Todd Bentley's Violent Outbursts

As I was walking into the studio the other day I received an audio clip of Todd Bentley, who is supposedly running a revival in Lakeland, Florida. We've played some clips of Todd Bentley on the radio already where he's talking about Jesus appearing to him looking like Bambi with big brown eyes. We've played clips of him instituting a new aspect of revival which has to do with vibrations in the Spirit. But now I get a clip in which Todd Bentley - and I thought this was a joke, quite frankly - in which he is saying that God wants him - in fact, instructed him - to grab a lady's crippled legs and to start banging them up and down on the platform like a baseball bat; in which God told him, supposedly, to kick a woman in the face. When I was given this clip I had to question my research staff as to whether this was real, because I simply couldn't believe it! This is so out there, folks! I wrote a book called Counterfeit Revival and never in my wildest dreams ever thought it would get to this. Here is what he said:

The woman was standing in the back of the room when the faith of God hit the meeting and her tumor exploded out of her right leg, slid down her leg onto the floor. I said "God, I prayed for like a 100 crippled people. Not one?" He said "That's because I want you to grab that lady's crippled legs and bang them up and down on the platform like a baseball bat." I walked up and I grabbed her legs and I started going BAM. I started banging them up and down on the platform. She got healed. And I'm thinking God, "Why is not the power of God moving?" He said "Because you haven't kicked that woman in the face." And there was this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me. The gift of faith came on me. He said "Kick her in the face - with your biker boot!" I inched closer and I went like this. BAM. And just as my boot made contact with her nose she fell under the power of God. And I saw him and the gift of faith came on me and I said "What do I do, God" and God told me to just run him down. So I jumped up in the air and I went BAM and I hit him to the ground, jumped on to him and got into a full mount. Ground and pound. I jumped on him and I was in a full mount and something came over me and instead of punching him I grabbed him by the neck and started choking him and I said "Come out of him, devil! Come out of him, devil!" And I was at another meeting one time and I called out this Chinese gentleman and all of a sudden I went running down the aisle and I hit this guy so hard it drove him back several feet. He hit the ground and his tooth popped right out of his mouth. The pastor was lying on the floor and I was standing up on the platform and I said "God, I want revival" and He said these words to me: "Leg drop the pastor!" I said "What?" He said "Leg drop the pastor!"

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. This is a metamorphosis of counterfeit revival such as I have never anticipated in my life. I have seen these kinds of things and certainly read about them happening in the ashrams of cults, but now this is happening in front of the altars of churches and people are completely unaware of crowd dynamics. People in crowds are more easily influenced than people taken by themselves. The effect of suggestion on crowds seems virtually without limit. It can make black appear white, obscure reality, enshrines absurdity, and then it gets to the point where you have crowds here laughing, full of anticipation as he talks about the Holy Spirit instructing him to kick a lady in the face, to choke someone, to sit on someone and violate them to the extent that, as he said, a tooth popped out of the person's mouth. And to leg drop a pastor.

Once epidemic suggestion contaminates a movement human beings can behave like beasts or idiots and be proud of it, and no one is immune to the force of mass suggestion. Once this kind of hysteria is in full force it strikes intellectuals as well as morons, rich and poor alike. As has well been said and documented in Counterfeit Revival, Robert Marks said "Once an epidemic of hysteria is in full force it is contagious and the wellsprings are subconscious and biological, not rational."

This is just another example of demonic deception and it's happening in churches because people set aside their ability to think rationally and critically. They even set aside their ability to exercise their wills because they become hypersuggestible, which means that they are likely to accept any spiritual truth that enters their craniums, and they are primed by people like Todd Bentley in what is being touted as revival in major Christian magazines and by major Christian leaders. They are primed for mystical experiences and they are attaching spiritual significance to virtually anything that enters their minds.

This is an abomination. This is why Jeremiah once warned ancient Israel "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you. They fill you with false hopes, they speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. Do not listen to those prophets." Some of you ought to get your Bibles out and read Jeremiah 23. I took the time to memorize it, but it is worth reading because it is a warning against false prophets who do not benefit the body of Christ in the least.

We've come to a place in the Christian church where we lack discernment to the extent that thousands and thousands of people - now, millions - are being swept up in these kinds of revivals, all under the guise of spirituality. People are not only being damaged in the process, but they are dragging Christ's name through the mud. Make no mistake about that because the world looks on and says "these people are gullible fools." You and I need to understand how this process works. In fact I just finished writing a little booklet on that. We're going to offer it to people in the coming months so that people understand how we are now aping the practices of pagan spirituality, all under the guise of God and the Holy Spirit.

Don't think that this guy is simply rambling. He is standing with Bible in hand in front of an altar in front of a church, in a convention center, in an auditorium. Somewhere he is saying that the Holy Spirit told him, that God instructed him. When you say God did something He didn't do or the Holy Spirit told you something He didn't tell you, that's blasphemous.