One thing I’m impressed with, though. Todd Bentley, upon making this decision “final”, is releasing all authority over the revival (notice that I didn’t put quotation marks on that) and stepping away from it. Why is he doing this? I don’t know, but I believe that it’s because he sees that this thing that God is doing in Lakeland is more important that his having “control” or “authority” over it.

Father, I pray that you will bless Todd Bentley and his family in all things. I pray that Your grace and mercy will flood his heart and mind in all areas. I pray that You will continue to touch lives in whatever methodology, manner and way that You can in Lakeland. I also pray that we will truly intercede for the Bentleys, and not tear them down and judge them. Many lives and ministries are being attacked, Father. The enemy is truly seeking to devour and destroy lives. Open our hearts to pray more for Your will to be on earth as it is in heaven – believing that You desire that to be literal in every sense of the word. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Robert McKinnons last blog post..Where He Judges the Living and the Dead: (What Now? cont’d)

http://blogsology.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/todd-bentley-divorcing/

Jeff T.s last blog post..Todd Bentley Divorcing

because he is following what he truly believes IN HIS HEART what God has called him to do. And he will not back down for any man.

I have been judged unrighteously before for doing something that I believed in my heart that God was leading me to do. Perhaps I was wrong. But I was being obedient to what I was convinced was God’s voice.

I’d rather be guilty of doing the wrong thing out of a heart of obedience and love for my God than do the right thing and reject what I believe in my heart to be God.

Perhaps that’s deep. But to me it’s simple.

Robert McKinnons last blog post..Marriage and God’s Word: What do we really believe?

May I take this moment to say “touche’ ”

We can find fault with many people. We wouldn’t dare to have Paul preach to us today. It’s simply not “politically correct”. He would offend too many people. But SAUL, on the other hand, would probably fit right into our current-day churches.

Elisha would be put in jail for calling the she-bears out to eat children.

Elijah would be guilty of mass murder and send to death row.

Jesus would be tagged by the CIA as a potential hazard.

We are all too critical, and spend much less time praying for the young and immature than we do lifting our own lives high.

I believe Bentley is a man that wants to see God’s will done. And I admire his firm stand – not because I feel he’s right in everything he’s doing, but because he is following what he truly believes IN HIS HEART

Robert McKinnons last blog post..Marriage and God’s Word: What do we really believe?

In answer to your question:

My biggest concern is not whether or not “you” believe in the prophetic, but whether your belief in that becomes bigger than your belief in Christ. In other words, are “we” going to “Lakeland” to see Jesus Christ at work, or are we going because of our inexplicable draw to the “supernatural”?

Easy answer, bro! I ain’t a-goin down there at all. I don’t believe that I have to “go there” to get what God is doing. That would mean that the only way God can work in my life is by being at a geographic location, and I don’t believe that.

I am grieved at how many people “seek the miracle” more than the miracle Man – Jesus. I believe that we are to seek first the kingdom of God, and HIS righteousness . . .

Christ is the cornerstone, and all the other parts of the building have to be laid “plumb” with its corners or all will be laid to waste.

Hope that answers your question, and I echo Fred’s “kudos” to you for your heart in the matter.

I pray that, even in a disagreement, I can be gracious and loving. I’ve been wrong many times, and I will be wrong more in the future, I’m sure. I don’t understand everything about God. I see things that puzzle me. I see things that baffle me. But somehow He’s in charge.

I’ve come to a point in life where I’m very suspicious of “feelings” or “emotions” or anything else that is subjective. I’ve had to lean on the Word of God in a way that perhaps would seem confusing to others. I question EVERY preacher I hear. Not out of hateful distrust, but because I’ve truly realized that even “anointed” preaching is always tainted with the beliefs of the man preaching. Those beliefs are influenced by a lot of things, the biggest one being their FIRST exposure to church. A preacher who was “raised” as a Catholic will preach MUCH different than one raised as a Pentecostal, and they’ll both preach MUCH different than one raised as a Baptist, even though they may all be 30 years old and graduated from the same seminary and even preach in the same building. Thus, in a spirit of “does this align with God’s word” I try to continually take the preaching I hear and compare it to what I hear God saying IN HIS WORD. I believe that God primarily speaks to today’s Christian through the Bible. Any version of “God told me” MUST be compared to that belief in my world. I simply don’t put much credence in “God told me to kick the old lady in the face.” I put much more credence in “Go ye therefore into all the world…” The entire idea of being caught up “into the third heaven” on demand is so foreign to my theology that I immediately go into “red flag” status when I bump into that.

