The Toronto Blessing, and Benny Hinn, etc

[Leonard]

I was wondering what the other users of this forum thought regarding the supposed 'toronto blessing' and also the seemingly selfish and get rich quick ministries of Benny Hinn.

To set out my own position from the outset: I am highly suspicious of the Toronto Blessing, and, maybe just a little bit less suspicious of Benny Hinn.

I try to be very cautious regarding the truth of God's Word, and how it is preached. If a 'red flag' is raised regarding the preaching of God's word, I am very reluctant to be drawn in by the 'new' way of thinking. There is not much that I hate more than the polluting of His Word.

I believe in 'spiritual blessings' in these days, but maybe some churches are going too far?

I just don't know all the answers myself. Some I know are in favour of it, some against. What is the truth?

Know a tree by the $1200 suit it wears.

Yep. Anybody who can afford a better suit than me MUST BE SATANIC!!! ("Christian" Marxism). Here it is folks: Absolute proof positive of what I have said all along; too many of us are just motivated by jealousy, and are willing to forgive ANYTHING except success..........

[LadyRaven]

Prophecies are given for a reason. If a prophecy is given, and then circumstances change, the prophecy will not come to pass. If a prophecy is given, and great amonts of intercessory prayer go up, or people repent; then it will not come to pass. This is Biblical. That is why Jonah was so mad that the people of Ninevah repented. When they repented, it turned God's wrath. It made Jonah look like a false prophet.

Jonah was mad the people of Ninevah repented because Ninevah was the capital of Assyria, Israel's enemy.

That is what the Sunday School Bible stories say. I think if you will re-read the book, you will come to the conclusion that He was mad because his prophecy did not come true. It made him look like a false prophet.

It matters not why Jonah was mad. The Bible says God relented because Ninevah repented. The circumstances of Hinn's Prophecies have not changed, in fact they've gotten worse. Yet his prophecies have not come true, and thus as scripture says we are not to listen to him as He does not speak for the Lord. He's a false prophet.

Now I could understand the reaction of "I'll go investigate this and if what you say is correct I will stand with you/pray for him/repudiate any support of him"...as this would mean that you have not heard these things and are hesitant to believe them but...want to know the truth.

I don't understand trying to justify his teachings though.

I have followed the ministry of Hinn for many years. He is not perfect, but most of the attacks on him are unjustified. He has replaced Kenneth Copeland as the front man in the Pentecostal church to receive persecution. I have not been able to thooughly investigate the quotes of Hinn. I do not have the audio recordings of them. However, several years ago, the same type things came out about Copeland. Most people jumped on the Copeland is a Heretic bandwagon. The truth was Copeland was taken totally out of context. When the smoke cleared, Copeland had said absolutely nothing wrong. He had been correctly quoted, but the qualifiers to the quotes (which he plainly stated and were very critical) had been left out by the Copeland bashers.

As to whether the circumstances of the prophecies have changed, I can not say. Castro's regime has greatly softened. I do see the homosexual community as being judged. etc. Knowing that Hinn has always been staunchly against date setting the return of Jesus, I would simply have to see the Interview in which he said that. I am not saying he did not say it, I am simply saying that unless I heard him say it in full context, I just can not believe he said it. He is, and has been too opposed to date setting. Unfortunately, some christian websites are quite biased. There have been several "christian watchdogs" in recent history, who have ended up having to apologise for their "heretic hunt."

Copeland is a heretic too and I have tons of quotes from him which are the entire sermon, the man is a heretic and has been since I was in college at least. I wish now that I hadn't destroyed all the tapes I had, but I did. Saying that any born again person on the cross would have been sufficient for atonement is the worst sort of heresy and the context has no bearing on it.

These clips on websites have dates and tape numbers, ask the ministry for a transcript. You should never just brush off a charge of heresy even if it ends up disproven or the minister recants. If it ends up being disproven then addressing the charge directly rather than avoiding the topic and saying that people are just out to smear a good man is what is in order. If the minister recants then he should be embraced and taught by the body of believers before he gets his pulpit back because he was not solid enough in his doctrine to understand what was true or not.

