Todd Bentley and his Muscle-Bound Jesus
by Bud Press, Director
Christian Research Service
February 6, 2009
Todd Bentley could have been a great evangelist. God could have used him to preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction (2 Timothy 4:1-4). Many could have left the Florida Outpouring revival truly born again--forgiven, saved, sanctified, and redeemed.
The Florida Outpouring could have been a great revival. As such, the tens of thousands who attended the revival and watched the telecasts around the world could have been blessed, strengthened in the faith, taught the whole council of God, and made aware of the deceptive tactics of cultic and heretical beliefs and teachings (Acts 20:27-31). Afterwards, they could have gone out into the highways and hedges and compelled the lost to come to Jesus Christ (Luke 14:23).
Rory and Wendy Alec, founders of God TV, brought the Lakeland revival into homes worldwide. Unlike the Trinity Broadcasting Network, God TV could have been a driving force in the promotion of solid, Bible-based Christian pastors, evangelists, teachers, and Christian-based reading and viewing materials.
But the Lakeland revival was doomed from day-one. On the outside, it was advertised as a tremendous move of the Holy Spirit. But on the inside, it carried the spiritually-polluted stench of the Toronto and Brownsville revivals, and was saturated with false teachings, false prophecies, wild claims, false healings, and demonic activity.
Rory and Wendy Alec made Todd Bentley their darling poster-boy, and promoted the Lakeland revival as the next best thing to noontime tea and crumpets. In turn, Bentley's popularity drew untold thousands into God TV's website and 24-hour telecasts infested with false prophets and false teachers, such as: Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Cindy Jacobs, Creflo Dollar, Rodney Howard-Browne, Patricia King, Francis Frangipane, Rick Joyner, Mike Bickle and IHOP/Kansas City, and C. Peter Wagner.
During the Lakeland revival, Wendy Alec stumped her prophetic toe and fell face-first onto a long list of false prophets, by prophesying that Jesus Christ would attend the revival "in person" (refer to "Wendy Alec: Prophet of God?" at http://www.christianresearchservice.com/WendyAlec1.htm ).
As for Todd Bentley, history records that he was conditioned and deceived from the beginning--groomed and mentored by those who were conditioned and deceived before him. What began with Bentley's reading of Benny Hinn's book, Good Morning, Holy Spirit, germinated over the years and erupted into widespread deception and a resurgence of William Branham-ism.
It didn't matter that William Branham was a false prophet who denied the Trinity and the deity of Jesus Christ. It didn't matter that Branham was overshadowed by demonic activity. It didn't matter that Branham's teachings and claims failed the tests of God's word and were rejected by solid, Bible-based Christians worldwide ( http://www.letusreason.org/Latrain4.htm ).
Although Todd Bentley is no longer with Fresh Fire Ministries, William Branham continues to be promoted on the Fresh Fire website.
William Branham was a credit to his fellow heretics and false prophets, and a contributor to the apostasy. Had he been alive he may have occupied center-stage at the Lakeland revival, where his adoring followers would be fed a continuous diet of twisted Scriptures, false signs and wonders, and doctrines of demons.
As a reminder, among other things, cultic and heretical movements downplay and mock Jesus Christ, deny the authority of God's written word, and elevate a man or woman to the position of "mediator" between God and man. Although all of the "prophecies" foretold over Todd Bentley during his "Commissioning" were false, the classic warning signs for the emergence of a new cult-like messiah were there during the Florida Outpouring revival--incubating behind the scenes.
Many people worldwide placed their hopes, dreams, and even faith in Todd Bentley, only to be slapped in the face with a heavy hand of reality. Without a doubt, God removed Bentley from the Florida Outpouring, brought it to a screeching halt, and used Bible-based Christians to expose one of the most dangerous situations to confront the body of Christ in recent years.
Despite everything non-Christian and ungodly that occurred during the revival and Todd Bentley's short-lived reign, if Bentley returns he will have plenty of adoring fans to defend his blasphemies, sing his praises, and chant his mantras. For one cannot be groomed and mentored by dogmatic heretics, then "restored" by dogmatic heretics, and expect to come away behaving and teaching like an orthodox Christian.
Journey into the bizarre and preposterous
In his heyday, Todd Bentley was never at a loss for words, weather verbally or in print. On page 27 of his January 2008 book, Journey Into The Miraculous, Bentley claims that,
Just prior to my launch into the ministry, the Holy Spirit took me into a vision--an interactive trance where my senses fully operated.
During his vision/trance, Bentley claims that he encountered "Jesus," then follows up with a physical description:
Upon His breastplate was the imprint of a golden eagle. He was so muscular, that the breastplate took on the ripples of His mighty chest! His biceps were enormous, the size of my head, and He had massive forearms and huge hands. There was Jesus, the mighty warrior God! He towered over me three to four times my height, so tall, He would have to bend down to communicate with me. [Ibid.]
Do the math: if Todd Bentley were only five feet tall, the "Jesus" he claims to have encountered would be fifteen or twenty feet tall. Perhaps Bentley confused his "Jesus" with some of the angels he claims to have encountered:
Once, just before my commissioning into ministry, a huge angel appeared in my living room. He stood about twenty-feet tall and towered through the ceiling of the apartment above. His massive chest was level with my ceiling! [Ibid., p. 133]
In February, I saw an angel twenty feet tall. The angel stretched as high as the ceiling of the Albany auditorium. [Ibid., p. 231]
Sadly, Todd Bentley's ability to stretch the truth stretches into stretching the height and build of his "Jesus" and angels. However, huge and strong men are mentioned in the Bible: Goliath stood almost ten feet tall (1 Samuel 17:4). Samson possessed incredible strength (Judges 16:28-30). Yet, nowhere does God's written word mention a huge and muscular Jesus, whether in person or in a vision. It is ridiculous to even think it, and terribly misleading to teach it!