I believe in the God that CAN do anything. I do not deny God the ability to do miracles, even today. I believe He often performs them, even today, but I believe it is always through prayer, not through a special impartation or through a certain man or through a certain anointing. However, I believe that God has clearly told us in His word that He deals with men today through the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit ALWAYS points to Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit does nothing for his own glory, nor for the glory of man, nor for the excitement of the masses. It is always to glorify the Son of God.

There is MUCH to this, and I hope I’m being appropriate. I definitely don’t mean to discredit the power of the God that I believe has created an entire universe, but I believe He has a plan and that He has limited his manifest expression of Himself today, basically due to the fact that we are to believe in Christ – the Word – through faith and faith alone.

Robert – Just to be brief, you said “You have a hard time understanding how I believe that the prophetic and apostolic are still operating today. I have a hard time understanding how you don’t.” I don’t necessarily have a hard time understanding your belief, it’s just that I basically believe that this is not part of God’s plan for the church of today. I can easily see that the opposite viewpoint can be taken, even based on Scripture, but it’s a thing in which “straddling the fence” is difficult or impossible. We must come down on one side or the other. My biggest concern is not whether or not “you” believe in the prophetic, but whether your belief in that becomes bigger than your belief in Christ. In other words, are “we” going to “Lakeland” to see Jesus Christ at work, or are we going because of our inexplicable draw to the “supernatural”? Mankind has an innate desire to see paranormal things. We’re intrigued by things that we can’t explain. Our eyes snap to things that are metaphysical. We can’t help it.

My point about hindering God is again, complicated. Jesus is “hindered” from saving people because of their unbelief, clearly. He cannot forgive their sin if they will not believe in Him. That’s how WE see it. However, Jesus being hindered from doing “many mighty things” doesn’t, to me, contradict the principle of the sovereignty of God. I maintain that God knows everything in advance, has a distinct plan for exactly what WILL happen (not just what He “wants”), and that He uses even the hatred in men’s hearts to accomplish His full intentions. This is a hard doctrine to get my hands around, and I’m not quite there yet. It’s hard to really grasp the fact that, at 33AD, Jesus Christ had full knowledge of Todd Bentley in 2008AD. He knew then whether Todd would be promoting true or false gospel. Yet He died for Todd Bentley. Somehow, through all the stuff that confuses the dickens out of me, He knew all about it and it was part of His plan.

God isn’t held captive to our fancy. God doesn’t sit awaiting our requests. God is continually working. We are blessed to be invited to join Him. He’s not our captive toy to amaze our friends. He has invited us to follow His Son, and in doing so, to find Him. Someone who “believes” in God because they were healed should remember that Christ Himself said “more blessed are they who have not seen, but still believe.”

Love you guys.

Bernard

I am bitter about this – I’m bitter that other believers are taking the “love and grace” approach with issues that the Bible says are to be judged and not “loved” into biblical correctness. I feel like nobody reads the writings of Paul that command us to “remove the immoral brother from among you”. He’s talking about the unrepentant believer. Isn’t it shocking that Paul doesn’t mention lvoe and grace in that situation?

As far as someone preaching angels, the Bible says that man is CURSED. No mention of love and mercy.

I, like Paul, am “chief among sinners” and in CONSTANT need of God’s grace and mercy. But if you can’t distinguish or discern which situations need love and mercy and which ones need to be judged, then I’m afraid you’re simply not reading your Bible.

I’m not even interpreting the Bible – I simply taking what it says to mean what it says!

When it comes to teaching what is Biblically defined false theology, we are commanded to judge our own. The Bible says that person is cursed. There’s no way around this.

Robert – could you please list these verses you reference in your post? I have nothing but a sincere desire to see the church act Biblically in this matter. As far as suggesting I take my concerns to Todd personally, that’s simply not realistic for purely geographical reasons (he’s not in Lakeland anymore) and I also know that several people have tried unsuccessfully to do just that. Your question of “can you do what Todd does better?” is just ridiculous. If a preacher teaches heresy, should you keep your mouth shut because you can’t preach as well as he can???

As far as the name calling, I shouldn’t have called him an idiot bu let us not forget that Paul wished that certain legalistic men would “castrate themselves”!

I’m still haven’t heard anyone give me a BIBLICAL reason why we should bypass what the Bible says about teaching on angels and what the Holy Spirit tangibly looks like.

I’m a horrendously flawed messenger but I hope that you’re mature enough of hear the message in spite of me. I’m begging you, as other believers, please go the Word on this. Stop using your own judgment about what “feels” or “seems” right in this matter. Neither you or I can trust our own judgment apart from God’s Word. Let’s not ignore the hard truths of the Word.

