophets were urinating and defecating into this river and the unsuspecting saints down the way were dipping their silver cups of salvation into this river and gagging on the disgusting human waste and impurities.

The pastor of the inde charismatic church I attended at the time ripped me to shreds, slandered me, and so on. He and his associate had a gift for planting rumors some of which shadow me even today. At the time, I didn’t make the connection but this local church had the word River in their title and I think they may have taken it personally. Yes, they were a “river” church, too. Take a hard look at the state of the prostituted prophetic movement. Even their leaders will admit that most of what is called prophetic ministry simply isn’t. I believe this word has come true.

Before the outbreak of the Iraq war, based on things the Holy Spirit had warned me about, I wrote Pres Bush an open letter warning him of the debacle to come. I quoted news headlines 2 and 3 years before they were written and pleaded with him not to take this foolish course of action. You can imagine how the republican saints in my church came unglued. People were screaming at me, calling me a liberal and a traitor. Still, every word came true.

I write these things because there are many false prophets in the world. Kim Clement is a great example. False word after false word, and the hits just keep coming. Yet, like dogs to their vomit (yes, that’s in Proverbs) saints keep running back to him (and others like him) for “words from the Lord.” Further, they regularly reviling those of us with accurate prophetic track records. I was grieved over this for years until the Holy Spirit whispered, “It’s because they do not love the Truth.” If they truly loved the Truth they would love those who share the Truth as well as the God of Truth.

That was eye-opening.

I was visited by God powerfully during a Rodney Howard Brown meeting in the 90s. God did a work in me that remains. I saw others in the same meetings get weirder and weirder until they are no longer orthodox Christians. It’s all angels and jewels and gold dust. One wind of doctrine after the next. Spiritually seems to be measured in how bizarre you can behave.

I suspect what is happening is that God is giving people their hearts desire - whatever that desire is. If they seek for God with all of their heart, it is God they get. If it is something else they desire, they are getting that, too. It is a scary reality that God promises to give those who do not love the Truth over to delusion so that they will believe lies! See 2 Thessalonians 2:11

I believe the Lakeland Outpouring is a winnowing field, a place of separation between wheat and chaff, the sheep and the goats. 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

If there is no sound doctrine, there is no love of the Truth. I believe the wheat is being separated to be gathered into the Father’s barns while the chaff is being separated and gathered together to be burned in the unquenchable fire.

Be careful what you love for God will answer you according to all that is truly in your heart. Ezekiel 14:7 “‘When any Israelite or any alien living in Israel separates himself from me and sets up idols in his heart and puts a wicked stumbling-block before his face and then goes to a prophet to enquire of me, I the LORD will answer him myself.”

Unless you love the Truth, God will give you over to the idols of your heart.”

Lying and charlatanism is all too common in the church today. The most frustrating thing is the way the charlatans are allowed to continue unrebuked or undisciplined. More grief is given to watchmen like me for warning about the wolves, than is given to the wolves themselves! It seems the ‘church’ charlatans, apostates, heretics - that is the wolves - really can  do anything, and still we should be silent and not warn people, far less correct, rebuke or discipline the wolf. Even the more enlightened ones, who see the wolves for what they actually, still will not stir - except to stir to shout the watchmen  down for being ‘unloving’, ‘divisive’ or ‘judgmental’. It is absolutely ridiculous (not to mention contradictory and hypocritical, for if it is wrong to judge and correct, or to ‘touch’ God’s anointed, how come they judge, correct and touch God’s anointed, the watchmen?)!

Lou Engle recently went way too far - he said the church should kill people- http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/lou-engle-of-the-call-calls-for-war/ - and yet a poster commentating on this site is ‘grieved’ not by Engle’s militancy but by me  for quote: ‘public mockery’. Sadly there was nothing mocking in that article - the antichrist rising is DEADLY serious and a call to persecution of true Bible-believers is no laughing matter. Then we have Gretta Vosper, a reverend with the United Church in Canada, who preaches a gospel of love without the cross or Christ, http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/the-gospel-of-love-without-the-cross-or-jesus/  yet her superior says: ‘it is not his job to condemn’   (and by that, meaning not condemining the person but the teaching by speaking out or doing anything about it like sacking the woman). The mind boggles, it really does, at this sort of  mentality. It is far from biblical, for the Bible urges us to speak up and vigorously contend publically with false prophets and teachers.

