For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ:
for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16
If you go to the Mennonite Brethren Conference (Canada) website (here) and click on ‘Ministry Quest’ or ‘Canadian Youth Workers Conference’ you will find yourself on the website of the Canadian Youth Workers Conference which is going to be held in Toronto Dec. 4-7, 2008. This conference is put on by Youth Specialties and Canadafire.
While it’s important to equip those in the body of Christ who work with youth, is this a good event for youth workers to be attending? It appears that this conference may be another means by which Youth Specialties is teaching contemplative spirituality to youth.
For example, if you browse the Canada Fire on-line store you will a book called Contemplative Youth Ministry (by Youth Specialties). This is not surprising as Youth Specialities is an extremely contemplative youth ministry. (See here.)
Another concern is who the Youth Workers Conference is associating itself with. Can you see what is tucked away in their interdenominational (ecumenical) association list?
• The Presbyterian Church in Canada
• Apostolic Youth Ministries International
• CBM Youth
• Sonlife
• Canadian Youth Network
• Christian and Missionary Alliance
• Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada
• Nazarene Youth Ministry International
• YFC Canada
• Evangelical Missionary Church
• Brethren in Christ
• MB Conference
• Salvation Army of Canada
• North American Baptist
• Fellowship of Evangelical Churches of BC/Yukon
• Christian Reformed Church of N. America
• United Church of BC
• Canadian Youth Worker
• Southern Baptist Convention of Canada
• Canadian Catholic Youth Ministry Network (http://www.ccymn.ca/en/index.php)
• Muskoka Woods Sports Resort
• The Wesleyan Church
• Independent Christian Churches
• Mennonite Church of Canada
Among the speakers listed at the Youth Workers Conference are Bruxy Cavey, Shane Clairborne, Tony Campolo and Mark Oestreicher. To find out about what kinds of things these speakers believe and may be teaching at the conference, click on the following links:
In this post Targeting The Children, I wrote about Todd Bentley, Bob Jones, and Patricia King encouraging children to experience occult phenomenon, teaching them to go up to the “third heaven”.
During the current Lakeland Healing Revival, Bentley is planning to teach children to “heal” people. How exactly is that done? Bentley talks about it 3:33 minutes into this video:
MOTHER: You remember yesterday, this little guy came up [indicating one of her sons] for the cyst that was the size of a quarter that had shrunk down, and while he was on the floor, you [Bentley] prayed ‘Lord, use him!’. Well, my husband is absolutely 100% deaf in his left ear….This little guy got that gift of faith imparted into him. His dad is working in Virgina and couldn’t be here. My son said ‘Put the phone up to your deaf ear!’
[...]
BENTLEY: And I said the Lord was going to use him in miracles!? And he started his miracle ministry!? And his deaf father… got healed!
[..]
BENTLEY: The CHILDREN!! The healing revival’s going to be on the CHILDREN!!
[...]
4:36 minutes: BENTLEY: And who’s this little girl?
MOTHER: That’s my daughter. She just wants more of the anointing! (laughter)
BENTLEY (to girl): Come here, sweetie. How old are you?
GIRL: Nine.
BENTLEY: You want the anointing because your mother got it.
GIRL: Uh huh.
BENTLEY: What do you want to do with the anointing?
GIRL: Um, heal people.
[...]
BENTLEY (to boy who prayed for father): So did you feel anything after I prayed for you, young man?
BOY: Uh huh.
BENTLEY: What did you feel?
BOY: Like fire.
BENTLEY: You’re 10…. Now you want to pray for the sick?.. Your dad got healed of a deaf ear!
BOY: Yes!
BENTLEY: The surgeons told him he would never hear!… It’s impossible! What else can God do?
BOY: He can heal people in wheelchairs.
BENTLEY: Are you going to pray for the sick?
BOY: Uh huh.
BENTLEY: My God! He’s going to pray for the sick! Anoint him with fire!
7:10 minutes: BENTLEY: I’m telling you! How many of you have children? How many of you have grandchildren? [show of hands] How many of you know somebody that needs to have their children anointed? How about young people? Tomorrow night, this weekend! It’s going to be powerful!
8:36 minutes: BENTLEY: And you know what? The greatest miracles are happening to the children! People are being healed in the atmosphere! I didn’t pray for that man in the wheelchair! Have you seen me lay hands on any people tonight? My job is getting the Holy Ghost and speak what I see, and God’s moving sovereignly in mighty power. healing people over the TV and the internet, and using ordinary men and women. He’s going to use you! This anointing is for the Body of Christ!
