What do you think of this? and false prophets

Hank Speaks Out
Benny Hinn/Kenneth Copeland/Todd Bentley
August 18, 2008

I get a lot of letters that come across my desk and some of them
are letters from people who are just plain angry. Why are they
angry? They don't like what I'm saying about some of their
favorite teachers. I recently got a letter from a man named
William who wrote "I heard you once again distraught over the
Benny Hinns, Kenneth Copelands, and now there's Todd Bentley on
the scene. I've heard your disapproval but scripturally I
haven't heard you disprove anyone or any of their practices."
Anyone who has listened to the Bible Answer Man or read my books
knows this isn't the case but William continues on, "the
Scripture says no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Spirit of
God. Does Benny Hinn, Ken Copeland and all the others you call
counterfeit revivalists call Jesus Lord?"

Well I would answer William, "Yes they do." The question is what
do they mean? No one can say Jesus is Lord rightly, by biblical
standards, except by the Holy Spirit. In fact that's precisely
why Jesus Christ can say "Many will say to me on that day,
"Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name
drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them
plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" (Matt.
7:22-23 NIV). What's important for William or anyone asking that
question is to learn to read Scripture in light of Scripture, so
that they do not falsely interpret the Word of God.

Of course William goes on to say many other things. He asks,
"What are these Counterfeit Revivalists motives regarding such
things as healing the sick?" The question that I've addressed
before on the Bible Answer Man, in my book Counterfeit Revival,
and in my pamphlet Aping the Practices of Pagan Spirituality is do
they really heal the sick or do they merely pretend to heal the
sick? The answer is healing is conspicuous by its absence in the
ministries of men like Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Todd Bentley
and a host of others.

By the way, when someone like William asks about calling Jesus
Christ Lord and by whose spirit do they call Jesus Lord; I would
say the real question is who do they say Jesus is in the first
place? The answer to that question is unfortunately they say Jesus
Christ is satanic at the very point of His atonement on the cross.
Now if that is true Jesus Christ could not have paid for our sins.
Biblically, Jesus is the unblemished lamb upon whom the sins of the
world were placed. He is the sin bearer but He certainly is not a
satanic being. To do what the faith teachers do, relegate Jesus to
hell where He purchases our redemption in the cauldron of hell in a
fight with Satan, is simply unthinkable and certainly unbiblical.
That he then became the first born again man, born from satanic to
divine, is contrary to scripture. It is contrary to the creeds of
the historic Christian faith. It is contrary to reasoning. It is
consistent with the kinds of things you hear in the Kingdom of the
Cults.

When are we going to come to the place where we recognize that if
we're going to say that Mormons have a different Jesus because they
say that Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer or the Jehovah
Witnesses because they say Jesus was created as the archangel
Michael or the New Agers because they say Jesus is an avatar or a
messenger; when are we going to realize that if the Kingdom of the
Cults have a different Jesus and Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn and
Todd Bentley and a host of other pretenders have a different Jesus
as well? If we don't call it as it is, we ought to apologize to the
kingdom of the Cults.

To say that Jesus didn't claim to be God as Kenneth Copeland and
Paul Crouch do is simply unthinkable. Yet that is precisely what
they do over and over again. On the March 24th, 1989 broadcast of
Praise the Lord on the Trinity Broadcasting Network there was the
following conversation:

Ken Copeland: "We're still questioning what was said about that
prophecy. That prophecy never mentioned the Son of God. Never said
anything about the Son of God."

Paul Crouch: "What did it say?"

Ken Copeland: "It said "I did not claim to be God." That's all it
said."

Paul Crouch: "In other words, in so many words, you're right. No
where in the New Testament did He literally get up..."

Ken Copeland: "Preach and claim that He was God."
Paul Crouch: "...and say "I am God" did He? Now I stand corrected."

Here you have an inane conversation going on on what is supposedly
Christian television about whether Jesus Christ claimed to be God
or not. You have Ken Copeland and Paul Crouch here saying that
Jesus never claimed to be God but Jesus did claim to be the unique
Son of God. As a result the Jewish leaders tried to kill Him
because they said in calling God His own Father Jesus was making
Himself equal with God. In fact, in John 8 Jesus went so far as to
use the very words with which God reveled Himself to Moses from
the burning bush. To the Jews this was the epitome of blasphemy for
they knew in doing so Jesus was clearly claiming to be God. On
another occasion Jesus explicitly told the Jews "I and the Father
are one" (John 10:30) and again they picked up stones to stone him
but Jesus said to them "I have shown you many great miracles from
the Father. For which of these do you stone me?" and the Jews
replied, "We are not stoning you for any of these but for blasphemy
because you a mere man claim to be God." Of course there are many
other examples that could be given through which Jesus demonstrated
and claimed to be God. So to say that Jesus didn't claim to be God
is expressing an unfathomable ignorance about Jesus and about
Scripture. We're not just talking about anyone here, we're talking
about the man who, along with his wife, founded the largest
Christian television broadcasting network in the history of the
human race, and they can't get it with respect to essential
Christian doctrine.