Anyway, here is some of the fakes and charlatans’ Hall of Fame  -

Lucy Rael, one of the new mystic crowd linked to John Crowder, Todd Bentley etc was caught out faking ‘angel’ feathers in a meeting, and was also caught out faking words of knowledge too (and probably her stigmata)  http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/new-mystic-stigmatic-lucy-rael-caught-faking-angel-feathers-word-of-knowledge/

Glenn Smith of Shem Ministries was caught out planting gemstones in a meeting. http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/gemstones-fraud-glenn-smith-caught-redhanded/

Silvania Machado of the gold dust fame was caught out placing gold glitter in her hair. (see above article)

Benny Hinn has been caught out repeatedly lying, including notably lying about a person raised from the dead who wasn’t, and a hospital ward that was healed that was not.

Todd Bentley faking words of knowledge: http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/todd-bentley-prophesying-bad-cold-reading/ 

Marjoe Goertner (famous between the 1950s and 1970s) - the one differance with all the other people I mention is that he came clean in a book and documentary, and confessed that his pentecostal crusades were all stage managed for money. He never really believed in God, he says, and was leading a sexually immoral lifestyle, smoking and drinking doing all the things he preached against. http://youtube.com/watch?v=6O0p4ZDnDoQ and http://youtube.com/watch?v=p9Kv7XRaKw8

Kojo Nana Obiri-Yeboah, a Ghanaian pastor, caught out with an electric shock machine. This machine  could be hidden on his body to give out small electric charges when he laid hands on people that faked being touched by the Holy Spirit: http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/shocking-ministry/ 

Here’s a video about Peter Popoff in action faking getting his   words of knowledge http://youtube.com/watch?v=gZ-7beRITYM&feature=related  and also some more here from 2007  http://youtube.com/watch?v=aHIyFmJTRsM&feature=related   His motive is obviously money too.

On previous posts I have talked about how easy it is to fake words of knowledge - either by cold reading and guesswork, http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/todd-bentley-prophesying-bad-cold-reading/ , planting some stooges in the audience, or by obtaining knowledge from other means than the Holy Spirit, like some basic research beforehand in the local newspapers, church bulletins, or prayer requests and application forms written before or during a rally or conference, or by the innocent or deliberate collusion of others - like sending out researchers or listening to a talkative pastor and his wife - and then later using this obtained information and pretending it to be ‘words of knowledge’. (I saw certain YWAM leaders do this regularly against their ‘disciples’ as part of their abusive control structure).

I have talked about ministers lying about spiritual things and faking prophecy to manipulate their flock. Here is an extra little snipit by ’Sheepy’ about his experiences of pastors using prophecy to manipulate and control -

When I was a college student, I niavely got involved with a shepherding movement out of Arizona known by many names: The Potter’s House (not related to TD Jakes), The Door, La Puerta, etc.It was amazing the level of prophecy that came. Most words involved submitting to God’s anointed - or else. What a number of men who left the movement later told me was that is is common practice for the pastor to secretly tell the visiting evangelist what is going on with who and then for the evangelist to speak prophetically to that issue - usually with a “you need to submit to your pastor” to get God’s blessing.

It was an utter and total scam. This organization has had several major breaks with most every leader I knew back then leaving. The manipulation, the lying, the sheer deception done under the guide of prophecy was revolting. Sad to say, I’ve seen this sort of stuff in other churches, too.

Update - Steve, posted this interesting comment -

“I was stationed at Ft Lewis, WA with the military and a small church of about 50-100 did the same thing. Here is how the pastor of this growing church (due to his words of knowledge) worked…

He would send out teams of two people and they would go around and strike up conversations with other military service members. Long story short some of these people were told to report back to the pastor about what everyone was doing & having problems with. This ‘pastor’ suggested that the teams write down the information on 3×5 cards on ‘visitors’ with name, address, phone # AND what problems they were facing in their lives.

Then if when these people were brought to church, suddenly the pastor had ‘words of knowledge’ about that specific person/s (the same info that was on the card).