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Todd Bentley's "Jesus" and angels are bizarre and preposterous, and must be viewed as counterfeits.
'Forerunner' running on deceptive fumes
On pages 27 and 28 of Journey Into The Miraculous, Todd Bentley claims to have received a "revelation" from his muscle-bound messiah, who supposedly told him,
"This is the council of the Lord. I have called you as one of many to be a part of a last days' army and a last days' generation."
But Todd Bentley's claims to last days' fame begin in the early stages of his Journey Into The Miraculous, where he maintains that Bob Jones told him he was a "part of the 'first fruits' wave of a billion people whom God would light on fire" (pp. 21-22). Then, of himself, Bentley boasts:
My life is a message, a prophetic signpost of what God wants to do with millions of others. I am a forerunner and one of many who will carry the healing anointing to the nations. [Ibid., p. 22]
Yet, history records that Todd Bentley, the proclaimed and self-proclaimed forerunner, was running on fumes of deception at the beginning of his journey, and eventually crash landed in a thundering mess and controversy.
Nonetheless, the muscle-bound "Jesus" Todd Bentley described in his book doesn't fit the eye-level "face-to-face" encounter he had in a Patricia King produced YouTube video (refer to "Todd Bentley or Jesus Christ?").
The real Jesus Christ
Todd Bentley's giant, muscle-bound "Jesus" was inspired by his fertile imagination, or demonic intervention, or both. But the prophet Isaiah's description of Jesus, the coming Messiah, was inspired by the Holy Spirit:
Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him (Isaiah 53:1-2).
Again, speaking of Jesus Christ, Isaiah wrote that, He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. There was nothing special about Jesus' looks, clothing, or physical appearance that would cause Him to be immediately recognized as the Messiah, Savior, and the Son of God (God Himself in human form). To those who did not know Him and Who He claimed to be, he didn't stand out in a crowd.
And to this day, if one doesn't know the real Jesus--the One revealed in Scripture--then how is one capable of finding Him in a world full of false Christs? If one will become an expert on the Jesus of the Bible and Who He is, then one will have no problem discerning the real Jesus from the counterfeit.
The real Jesus, Who now sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, warned of the counterfeits in Matthew chapter 24. Jesus Christ is exclusive. He is the only way. All others are cheap imitations that are designed to draw people away from the real Jesus Christ.
Todd Bentley's "Jesus" is a snake-like chameleon; it changes sizes and colors from vision to vision and encounter to encounter; it blends into its Christian surroundings; it's hiss sounds Christian, but it's heretical bite is deadly poisonous; it falls head-first into "another Jesus" the Apostle Paul warned about in 2 Corinthians 11:3-4. It overshadows and even possesses its followers and makes them its false apostles, deceitful workers, and servants who disguise themselves as righteous (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
"Another Jesus" has not the authority or power to forgive, save, sanctify, and redeem the lost.
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world (Hebrews 1:1-2).
Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds (2 John 1:9-10).
Can it get any clearer? In the past, God spoke to mankind through the prophets, but in these last days He speaks through Jesus Christ. We are living in the last days. Those who fail to maintain the teachings of Jesus Christ do not have God! And those who refuse to turn away from heretics lend them credibility and become co-participants in their evil:
"They see falsehood and lying divination who are saying, 'The LORD declares,' when the LORD has not sent them; yet they hope for the fulfillment of their word (Ezekiel 13:6).
In Acts chapter 20, unlike the heretics in his midst, the Apostle Paul abided in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and spent three years boldly preaching the whole council of God to the Ephesian elders. He preached the word; whether it was convenient or inconvenient. He reproved, rebuked, and exhorted with great patience and instruction (2 Timothy 4:1-2).
But how is it possible to preach the whole council of God when an evangelist or preacher has abandoned the truth of God's word and embraced doctrines of demons? Furthermore, how is it possible for those who are searching for the real Jesus Christ to be forgiven, saved, sanctified, and redeemed when they are under the spiritual thumb of heretics and false prophets, all of whom are under the spiritual thumb of the counterfeit snake-like chameleon?
A person's beliefs, faith, and doctrines are like a house; they are built on sand or the solid rock of God's written word:
Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell--and great was its fall (Matthew 7:26-27).
Indeed, those who sincerely search for the real Jesus will find Him in God's written word--from Genesis to Revelation--not from the lips and pens of heretics and false prophets. Only the real Jesus has the authority and power to forgive, save, sanctify, and redeem the lost.
In John 14:6, Jesus Christ said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. These are bold words of truth from the One Who has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him (Isaiah 53:2).
When compared to the real Jesus Christ, Todd Bentley's huge, muscle-bound messiah is not only a counterfeit, it grins and kicks sand in the faces of the innocent, gullible, and unwary.
There is a huge difference between Todd Bentley's "Jesus" and the Jesus of the Bible, the One Who compels the suffering and the lost to Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).
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© Christian Research Service 2009