Finally, I am Spirit-filled and pray in tongues in my private prayer life. I believe in the miraculous and that all of the gifts of the Spirit are active today. I depend on the Holy Spirit in order to do ministry. I have no legalistic agenda. All I want is to see things done in truth, in line with the Word. That’s the issue. Not the fact that I write without a filter between my mind and my mouth (I’m working on it)!

I respect your right to believe or not believe in things like I do. No problem there. I have the same issues you do on the opposite side of the coin.

You have a hard time understanding how I believe that the prophetic and apostolic are still operating today. I have a hard time understanding how you don’t. But that’s ok, right? We don’t all have to agree with each other. But we do have to agree with what the Bible says. The problem is that so many of us see it differently.

We could get into a biblical discussion on this and I wouldn’t mind it, but this isn’t the venue for it.

As far as “nobody can hinder God” . . . Jesus was only able to do a few things in His own home town because people refused to believe in Him. God wanted to work, but unbelief stopped Him. The bible is full of places where God wanted things to go a certain way, but the people got in the way.

I believe God can and does operate many times in spite of us, but He has chosen (for the most part) to work through people. When people will not cooperate, His work is either stifled or delayed. Just too many scriptural references to bring up.

Oh, and you’re NOT intruding at all, brother!

First – I have to agree, if you are a cessasionist (which you are correct in stating that we’d certainly choose to disagree on that theology), you can’t really embrace this. So, if you come from the cessasionist or non-apostolic viewpoints, I can understand how you’d take issue w/ this move. No intentions of trying to change your mind on that one … wouldn’t do that anyway …. yeah, maybe a different blog discussion, but I doubt either of us is interested in changing the other’s mind! (grin)

Second – let me clarify (at least, for my own benefit) that I’m am 100% totally opposed to ANY “extra-revelation” claiming to come from an “angel”. I believe God has revealed Himself through His Word, and I do wholeheartedly believe that God still speaks today through His Body, and through ministry gifts … but any “revelation” has to be in full agreement with God’s Word, and supported by God’s written Word … otherwise, I discard it.

Lastly … I cannot agree with your comment that God’s work “cannot be hindered”. God’s work is hindered all the time by mankind.

My supporting Scripture in this case is where Jesus could “do no miracles” (or not many miracles) because of the unbelief of the people there. These people, and their unbelief (or choice to NOT BELIEVE) had a direct impact on Jesus’ ability to move as He desired.
Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. Matthew 13:53-58 NKJV

Just my $.02.

Just two quick points that I feel are necessary to contextualize this discussion.

One – you presume that “the prophetic” and supernatural ministry are valid today. I just want to be fair and point out that we don’t all believe this in necessarily the same way. Part of the difficulty of accepting Todd’s ministry as “of God”, for many, is that we are either cessationists, or, at the very least, “non-apostolic” in nature. If this is truly of God, it hits at the very core of that belief. Much of what Todd preaches is “extra revelation”, supposedly either a direct word from God, or from a certain angel. My personal belief that the revelation of God ended with the closing of the canon puts up a roadblock to much of the teaching. I believe that Paul was the last apostle apointed, and thus I bump heads with much modern apostolic “authority” teaching and the necessary discernment. (Aside – I realize that this is probably in conflict with the beliefs of Fred and the readers of this blog. I’m not “at odds” with you about it – I love you all in Christ and I consider Fred a great friend – but we must accept the fact that we don’t agree.) In other words, for ME personally to accept some of these things as being “of God”, I must decide if Todd Bentley, Bob Jones, and even Paul Cain and Patricia King are teaching things that I feel align with Scripture. I can’t just say “Well, good things are happening, and they use Jesus name,” and go on. No, I must evaluate whether I can believe in modern miracle crusades, whether I can accept Latter Rain teaching, whether people are really “slain in the Spirit”, or not, whether God is at our beck and call, whether or not we are allowed to speak with angels, etc. etc. It’s a big discussion. As a “leader” in a church with some members that are easily confused by “powerful” happenings, I MUST form an opinion that agrees with what I believe about Scripture and be prepared to defend it. Would I advise a church member to travel 12-14 hours to attend this? At this point, absolutely not, based on my comparisons of what I see happening with my beliefs about Scripture. I’m not a pastor, but I still have a responsibility to discern, and what I see does not match what I believe about Scripture. Thus, it’s difficult to just take a “hands off” approach.

Second – you mention “we will MURDER a move of God just like we have so often in the past.” This bothers me, because I believe, again based on Scripture, that NO ONE can hinder God when He chooses to work. Jesus’ death was NOT the result of Jews fighting God. No, indeed, it was the absolute fulfillment of His perfect plan. If you adopt Gamaliel’s argument, your statement here shoots it down in entirety, because the truth is, if it IS a move of God, NOTHING we do, Jeff, me, or even Todd Bentley, can stop it. As well, if it’s a move of God, Todd Bentley could die tomorrow and the move would continue.