A terrible way to grow a ‘church’. I voiced my concerns when I found out & they stopped visiting me. Shortly after that I was deployed and never went back to that base.

Yes its sad that folks resort to faking stuff like this. However we must not forget that there are real words of knowledge & prophecy - so don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. In light of the current condition of the ‘church’ we really need to ask for the Lord’s discernment and test everything against scripture.”

But ‘touch not my anointed’, right?   Wrong!

Another incident from http://lit4ever.org/revivalforum/index.php?topic=12514.msg20550;topicseen#msg20550 - (I do not agree with the message though on this forum):

At a healing rally, an evangelist asked the lady if she had ever met him before. “No.”

He repeated the question and added, “So we have never had a conversation before this moment, right?” She responded, “No, but I spoke to some of your staff members.”

Irritated, he said, “That’s not what I asked. Pay attention. You and I have never had a conversation before this moment, right?” She got a little uneasy, “No, but…”

“Do you believe God knows your name?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe God knows everything about you?”

“Yes.”

“Is your name ____, and do you have a son named ____?”

“Yes.”

“Let me ask again…Have you and I ever had a conversation before tonight?”

“No, but….”

“Don’t interrupt the atmosphere, just answer yes or no to my questions. …Have you and I ever had a conversation before tonight?”

“No.”

She looks down at me, pleadingly, as if to say, “What do I do?!”

He continues, “You had a wreck about 2 years ago, yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“You hurt your back and haven’t been able to bend to touch your toes since then, yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe Jesus heals?”

“Yes, but…” He stops her as she tries to say, “But I spoke to YOUR STAFF and told them these things!”

“Don’t grieve the atmosphere, just answer yes or no to my questions. ..Do you believe Jesus heals?”

“Yes, of course I do! But…” As he stops her from speaking, she begins to nervously cry.

“There it is! Don’t be afraid to weep! That weeping shows that He’s coming on your right now!”

For those who do not yet know me - I believe in genuine prophecy. I believe in genuine healing and miracles, and the genuine gifts of the Spirit. I believe in being filled with the Spirit. But I also believe in charlatans and spiritually abusive churches and ministries - don’t you?

Following on from http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/todd-bentley-the-third-wave-a-picture-speaks-a-thousand-words/ here’s another one.

Picture credit: http://www.revivalschool.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=9609&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=195

Before you read this article, please read these articles to see what I am saying in context:

First http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/benny-hinn-causes-death-from-his-antics-on-stage/ 

Second http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/03/30/modern-day-signs-and-wonders-hypnotism-and-trancework/ 

I thought very carefully, weighing up the pros and cons about posting these links of British mentalist/hypnotist/and stage illusionist Derren Brown pretending to be a faith healer/evangelist, as I knew it could damage some people’s faith on this blog. But I realised, even for that reason alone, that I must  blow one of Pentecostalism’s biggest secrets, and reveal it, for if people’s weak faith in God/Christ is based on such charlatanism, tomfoolery and fake signs and wonders, what kind of foundation for faith  is that to have - how will it stand when heat comes? It won’t.   Far better for such people to see their faith and its foundation now for what it is (false), and build their faith on solid rock (the truth), on a true relationship with Christ and knowledge of God’s word, than realise at the Resurrection that they did not know God, and God did not know them - and they were basically just a deluded fluffy ‘Christian’ in name alone, experiencing fake surface signs and wonders - though no doubt they thought themselves very deep as they got high during worship and raised their hands and danced and even shook and rolled around on the carpet - and many of these folk are deeply sincere too. For many ‘Christians’, if you took these type of signs and the ‘feelings’ away, you’ll have nothing at all left. It’s no surprise so many of today’s Christians have a crisis when their spiritual feelings or experiences go - as some  (maybe not all) of these feelings and experiences were based on illusion and not reality, on the flesh and not the Spirit.

Be wise, people, and build with gold and silver not sand.  Be spiritual and not fleshly.