Now when I speak out on this I get all these letters denouncing me
for speaking out. Someone needs to sound the alarm. In fact this
is proof positive that the body of Christ needs to become so
familiar with the genuine article that when counterfeits loom on
the horizon they will know it instantaneously. The sad thing about
the letter I read, and I only read portions of it, I didn't read
the parts where he gets quite strong in his denunciations and uses
some pretty strong language, but this letter is indicative of the
fact that people like William are simply unfamiliar with the Bible
and therefore do not understand where their favorite teachers
depart from orthodox Christianity. A lot of people want to be
cavalier about this and say, "Live and let live!" These men are not
blurring the line of demarcation between the kingdom of Christ and
the Kingdom of the Cults. They are obliterating that line. Never
forget that the essentials of the Christian faith are the very
doctrines for which the martyrs spilled their blood. We may be
cavalier about these things today but they were not. They were
willing to defend them to the point of shedding their own blood.
For more information on the deity of Christ please see Bible Answer
Book Volume 1.

My opinion is: if a prophesy is given it has to line up with what the bible says.
Yes there is also scripture say: 2Ch 7:14
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Think on this verse of scripture,
unless repentance then no way God changes things. God is merciful but we do need to beware of false prophets,... get into the word of God regularly for yourself, pray and ask for wisdom and understanding.

2Pe 1:20
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

Christ himself bore witness of the fact that every man is responsible for studying and reading the word of God for himself, when he demanded of the lawyer, "What is written in the law? How readest thou?" (Luke 10:26). In the light of these Scriptures, therefore, we must reject the notion that would find in this place an excuse for any man's leaving the interpretation of the Scriptures to the religious experts in some church, of whatever name. After all, it was the "religious experts" who crucified Christ in the beginning, demonstrating once and finally that of all the people on earth most likely to miss it, it is the "religious experts."
Elaine.

What do you think of this? and false prophets

Had this in my mailbox posting here and will add my opinion. Elaine.

A Bit of Trivia For You.

You can sell tickets to it ...

"You can sell tickets to it ...," is a phrase used to assure
someone that a certain thing is going to happen or will get
done. Here's a bit of trivia for you as to where the phrase
came from.

The early days prophet Jonah was told by God to prophesy
that the great city of Nineveh would be overthrown in 40 days.
So, after Jonah prophesied to the king of Nineveh, the king
ordered all of his people to give up their sins. Jonah had gone
to the "outside" of the city, set up a booth, and so-to-speak,
began selling tickets to the event of Niniveh being destroyed.

Jonah's prophecy of destruction in forty days never came to
pass as the people of Ninevah had repented. However, a few
years later, Nineveh once again turned from God, and it was
then totally destroyed. The story that Jonah actually sold
tickets to the event had never actually taken place. This part
of Jonah's prophecy was simply fabricated by modern day
preachers so as to make the Book of Jonah more interesting.

Modern preachers created the false teaching that, "If a person
even appears to make a mistake in their prophecies, they are
a false prophet," to discredit modern day prophets, so as to
allow preachers to escape God's scrutiny. The Book of Jonah
however proves that God does not always do as He tells His
prophets to prophesy. This fact makes it quite clear that
modern day preachers, knowing full well that is the case,
simply fabricated the false teaching that "prophets can never
be wrong, otherwise they are false prophets."

Whereas, God's purpose for having prophets has always been
to teach, or to otherwise correct the church. That is, to edify it,
as an editor corrects the copy in his newspaper. So, with
today's "God loves you, He will never do you harm, in fact, He
wants you to be rich" teachings in churches; pastors, preachers
and teachers really can't AFFORD to have their congregations
listening to prophets, for fear of being exposed for their own
church's teaching of lies and false doctrines.

Moreover, the fact that you hear a prophecy, then it doesn't
come to pass "on time," does NOT mean it won't come to
pass... In fact, that usually means nothing more than that
your nation and its people have been both warned, and
advised, to get their act together, and to KEEP it together, or
suffer the consequences.

Maria