In Christ and with love,
Bernard

I’ve listened to all you’ve had to say. I acknowledge that everyone has a right to their own opinion, and I also acknowledge your desire to have the Word be our standard of judgement.

I listened to the youtube video and it make total sense to me. He has a legitimate point. That’s MY opinion.

The problem I have right now is that I could use several scriptures to back up many things I’ve seen. I can also see many things that truly DO bother me. But I believe you have already made your mind up about it. You’ve made yourself abundantly clear of how you feel.

My greatest concern is FOR you. You have called someone that I believe to be an anointed man of God -called by Him to do a work FOR Him – an “idiot”. You have called him several other names.

For all the judgements you have made and publicly bashed him with, you are being guilty of the same thing. There is no love for this person that I can see in you. All you care about is what is right and wrong, and there is a place for that. But truth without mercy is deadly, and even Michael, the arch-angel of God, didn’t rail against Satan.

Jeff, I can only say this: can YOU move in the supernatural and be used by God to accomplish what’s going on down there? Can YOU move in the prophetic and do a better job than Todd Bentley? If you can, then go down and relieve him by all means.

If not, why not simply pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal to him what isn’t right so that changes can be made? Why not pour prayer-filled love toward him instead of calling him names and condemning him. Why not go down and try and build a relationship with him so that your judgements can be made out of personal knowledge of the man?

I don’t care about his tatoos, as long as his heart has been tatooed as well. I don’t care about his methodology as long as God’s will is being accomplished. As long as I believe his heart wants to see God move I will pray for God’s will to be accomplished through him.

God has called his prophets and ministers to do some pretty wild things in the past – and it’s always the religious folks who believe that they have a patten on what God’s word means that crucify them.

I pray that we can simply allow God to be God in this situation, pray for Todd Bentley – that he would be open to what God is saying, and praise Him that so many peoples’ lives are being changed as a result of what is going on down in Lakeland – IN SPITE of what we see that “bothers” us.

If we can’t do that, then we will MURDER a move of God just like we have so often in the past.

I have said all this out of love and a heart of concern for the body of Christ. We need a move of God, and I NEED this to be real. We all do. We are desperate for God to move, and if I can say one thing that I KNOW about my God, He does things to confound the wise. He hates the proud. He loves the simple.

I’m simple. I’m dumb enough to believe that God can work any way He wants to even if it bothers the heck out of my flesh.

The reality is, I don’t know that we have a LOT of “play-by-play”, personality-type reference of how miracles happened in the Bible. I mean, we see Jesus prayed, they were healed. How did He pray? Was it soft or loud? Was it forceful with authority, or did He just look and softly say “be delivered”. I’m not sure that we have to model everything off the examples we see on a “play-by-play”, “method-by-method” basis … I think what’s most important is the “heart of the matter” … the “doing” … not the “how it’s done”.

That being said, we do have Biblical model and mandates of how we are to conduct ourselves – both personally, and corporately … some great points Jeff has brought up .. and that Shannon has reinforced, though saying that he has noticed a marked improvement.

If indeed the platform was full of self-glorification, error, and show-boating, and it’s been corrected and/or toned down .. I can offer my applause and respect to a man (or men) who listen to correction and make the necessary changes.

It’s also hard to forget the fact that we are all human … and though we have the same Spirit as Jesus Christ had .. let’s face it … we’re nowhere close to walking “as he walked”. The energy, excitement, and power that God’s anointing can have on a person can stir up the environment in a room where our own personalities, energies, and nature changes. Some of that is just a direct response of an energetic, faith-filled, expectant “air” in the place.

Like when an all-time homerun hitter comes to the plate in a ballgame – trying to break a world record .. well, the place goes nuts … and the energy level and excitement level inside the dugout would cause the fans (and the players, symbolic of those on the platform) to go nuts. Hit it out of the ballpark – you go even MORE NUTS.

That being said, why can’t we recognize (and have some measure of GRACE) for the fact that SOME OF THIS could be happening right there in Lakeland. Does it make it right? No. Does it make it WRONG? Not necessarily.

Ponder this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIjO4wMLjBk

Galatians 1:8-9
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

1 Corinthians 2:1-2
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

I also have an issue with the fact that Todd Bentley WAS “clean-shaven and polished” a couple of years ago when he first started doing the Pentecostal circuit (you can see it in older video clips). He’s a not “from the streets”, he just got tatted-out to look like he was and now he talks like he’s some rough dude. It’s a total gimmick…