It is my view that it is tolerance for the false, that is inhibiting the true from coming through. If you want real revival, people, if you want to see the power of God, then rid yourself of your idols, and stop tolerating the counterfeit. And slain in the spirit is one ‘idol’, one golden calf, call it what you will. And many ministers KNOW this deep down but will tolerate it, for whatever warped reasons. Perhaps they think if they let go of it, nothing will be left, their church will be shown for what it is - dry,  powerless, needful, dependent, desperate upon God’s Spirit and His power. But oh, what a wonderful place to be in - truth  - to force the people of a congregation onto their knees, calling out for real power, for real revival, for real salvation, real manifestation of God himself, nothing else will do - for such was the time before true revival broke out in the Hebrides in the 1940s/1950s. But without this hunger, without this truth being manifest to all, there is self satisified prayerlessness, depending on fleshly power and the current form of church ministries and church meetings - the delusion which is enough for many, but not for the hungry - but which brings about nothing good or lasting.

If your church is only built on hay and straw, then take away the fake, the slain in the spirit and the other spiritual bluffing and boasting, then nothing will be there. It stands to reason. Like the three little pigs’ homes, when the wolf huffs and puffs, the house will fall down in not built of anything solid. Or when the wind of the Spirit blows, and reveals truth and error, nothing will be left on that day when the false is taken away. So build with gold and silver. Don’t be a foolish builder. Have the faith of God, and know that if you honour Him in this, He will honour you….for the Spirit testifies to truth, not error, and many of you tolerate error, I tell you the truth, you tolerate error and grieve the Holy Spirit.

Watch these videos, and see how easy it is to slay anybody in the spirit - without even pushing them or waving a hankie and yelling ‘anointing’ or ‘power’. Derren Brown is not operating by evil spirits in this case. He’s a hypnotist using well know psychological ploys and techniques, the power of suggestion and using people’s faith in him and expectation of wanting something to happen to make it happen for them. It’s powerful stuff but pure delusion. Thanks Derren, for demonstrating it so well. Imagine him having some worship music in the background, a line of catchers, yelling anointing and power…..he’d do real well in many churches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sq-YUdq1OI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DylNVUN_3I&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHz4BA8zJZ8&NR=1

I found the following excellent article by Lawrence A. Pile. Any readers who do not know me well yet, should know I am not  against true miracles, signs and wonders, but I am against deception, charlatanism and quakery in the modern day church - and there is plenty of deception and charlatanism abounding within it, unfortunately. And where there is not intentional charlatanism, there is ignorance and spiritual deception in its place from counterfeit words, gifts and works from false brethren, false teachers, false prophets, and/or false spirits who have not been tried and tested as per scriptural command - the ones fooled being mainly naive, but well meaning and sincere Christians, or those that do not love the truth and prefer their ears being tickled instead with soothing words from false prophets. ‘Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies..’    I only hear what I want to hear. I don’t really believe the prosperity gospel is what Christ taught, but I want to believe it, so I will believe it and decieve myself…..

Many preachers deliberately use well known hypnotic techniques to manipulate their flock and to hype their audience to manifest supposed ’spiritual’ manifestations (watch ‘Dr’ Rodney Howard Browne, for example, he is a classic and obvious case: his body language, the way he waves his arms and orchestrates the audience and the way his voice goes up and down, the way he laughs to get them laughing, the keywords he throws in etc etc - it is classic manipulation and it is intentional and well worked), and it is time the church wised up to it, and realised what is of God, and what is just hype…..or worse.

It’s not new though. Even John Wesley, several hundred years ago, was criticised in his day for playing on the human psyche and promoting emotionalism and fleshly manifestations in his revivals - which was mistaken for spiritual signs and wonders in his time too. Just like the modern Toronto Blessing meetings or the Pensacola Revival Meetings, or the Sunderland Revival meetings, or the Holy Trinity Brompton meetings, or the River meetings, or whatever you want to call them meetings, some people went to his meetings only to manifest and have a good time - true holy rollers! And this type of behaviour was not uncommon during the New England revivals either, during the so-called Great Awakening - all sorts of bizarre behaviour (sacred theatre) went on then (just like today, it’s nothing new), which promoted the great puritan theologian, Jonathan Edwards, to write several very long pieces on the manifestations, including The Religious Affections, and the more critical Charles Chauncy to write a few choice words.  (See here for Chauncy’s wonderful piece on the French Prophets, forerunners for all sorts of quakery and milleniast cults  and modern day charismaticism and pentecostalism and numerous other ’spiritual’ manifestations.  http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/01/05/on-false-prophets-strange-fire-wolves-in-sheeps-clothing/ )

