Todd Bentley - Is he a messenger of God?
Here is part one of a video where Todd Bentley is speaking about an angelic encounter, it could have been Jesus, or may be not, or may be it was, Bentley is not really sure who this angel was and this angel did not identify itself. Then he talks about how he sensed something about the spiritual realm was happening, he asks… have you ever been aware of the angelic realm that something is happening around you that is either angelically or demonically? He could not tell the difference and he doesn’t even test the spirits to see if this was from God or not! Next he talks about the portal of fire that opened up in front of him that transported him through the roof of the Church. This portal — and that is what Todd Bentley said it was — transported him to some other place. He gets beamed up!
Sound familiar?
Related material by Shofar Ministries
What are you talking about God wants all to come to repentance 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. That is revival people getting closer to God calling on Jesus they are hungry this is a last call and it is not only happening there. Testing the spirits I checked the word on what Todd is bringing. 1st of all we are not God to judge and if he has not blasphemed the Holy Spirit he has access to forgiveness. Second 2 Peter 2: 1-3 says But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. Now I have not heard him denying Christ. Another thing you said there is not a revival in the last days this is not a revival it is an outpour Acts 2:17-21 17″
‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.I will show wonders in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
Get your bible out and look at 1John 4:1-6
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. Todd has never denied Jesus Christ came in the flesh. He acknowledges Jesus is from God. And he is calling people to get closer to God.
Matthew 3:20-30 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”
So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house. I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.” He said this because they were saying, “He has an evil spirit.”
Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is when you give glory to the Devil for what God is doing. Watch your tongue sister and repent. God will use who He wants, when He wants, and how He wants.
Pastor Manuel
Hullo
.. i live in New Zealand and have been watching Todd Bentley’s revival in Florida via YouTube and other sites the past 3 weeks.. having never seen or heard of him before, I initially was shocked to see what he looked like, however, I was judging by human standards.. after much consistent research, reading all the gossip and hear-say blogs and forums, the false prophet accusations etc.. and checking with scripture whether the outpouring is the Holy Spirit. “in my opinion” so far, I am saying YES it is of God, the True Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit… and the more i study with an open mind and learn about what Todd Believes in.. the more real GOD is becoming to me. Today i listened to Todd Bentley preaching on ” THE SECRET PLACE OF HIS POWER” posted Jan2008. and I think the entire message is correct and true.. no normal Christian has the attitude and approach and thirst for God and Truth as Todd Bentley has expressed in this message. If you have not heard it I challenge you
http://www.freshfire.ca/media_centre/mediaPlayer.html
I realise that there are some things that Todd says and does are NOT scriptural, however, he may not be aware of them, and this should not discourage us from seeking the truth, my motto is “keep the good & discard the evil” .. Todd is a man and has the same temptations and lack of knowledge and error mixed with truths in his life as we ALL do {if any man says he has no sin he is a liar} Yes I know the Blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin etc.. and we are saved by Grace alone (sorry not here to preach, so will get back to the topic) I do think God has sent Todd with 1 main purpose and that is to start revival and minister in miracles and healings to bring us Christians back to walking with God.. I personally wouldn’t be to concerned with everything that Todd teaches.. as long as he is acknowledging his power is from Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and God the Father there can be no deception. It is the anti-christ spirit which denies Jesus Christ as Lord and I have not heard Todd deny Jesus – he gives all the glory to Him. It is not our choice on how God uses men to give Him Glory. He can make an animal speak or the stones themselves and that is scriptural. In my opinion using Todd is God’s blessing because many young people would never go near any Pentecostal or Baptist church and proof is thousands are being saved!! they are turning to Jesus and reading His Word, if this was of the devil then he is fighting for the wrong camp – remember Jesus was accused of using demonic power and at the end was crucified.. the same is true today.. they want to crucify Todd.. I say crucify the falseness and keep the truth, it’s not about Todd, but about salvation and healing from God in Jesus Christ and the power of His Holy Spirit – you can reject Todd and his teachings but do not reject God – there is salvation in NO other name except Jesus Christ [now, I am preaching!@!] J and from what I have seen and heard there is much truth in this revival – don’t discard it, be careful and test the spirits, pray about everything and seek God yourself.
God’s will is repentance, but how can one repent if one does not first come to Jesus. Sinners came to Jesus. Jesus always healed first, cast out the demon then told them to sin no more. Salvation is ALL God’s Grace from beginning (calling) to end (receiving Jesus as Lord & Saviour). I am still listening to Todds preaching and am astounded in the depth that God has taken him… so far so good!!.. if someone has never experienced visions, revelations, prophesies, dreamt dreams and felt the presence of God in their lives then they should not judge what Todd is on about, lest they be found to be Judging God Himself – “whoever judges God’s servant judges Him who sent him”. I would advise great caution in what is said about Todd.
