Defending the Indefensible-Todd Benson apologetic - Moriel Ministries

Defending the Indefensible… Todd Bentley Apologetic
Recently I received a response to my online article “Todd Bentley…the New Simon Magnus”
which directed me to an online paper called “Biblical Reasons to Receive God’s Glory and Give
it Away in Power Evangelism”. The paper purports to “give people permission to get on board
and fully commit to receiving God’s glory…” to be used in power evangelism. The author, Gary
Greig, PHD, is an associate professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Regent University.
Greig’s paper answers 10 objections to Todd Bentley’s ministry, validating Bentley and the
current manifestation of the ‘experienced based Christianity’ that Bentley is a proponent of. In
the opening paragraph, Greig admits that he himself was a participant in both the Toronto and
Pensacola revival movements.
“Thousands of Christian leaders from almost 40 countries have visited the Lakeland meetings, and millions around the world in
214 nations have watched on live television through God TV and the internet, as multiple lame people have gotten out of their
wheelchairs and walked, as blind eyes have received sight, as deaf ears have opened, and as of this writing, up to 20 accounts
have been reported of clinically dead people being raised to life through the prayers of people who have visited the Lakeland
meetings. The Lakeland meetings not only bear similarities to the Argentine revival of the 1980s-1990s and the Toronto and
Brownsville awakenings of the 1990s (each of which I personally witnessed or experienced), the level of God’s power being
poured out in the meetings is extraordinary, to say the least. It is clear from the daily broadcasts of the Lakeland meetings that
scores of people are putting their faith in Christ and many are being healed from all kinds of diseases and conditions.”
(Greig, Biblical Reasons…pg 2)
http://www.freshfire.ca/UserFiles/File/drGreg_biblicalperspective2008.pdf
Before answering the ten major objections to Bentley, Greig takes the obligatory swipe at
“Heresy Hunters” who criticize what they don’t understand. Contrary to appearances, we are
assured by professor Greig that,
“Todd Bentley is no fly-by-night Bible teacher, “with an untutored grasp of Christian theology,” as one theology professor
erroneously claimed. I beg to differ. I have personally followed Todd’s teachings (on CD’s and on the internet), his books, and
his ministry for the last eight years, and I have never found a biblically and theologically untrained evangelist or ministry leader
over the past twenty years who accurately interprets and rightly handles the Scriptures as well as Todd Bentley has done in his
teachings and writings. “ (ibid)
I won’t point by point answer to all ten of the objections - I don’t necessarily disagree with some
of Greig’s assertions. For example his first response is to the objection to miracles, healings,
signs and wonders. Are there healings and miracles today? Of course! I am no cessationist! Jesus
Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever!
MANIFESTING AND ‘LOOSING THE SPIRIT’
Objection three in Greg’s paper is listed as:
“The manifestations, shaking, vibrating, laughing, talk of electricity, and weird behavior didn’t happen in the Bible and
cannot be from God. Todd Bentley has an obsession with the paranormal.”
Greig answers by correctly pointing out that weirdness in itself isn’t a criterion for rejecting
some manifestation as not being of God. He likens Bentley’s countless stories, (of ‘drop kicking’
pastors, being told by God that he has a demon and then manifesting it, being told by God that
revival won’t come unless he kicks an old woman in the face as she worships) to Jesus spitting
on clay, putting fingers in deaf ears and blowing on faces. Because Jesus, Isaiah and Jeremiah
did strange things, this supposedly validates Bentley’s mysticism.
Todd Bentley has been criticized for saying “Bam” or “loosing fireballs” or slapping people or kneeing people, when the Lord
leads him to call the power of the Holy Spirit onto people he is praying over, and for displaying otherunusual manifestations like
shaking and “vibrating,” when he is under the power of God’s presence.

