Another Sad Story Coming From Todd Bentley's "Revival"

From Hank Hanegraaff:

Of course these kinds of stories elevated expectations to fever pitch, and so with tears streaming down her face Angela wheeled the most precious of her possessions towards the stage. This was her moment. This was the culmination of all her hopes and dreams. Within moments the paralysis of her daughter would be but a distant memory.

Suddenly, however, an agony beyond the burden that she carried in her heart for all these years cascaded down upon her and in that moment her dreams were dashed. You see, an usher blocked her entrance to the stage, saying that only the healed had entry to the healer. Angela ended up leaving dejected and discouraged.

Ironically, Gerry's son Taylor, who suffers from epilepsy, left feeling that he had experienced the miraculous. Had Taylor been interviewed that very moment he would have testified to complete and total healing. Gerry, however, left in a quandary. He said that the healer was a fraud. He risked damaging the faith of his son. If he threw away his meds his son would experience a grand mal seizure.

Read the whole story here.

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Fighting faith-healing fraud

Dr. Russell Moore talks about why there's a market for faith healers:

I fear that it's more than just P.T. Barnum's famous old maxim about the gullibility of the American public. I fear that there's something missing in our churches that drives even some of our people to charlatans. Might there be less of a demand for these travelling health-and-wealth revivalists if our churches spent more time on our knees in prayer for sick and hurting people?

Of course, all our churches have prayer lists of the sick, and many of them go over these lists line-by-line at Wednesday night prayer meeting. But when's the last time you saw a church follow the command of the Holy Spirit as to what to do for the sick in James 5:13-15? When's the last time you saw a suffering Christian call the pastors of his church to anoint him with oil and to pray for healing?

Read more.

The Todd Bentley spectacle: faith or fraud?

Prof. William Dembski of Southwestern Seminary recently took his autistic son and the rest of his family to a Todd Bentley meeting in Denton, TX. His family's expression of faith in a sovereign God who can and does use people to heal people is remarkable. But even more remarkable is the blatant manipulation and Finneyesque con artistry used by Bentley and the leaders of the meeting. Dembski's account is truly sad, but not surprising.

Neither my wife nor I regret going. It was an education. Our kids are resilient. But the ride home raised a question. We found ourselves avoiding talking about the event until the children fell asleep. Then, as they drifted off in the early morning, we talked in hushed tones about how easily religion can be abused, in this case to exploit our family. What do we tell our children? I'm still working on that one.

Are we on God's schedule or is God on our schedule?

It would seem that the "mighty outpouring" going on down in Lakeland, FL is going to take a short hiatus so that Todd Bentley can take his summer vacation. According to the press release, the fresh fire of Lakeland requires a "refresh". For nearly 100 days now, Bentley (of multiple piercing and prison-grade tattoo fame) has been "ministering" to the Lakeland revival and is getting tired of having to do all this work.

I am so glad that the Holy Trinity has Todd Bentley on hand to lead this revival. I can't imagine what God would do without Todd Bentley on his side! And I am also so glad to see that Mr. Bentley can turn the "mighty outpouring" on an off like a spiggot so that he can have time to get some rest and continue doing "God's work".

God will surely use Mr. Bentley some day to draw people to the faith through the only true Gospel, but not in any way most people might think:

When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, "You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time."

Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand.

Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

- Acts 13:6-12