I challenge anyone reading this to listen to Todds preaching, it is very scriptural (or am I reading the wrong bible? - ie. King James)
http://www.freshfire.ca/media_centre/mediaPlayer.html
If you don’t have an open mind to listen to Todd preaching, then try Derek Prince Ministries:> He was used by God to deliver power of healings & miracles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Prince
As for Angels, I have never heard Todd saying to worship them (as is forbidden in the Bible), however, to deny seeing them would be fallacy, perhaps Todd should keep his personal visions to himself - as the scripture say “don’t throw your pearls before the swine, lest they be trampled under”. Personally, I am very grateful he shares these deep insights. Praise the name of Jesus for Todd, keep him safe and let your Restoration Power continue to manifest and bring Salvation through Jesus Christ to billions of people!!. Amen.
Chas, you have actually researched this and still believe it is of God????? I am agog and agape, you leave me speechless. You have been warned. Let me just give you something I know you will believe that will change your mind. I just got back from the 8th heaven and an angel told me that Todd’s angels and tattoos are not of God. Welcome home bro.
Pastor Manuel,
Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit can also be claiming a Holy anointing, then using it to enrich yourself? Show me where in the scripture that Jesus or the apostles ask for donations to further the Kingdom? The very most basic principle of christian living is found in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. (Matt.22:36,Romans13:9, Gal.5:14, James2:8). So if you love your neighbor as yourself would you ask them to support you by borrowing(using credit cards)?
Blaspheming the Holy Spirit, is saying and believing that God is evil, and what is evil is good. The person is totaly convinced that God is the evil presense in this world.
And that Satan is the good guy.
Does not include anything else.
When I first heard about a revival occurring in the US through a church member’s announcement, my reaction was one of hopeful anticipation. I eventually signed up on the internet for GodTV after looking briefly at the FFM website about Todd Bentley’s ministry. The friend of Todd Bentley’s chosen to give his testimony about Todd Bentley, a man he had grown to know over many years sounded very impressive with his description of a holy, prayerful man! Everything seemed ‘genuine’ in the stadium meetings in that there were passionate worshippers at the meetings and there was so much excitement, and the long worship times seemed to focus on God. I was receptive and was not expecting or hoping to find anything wrong because you don’t when you are hoping to share in what people say is a ‘move of God’. After participating in the meetings online, I really thought I should find out what Christian believers around the world consider this to be - from God or not from God? I started really looking beneath the surface of these events and was then challenged after spending the wrong amount of time reading other people’s opinions rather than really asking God to show me Himself through my seeking Him and finding His counsel in His written word. Although God’s Word is important in my Christian walk, I had not made it my first priority to consult His Word to find out what He says on these matters and realised I had remind myself of what is Apostolic teaching. (The first piece of spiritual armour we are told to put on by Paul, “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God”, is the belt of truth in Ephesians 6!)
I would agree with those who say that this ‘power’, having the appearance of the power of God because of the incredible number of healing ‘miracles’ being performed, is from the Devil. It should not really be a surprise to those more mature in the faith that the Devil has the means to confuse and dupe those unable to or not wishing to test things because they long to see wonders occurring. These signs and the testimonies given by Todd Bentley of ‘God’ speaking to him and of his visions, have the appearance of exalting ‘God’ but the worship stops short of proclaiming the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect One, both man and God, who through His death on the cross in our place, paid for the sins of the whole world, and for those who accept His sacrifice are no longer under God’s wrath. The music and the worshipping atmosphere at Lakeland meetings were very persuasive, but if you were to think about it, there isn’t much substance in the ‘truth’ of which they sing about there. (I suppose that reflects a lot of what is fashionable. Maybe the simpler the words, which hardly touch on any Christian doctrine, allows people to forget themselves and get caught up and feel wonderful in their worship. That is also a snare!) But I found that the people on the platform do not speak of Jesus Christ - they had made the occasional reference (hardly noticeable when we hear about the angels that appear to Todd Bentley which we hear about in great detail), but it’s the ‘POWER’ they are interested in. In fact, they are denying the message of the power of the Gospel; the main ‘leaders’ imply the message about the Gospel but actually concentrate a
on things which are outside of the teaching in Holy Scripture. They do not preach what the apostles of Christ had taught. We are unfortunately witnessing a terrible terrible dupe on the Church of God who. We are just like Eve, desiring ‘wisdom’, ‘new’ insights, ‘extra-biblical-ordinary’ outward signs and are being deceived. We see in Paul’s 1st letter to Timothy that regarding biblical teaching, he gives sober teaching: “Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” (v15-16 my emphasis)
Many of us in the Body of Christ of course want to see God moving and people glorifying God in the Church. Whenever the Devil acts to bring in deception through both subtle and unsubtle changes and presents counterfeits (the ways of God are true and the fruit He produces ARE the complete opposite) which HARM the Body of Christ, it is our duty to expose the lies and his strategies. In John 3 v20 the Lord Jesus told Nicodemus: “Everyone who hates evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God”. We need to follow the Apostle Paul’s command to put on the full armour of God (Ephesians 6), remembering that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (see v10 -18). Remember that the Devil only wants to is to steal, kill and destroy whereas Jesus, the Good Shepherd gives life: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” John 10. These so-called signs and the teaching which people are readily accepting as result of these ‘confirming’ signs, are doing great harm to the Body of Christ and because this involves the spiritual realm, the believer has difficulty accepting the truth in God’s Word because they are being deceived by Satan’s lies and working.