Why don’t we take the same criticisms to Scripture and test them there: Did Jesus “loose” the power of the Holy Spirit in weird
ways? Try rubbing mud spittle on eyeballs (John 9:6), putting fingers in deaf ears (Mark 7:33), spitting on tongues or spitting on
eyes (Mark 7:33; 8:23), and breathing or blowing on faces (John 20:22) (Ibid)
But Jesus and the Prophets weren’t doing these things to “Loose the Spirit”- as if the Spirit is
bound until the right symbolic actions are performed to “Loose” it. There is no equivalence
between Jesus’ signs* and Bentley’s so called “Loosing of the Spirit”- which is basically a pagan
concept. The Spirit is none less than God Himself. He cannot be loosed, nor commanded,
”thrown” as a “snowball”- He is not “IT” nor is HE “The Power” or even “The Glory”. He is the
Living God.
The Prophets did weird things also because they acted out the drama of the relationship with God
and Israel. We are told in Hebrews that in times past God spoke in type through the prophets but
has now spoken plainly through His Son.
Not believing Todd Bentley’s various stories of ‘the miraculous’ doesn’t equate to not believing
the signs of Jesus and the prophets.
SUPPORTING SPIRITUAL DRUNKENNESS
In the same section Greig “catalogues” the manifestations of God’s power on the human body. I
take exception to the category he calls “intoxicated state of mind”. The Toronto influence is
evident here, in that he cites as scriptural support for this category Acts 2, Ephesians 5, I Samuel
1 and I Samuel 19.
*Acts 2 is a rebuttal of drunkenness- “…others, mocking said these men are full of new
wine…”(Acts 2:13) something which Peter was quick to refute!
*Ephesians 5:18 teaches us not to be drunken or in excess, but rather to” be being filled with the
Spirit”, in other words being Spirit filled is not an alternative drunkenness, but the very antithesis
of drunkenness! To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be self possessed, sober minded, thankful
and submissive.
* I Samuel 1 is the story of Hannah, who was so desperate for a child, praying in the temple, and
yet accused by the backslidden and half blind priest of being drunk. Hardly a support for spiritual
drunkenness.
*Finally, his reference to I Samuel 19 is an unfortunate reference to Saul, seeking to murder
David, and in the process, arrested by God and made naked, prophesying! Doesn’t look like a
blessing, I believe that it is rather a judgment!
These are the same misguided defenses for the phenomenon known as spiritual drunkenness that
we saw and heard in the Toronto and Pensacola heresies. Greig uses what the mockers said in
Acts 2, misuses Paul’s call to true spirituality in Eph 5, (forbidding drunkenness), as well as the
mistaken judgment of a corrupt and backslidden priest in I Samuel 1, Eli, to bolster his defense
of this “category of manifestation”. The last reference is to the judgment that fell on a murderous
King in I Sam 19. I would hardly call falling down publicly, naked and prophesying to be a
blessing.
Be advised, I do believe there is a spiritual drunkenness, as I explained in my book, WEIGHED
AND FOUND WANTING - Putting the Toronto Blessing in Context. Spiritual drunkenness is
real, but it is not the blessing Bentley and friends would have you believe, it is instead a very
definite judgment of the Lord!

Isa 29:9-10 Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with
strong drink. For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and
your rulers, the seers hath he covered.
ANGELIC INTERACTION
In Greig’s rebuttal to objection five, which states that,
“We should not be teaching people to interact with angels. Satan masquerades as an angel of light and people can be deceived
by demonic angels like Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, was deceived by the deceptive, demonic angel ‘Moroni.’”
(Biblical Reasons…)
Greig admits that deception by interaction with angels is possible and uses Joseph Smith as an
example, as well as the Gnostic angelic emanation worshippers as something to avoid. He also
cites the warning of Colossians 2.
Col. 2:18-19-- Let no one who delights in humility and the worship of angels pass judgment on you. That person goes on at
great lengths about what he has supposedly seen, but he is puffed up with empty notions by his fleshly mind. He has not held
fast to the head from whom the whole body, supported and knit together through its ligaments and sinews, grows with a
growth that is from God.
So far so good- but he then narrows the scope of the caution to those who worship angels,
affirming the scriptural warnings in the Revelation and in Judges.
“The worship of angels, involving human prayers and expressions of praise to angels, was a real problem in first century AD
popular Judaism. The kind of person Paul is describing here not only worships angels but he is also proud (“puffed up), fleshly,
judgmental, and he has lost his focus on Jesus (“he has not held fast to the head”). So it is a mix of pride, judgmentalism,
fleshliness, and a lack of focus on Jesus the head, that is associated in this passage with one being deceived by false, demonic
angels.”
(Biblical Reasons…)
Herein lies the problem, I haven’t heard anyone criticize this movement for praying to or
praising angels. I believe he misses the point of the criticism and caution. It is the interaction
with angels, “Emma”, the angel of the 1940’s healing revival, the angel who “Gifted “ William
Branham, these are what are troubling to critics of Bentley and this movement. Assuring us that
you don’t worship angels is beside the point. Greig cites discredited and false prophet Bob Jones
as a source to validate his position on openness to angelic interaction,
I am convinced that Todd Bentley, Bob Jones, and Rick Joyner, and other leaders in the prophetic movement would agree
entirely with theologians like Karl Barth and Calvin, who said that biblically believers must take seriously the fact of angelic
presence with believers.42 The Reformer, John Calvin urges us “not to deny that angels were created according to God’s
likeness, inasmuch as our highest perfection, as Christ testifies, will be to become like them [Matt. 22:30].”43 And I am
convinced that these prophetic leaders also agree with Barth and Calvin, cautioning against giving angels attention for their own
sake without focusing on Jesus, “for there is no ‘special, autonomous or abstract experience of angels in and for themselves,’”44
and because, as Cambridge University astronomer and evangelical theologian, Dr. Lawrence Osborn, says, true Christian
encounter with an angel will always “direct us to God”45 rather than directing us to focus on angels, on saints, on self, or on
man. (Ibid)
Once again, I am no cessationist, I have no problem with angels, I believe in them and their
activity. Furthermore I also believe that no man should worship or pray to angels and that if an
angelic encounter occurs, a holy angel would direct people to the only True God. But why do we
have to believe in Emma? Why should we traffic with William Branham’s angel? A man who
taught that the “doctrine of the Trinity was of the Devil”, that Satan and Eve had sex, and Cain
was the literal result? When Branham was asked if he did his miracles by the Holy Spirit, he
denied it , saying “I do them by my Angel”. (Kurt Koch, Occult Bondage and Deliverance, p. 54
Kregel )