 The Chicken Little Syndrome and Spirituality

By Lawrence A. Pile

Several years ago, while living south of Oakland, California, a couple of friends and I drove to Berkeley to visit a couple of bookstores near the University of California. It was a Saturday and parking places were scarce. After driving around the Telegraph Avenue area several times (and ignoring my friends’ advice that I do what many others had done and park illegally) I finally found a spot by a parking meter. I quickly pulled in and we set off on our bookstore prowl. While browsing in one store, I suddenly realized I had neglected to put a quarter in the parking meter! I had been so intent on parking legally, that I had ended up nevertheless parking illegally! By now I figured I had already received a ticket from the diligent meter cops that roamed the area. However, returning to the car after a couple hours of shopping, I was surprised and elated to find no ticket on my windshield! Half in jest, I exclaimed to my friends, “It’s a good thing God looks out for children and idiots!”

Many years before that incident I might not have said that in any degree of jest. I had come to believe that almost every event in life was directly caused by God for some purpose. I now know that such a view is much too simplistic, and ultimately can lead one to take less responsibility for one’s own actions. As a child growing up in a residential suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, I learned a different, but similar, way of thinking that had the opposite consequence of assuming too much responsibility for my actions. Perhaps you, too, learned the frightening “fact” that if you stepped on a crack in the sidewalk you would “break your mother’s back.” Or if you walked under a ladder, looked in a cracked mirror, or had a black cat walk across your path you would have bad luck. Like you, though, as I grew older I learned that such “facts” are false, and I needn’t fear breaking my mother’s back or bringing bad luck on myself by such things. (However, I frequently found myself stepping over sidewalk cracks “just in case”!)

These superstitions are called the “Chicken Little Syndrome.” You remember the story. Chicken Little was sleeping under an oak tree when, “out of the blue,” an acorn hit him on the head and woke him up. Not knowing what hit him, Chicken Little reached the only “logical” conclusion he could think of: the sky was falling! Having reached this conclusion, he then ran around “like a chicken with his head cut off” yelling, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” By the end of the story he had convinced most of his neighbors that the sky was indeed falling, and they were all taken by intense panic until one wise animal investigated further and learned the truth. I believe many people are guilty of succumbing to the same Chicken Little Syndrome when it comes to spiritual matters and alleged spiritual matters. Much like my childhood belief in various common superstitions, we too often, like Chicken Little, draw false conclusions from inadequate, inappropriate, or even no evidence. Often the consequences are slight, but occasionally they can be of major impact on our lives, even changing our beliefs and way of life. Consider the following scenes and see if you can determine what is happening in each.

Four Scenes

Scene 1: A line of people winds from the floor of the auditorium and trails across the platform to the visiting speaker as mellow music plays in the background. The man says a few words to each person, then vigorously presses his thumb in the middle of each one’s forehead, while speaking in a foreign language and instructing him or her to “Breathe! Breathe!” Instantly the person drops to the floor, seemingly unconscious. The speaker goes from one to the next down the line, occasionally directing a person off to the side, but otherwise having the same effect on each one. Before long bodies are lying all over the platform.

Scene 2: Another line of people stretches up to another platform in another city. A small band plays slow, mellow music as the guest speaker similarly says a few words to each person and places the palm of his hand on their foreheads. The man frequently shouts out phrases of a foreign-sounding language. Several of these people likewise collapse onto the floor of the platform. Those who don’t, nevertheless walk away in ecstasy, staggering as if drunk.

Scene 3: In yet a third meeting room a man is surrounded by swaying men and women as, one by one, he passes among them vigorously pressing his thumb on their foreheads, sending them into rapturous ecstasy. Music plays and the congregants sing harmoniously. As the man moves through the crowd he occasionally utters words in a strange accent.

Scene 4: Another line of people weaves to the front of an auditorium to receive the touch of the speaker’s hand on their foreheads. Many of these folks will also fall to the floor as if unconscious. After a few minutes they rise and move away in ecstasy, several swaying and dancing to the sound of the up-tempo music played by a small orchestra.

What Is Happening In Each Of These Scenes?

What is happening in each of these scenes? In spite of the many similarities among them, there are some very signif