Face it, WOF is a heretical set of doctrines and it's teachers are heretics. I don't care how much good gets done in the name of these people, the devil can mimic much of what God does. I pray that the LORD opens your eyes to the heresy and that you repent of supporting it. I have no doubts about your salvation, you say you are a believer and I have no reason at this point to doubt it, but you have to understand that if an unsaved person comes into this heresy they stay unsaved even if they end up thinking they are because their faith is in a false Jesus, a false gospel and taught by a false holy spirit through a false teacher. The stakes in this battle are high.

It's nothing personal about these people, I happen to like Hinn, Meyers and Copeland. I relate to them, I understand them...Hinn and Meyers can be funny too. Copeland reminds me of one of my uncles who chews tobacco. They don't come off like a polished, pompous, well oiled "machine" like Crouch, Tilton, and many others do. They seem approachable. But my liking them only makes it hurt when I have to say what I know is the truth. The doctrines they teach are heresy. And they even have many in the Body of Christ fooled.

Now, back to Hinn...Suppose for instance that there were justifiable reasons for the prophecys not to come true...ie castro repented or whatever...or maybe lets just say for arguments sake that maybe they weren't prophesies at all, but dreams Hinn had that he thought were...or that they were misinterpretations of a true prophecy he got...or...whatever

The fact is, he's preaching heresy and that should be enough to invalidate his ministry without any further discussion. Heresy should never be tolerated in the church and that is why people attack heretics. It's our duty to do so. It's bad enough that within the realm of orthodoxy we have many different doctrines and we wont know which of them are true until we get to heaven, we don't need rank heretics confusing matters and dividing us further.

People don't get saved listening to a fake gospel message because it's a fake gospel, about a fake Christ. That's very serious and needs to be taken seriously enough to stand up and point it out and not let any preacher who teaches it to have any validity in the name of Christ.

[LadyRaven]

Well you are right about one thing. If your mysterious relative was indeed healed I would say it had nothing to do with Hinn. It is funny how you bragged there was medical documentation for this healing yet when I call you on it you make excuses and don't provide it. I would think this relative of yours would be excited to show her documentation to the glory of God. I hope you don't mind me saying some of us have some doubts about your story. But then again, that's life with the TBN crowd. A lot of good anecdotal stories but no evidence.

sw

I am still waiting for you to post your medical records on the net. It is as I told you before. The people who knew her before she was healed and now know her have no doubt about her healing. It is your perogative to believe or not to believe. You admitted yourself it would do no good for you observe the healing, so any further attempt to offer proof to you would be pointless.

This particular discussion is a dead end, if the girl had her healing validated by a credible source she might well want to come online and tell about herself, but I don't think she'd want her information posted all over the internet for privacy reasons. Even if she put up a website, I'm sure that enough identifying information to keep stalkers away would be kept off the site, any smart person would take care to do this. I have alot of personal (situational) information up all over the net. Therefore nobody knows my real name and certain bits which might lead to someone who thinks they know me showing up on my doorstep. And I respect her right to privacy and her healing has no bearing on the validity of Hinn's ministry.

If God wanted to heal this relative when she prayed he would heal her even if she were alone in some tree somewhere and to God be the glory for it. Like I said before, while I don't believe they happen as often as they used to, I do believe that they will always be possible with prayer and I don't automatically doubt anyone's claims of healing. Nor do I care where it happened. I met a Lutheran girl who was cured of ms when I was in High School. She used to go around to churches telling her story, she had excerpts from her medical records and photos and videos of her when she had her disease. She would tell how she'd prayed for months and then finally was healed. She had a doctors letter which stated that her body showed no signs of ever having MS (with the caveat of course that it could have gone into remission for an unknown period of time). It greatly helped my faith at that time to see this and still does when I think on it.

If your relative has documentation, doing this sort of thing periodically would be a great way of giving testimony of what God has done. Just a thought.

[Matthitjah]

Grace to you,

There is a certain acrimony in this thread that tears down and does not edify.

I do not personally care what your thoughts about Hinn are.

However how you Treat and even Love your brethren is paramount. It defines who we are.

Closed thread.

Peace,

Dave