This is from Mike Oppenheimer of “Let us Reason” ministries article entitled” When the Angel
Came” -
Bentley says: “Then on December 5, 2000 an angel appeared to me and said he was the angel that appeared to me in April 1998
(before the Lord Jesus Christ came to me in the kitchen). He said that the day he came to me in 1998 was the day he was
assigned to me. This time (on December 5th) the angel said, “I am the angel that has been assigned to your life. I am a healing
angel . . . You are going to take miracles, signs and wonders around the world.” “I was with William Branham” (the Voice of
Healing movement), the angel said. He told me about William Branham’s angelic encounter in 1946. Two years later the Voice
of Healing was born there was a revival.”
http://www.moriel.org/articles/discernment/church_issues/todd_bentley_angel_came.htm
Why would an evangelist be told to preach angels, rather than Jesus? Let Bentley explain it in
his own words…
“I’m releasing it back to where it all started in 1948 I’m releasing it back.” Y’know I told the lord why can’t I just move in
healing and forget talking about all that other stuff, he said because Todd, you got to get the people to believe in the angel. I said,
God why do I want the people to believe in the angel instead about getting the people to believe in Jesus, he said the people
already believe in Jesus but the church doesn’t believe in the supernatural. The church has no problem believing in Jesus what
we don’t believe in is the supernatural we don’t believe in angels, we don’t believe in the prophetic.”
http://healtheland.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/todd-bentley-jesus-christ-is-not-supernatural-but-angels-are/
THE REAL OBJECTIONS GO UNANSWERED
My biggest problems with Todd Bentley have to do with who his own self-confessed influences
are. William Branham, Bob Jones and Paul Cain among others. How could someone who
emulates Branham be anything but false? This isn’t about whether or not there are miracles, or
angels, or whether or not people “believe in the power of God”. Bentley in no way distances
himself from Branham, he actually believes He is being visited by the angelic author of the
1940’s healing revival.
Bob Jones, Bentley’s elder prophet mentor, is a huge problem. This false prophet taught that
there would come a holy bloodline of miracle workers -
I have called the best of every bloodline in earth unto this generation... I have elected to bring them forth in this generation... the
elect generation... even the bloodline of Paul... of David... of Peter, James and John... They will even be superior to them in
heart, stature and love for me'...Your children will possess the spirit without measure... They will move into things of the
supernatural that no one has ever moved in before... coming into the divine nature of Jesus Christ... a Church that has reached
the full maturity of the Godman! This generation... is going to see the beginning of this world wide new order.
Bob Jones, Vineyard Prophecy Conference, 1989, as cited in "The New Order," Jewel van der Merwe, p.7.
This is just one of his many false teachings and prophesies. Jones had to leave the ministry after
a scandal involving fondling woman who came to him for prophetic counseling! Todd Bentley
ministers with Jones and regards him as a “father in the faith”. These are the fruits we should
judge by, not to mention the roots of this false ministry. He was reinstated after a “Word” from
another false prophet and Bentley associate, Rick Joyner.
For
these
reasons
alone,
may
no
one
be
taken
in
by
this
apologetic,
regardless
of
the
obvious
credentials
and
experience
of
professor
Grieg.

Of
course
there
are
those
who
are
indeed
looking
for
“permission
to
jump
on
board”
this

heretical
movement,
but
I
am
assured
that
all
who
are
really
“of
the
Truth
will
hear
Jesus’
voice”.
Grace
and
Peace!
*(Which pointed to ultimate realities- i.e. healing of blindness pointing to Israel’s need of sight, leprosy to her need of cleansing,
making clay to the fact that Jesus is the creator-etc)