Taking Note

To put it bluntly, we’re just plain gullible.

The article is a must read, and so is Dan Edelen's incisive summation, entitled Burned.

My prayer for the church at large is that we would grow in wisdom and spiritual discernment. John Piper's brief commentary on all this is a word in season. "The common denominator," he writes, "of those who follow the Antichrist" will simply be that "they refused to love the truth."

It is as true in our day as ever it was: we live in dangerous times, and therefore, as Jesus counseled, we need to be wise as serpents, but innocent as doves.

Meanwhile, Nate Spencer saw Bentley recently in Charlotte and had this blog-response. Here are some good snips:

Here [at Bentley's revival show], I need Jesus, but I also REALLY need to be in the presence of Todd Bentley. I need to come under the anointing. I need the revival to fall on me. I need "the fire." I need to believe everthing I'm told. I need to give money to the ministry(cliche, over-spiritualized pleading and promises of tenfold reward included in the price. Verbatim quote- "Maybe you'll write one check for $100,000!!!")I need to experience a healing miracle. I need to fall over. I need to be on that stage, I need him to touch me and say "bam," I need to listen to him posture around the stage and proclaim to large crowds the huge success of his ten-year healing ministry.

And this:

In Todd's gatherings, there is no cross, no Gospel, no love of enemies, strangers, poor, helpless, and rejected, no forsaking of wealth(unless it's to unload all your cash into the ministry's coffers), no rejection of empire, no death to self, no transformation of the inner being. Implicit or explicit. Just the glitz and hype that America desperately needs to satiate its incredible appetite for the Next Big Thing. Wealth, religion, media and the illusion of safety and security failed to give us what we wanted, so now we're trying emotionalized circuses with rockstar ministers upon whom we're told our hopes for healing/success/wealth/revival/spiritual progress depend.

I gotta tell you, it's a longish post but you should read it. It's full of hard truth.