We should certainly be following the command not to put out the Spirit’s fire, and not to treat prophecies with contempt but to TEST everything because not everything comes from God! 1 Thessalonians 4v19-22. It is not us giving that command, it is the Bible! There is a scepticism that is healthy! Why should we be calling that which is evil as from the hand of God? The Bible teaches believers not to hastily lay hands on people, but there seems to be a ‘wholesale’ laying on of hands, and this too is wrong.
Some scriptural references provided below which I hope will be helpful to you:
2 Timothy 1:9 - 13 “This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher….What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.”
2 Timothy 3:16 - 4:4 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and careful instruction. 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.” [Lots of things sound Christian but the 'power' and 'wisdom' displayed here are not scriptually based.]
1 Timothy 4:1 “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.”
Galatians 1:6-12 “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel - which is really no gospel at all.” v8″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!” (my emphasis)
These “Florida outpouring” leaders are preaching a different gospel,and they do not give the complete message about the way of salvation given in the Bible. If you would look at how the Apostles chosen by Christ preached and explained the salvation found only in Jesus the Messiah/Christ, you would realise how much we have compromised or radically changed the message to suit ourselves and our hearers. We want quick messages and quick responses - and that is how people fall away so easily because they never knew what the message of the Gospel was about, so weren’t able to accept it and did not know true repentance in their hearts, and that is why there will be no fruit to show.
At one stage early on when I witnessed Todd Bentley say in one of his meetings that he had asked the angel or ‘God’ why he shouldn’t talk about Jesus, the answer he got was “people already know all about Jesus, what they need to know about is my power”. How this sounds so persuasive that it’s almost acceptable! As the Church, certainly as we know it in Europe, has been spineless, worldly in nature, ignorant of God’s truths, and has largely not accepted the empowerment of the Holy Spirit available for all believers. Sadly many charismatics have reacted by seeking more ‘power’ and ‘blessings’ and have unfortunately developed an unbalanced view of the believer’s relationship with God and His Word has become secondary to their own teaching (See 2 Peter 3-4). There at Lakeland, what appears to be a simple reason given by the leaders for not proclaiming Jesus and Biblical truth AT THE SAME TIME as the miracles is a simple deception that I fell for at the beginning like many others. The Church has never been commanded by the Word of God to neglect the teachings of Jesus Christ in order to advance the kingdom of God! Yet many of us believe what Jesus said to the disciples after His bodily resurrection from the dead, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned and these signs will accompany those who believe…” The preaching of the good news about salvation is pre-eminent, and the acts of the Holy Spirit accompany the believers. I was very grieved in my spirit after I learned that God has actually given us direction throughout His Word on how His words perform and what His Word achieves, and how to identify false teaching and prophecies and warns about false teachers and prophets, visions and signs and miracles. It’s all there! But are we prepared to study His Word?
When people need to adjust the Gospel or put it to one side in order to emphasise something other than teaching about Jesus Christ, we need to be on our guard. Signs and wonders and miracles can never be the marks or markers for the Christian faith. We are never to judge by anything other than by the’Canon of Scripture through which we can measure everything, not by our pleasant feelings, the wisdom of men or the good and sincerity we see in people. If we don’t know what is in God’s Word, won’t that mean that we could accept almost anything! We must not twist Word of God for our own purposes or ignore it in order make a new doctrine or teaching fit in. The Holy Spirit always glorifies Jesus Christ!
Other people have put their concerns about this ‘move’ far better and in greater depth than I have. I share these things as, hopefully, an encouragement to you, and stand along with all those who love the Truth. I wish to say finally that I do think we need to warn people in the Body of Christ, but we need to keep close to God by the Spirit to check that we are not giving so much of our time checking out ‘this and that’ after we have become aware of what is false that we forget to pray: for all the things that God is concerned about as well as praying for God’s people’s eyes to be ‘opened’ to this deception; and that although Todd Bentley has been the focus of so much attention, please let us also warn people as informatively and knowledgeably from Scripture about all the other major ‘names’ who are in complete agreement with these ‘blessings’ and teachings in the “Florida Outpouring” because people may turn to these other ‘prophets’ who give false prophecy and ‘teachers’ who have left the teachings of Christ (others have given their wisdom about praying for these leaders who have been deceived); and that we will continue to find out what pleases our God in our lives.
Yours in the Lord Jesus Christ,
Jessica