************************************
Bentley “imparted” the gift of faith to the boy, and now he is a faith-healer. The girl wants to imitate her mommy so Bentley believes she will heal people too. What a circus! What apostasy! Where is Jesus Christ in this sham!?
Jesus requires that we are regenerated by the Spirit of God before we can preach the Gospel or heal people, and all is done through the power of God, not through our (or our children’s) wanting to be part of a “movement”, “something big”, a “great move of God”, or “I want to be like mommy”. These children may or may not know God through Jesus Christ, but it is obvious that Bentley does not care one way or the other. All he wants is brainwashed people and their children in order to build up his Healing Army. All glory goes to Todd Bentley and his fallen angels.
This fake anointing, this occult anointing, this spirit is not of God.
Disclaimer: These colleges are listed, not necessarily as an endorsement or recommendation, but rather to show schools that do not have Spiritual Formation programs, nor do we know of any promotion of contemplative prayer or the emerging church within each of these schools. They also do not promote Purpose Driven materials, which are a catalyst for contemplative spirituality. Before sending your student to any of the schools listed below, please check out other criteria at the school that will influence your student.
Ambassador Baptist College (North Carolina)
Baptist Bible College Graduate School (Missouri)
Berean Bible Institute (Wisconsin)
Blue Letter Bible Institute (Online)
Bob Jones University (South Carolina)
Boston Baptist College (Massachusetts)
Calvary Chapel Bible College (California)
Corban College (formerly Western Bible College - Oregon)
The Masters College (California)
Pensacola Christian College (Florida)
Pillsbury Baptist Bible College (Minnesota)
Special Note: If your student is not yet aware of what the New Age movement really is, you should ask them to read For Many Shall Come in My Name. The book is a compelling overview of the New Age movement. This book will prepare young people and adults alike to recognize dangerous and non-biblical practices and beliefs that are being introduced into countless Christian schools.
If you know of a Bible-believing Christian college or seminary that does not promote contemplative or emerging and does not have a Spiritual Formation program, please drop us [Lighthouse Trails] an email and tell us the name of the institution. We would like to post some of these on our research site.
Todd Bentley, Patricia King, and Bob Jones, prophets of the Elijah List, what do they have in common? All three of them are targeting your children in order to lift them into a “third heaven” occultic sphere, using meditation, contemplative prayer, angels of light (satan and his demons), emotional manipulation, and blatant lies.
In the following video, Bob Jones, Todd Bentley, and Patricia King speak of this contemplative practice of entering into the “third heaven”:
KING: Todd, I remember years ago, you gave me a phone call and you said ‘Hey, I’ve just been soaking with Bob Jones and I’ve gone up into the “third heaven”‘ and all that. And it was all new to me; I’d never even heard of that kind of language before and I was SO hungry for it. But tell about the first time you met Bob and your encounters in the third heaven.
BENTLEY: The first time I met Bob was actually in Grants Pass, Oregon. We were sitting in a restaurant and I was really hungry; I knew Bob was a real seer prophet. I thought ‘Lord I’m going to get an impartation’. I’ve been having all these encounters and all these visions and experiences already soaking, but I thought ‘Lord I need to talk to somebody that’s been walking in this that’s really a senior prophet’. So when I met Bob, I thought ‘Lord, I’m going to get an impartation’ and I remember talking with Bob in a restaurant about going into the heavens and what it was and we were talking about the “third heaven”, going into the immediate abode, into that place, the dwelling place of God. And I thought ‘That’s awesome!’. I was hungry for it too; I wanted more! ‘Cause, up until that point, sovereignly God was just visiting me. And I was just waiting in His presence and sovereignly God was visiting me. And Bob said to me, he said, ‘We can go right now!’ And I said ‘What do you mean, we can go right now?! We can make the decision right now and enter into that realm of the spirit?’. And he said, “Sure we can! Don’t you have faith, boy?!’. Or something like that. (laughter) That what he said to me…
[...](description of occultic experience into the third heaven)[...]
KING: Well, I remember when you [Bentley] were telling me about it, I got so hungry for it. And right after that Bob was coming to a conference that we were having… I was going to just ask him all kinds of questions about this third heaven, I didn’t know, because I wanted to know. I wanted to experience God in a new way; and I think we all do; we’re all so hungry for Him, right? But I hadn’t caught yet, because you had told me about the experience but not the faith dimension, so I was just still thinking ‘Sovereignty’. God’s sovereignly going to move, take me out, well whatever. So I’m asking Bob questions and Bob, you said ‘Well, I do my raptures every day!’. I said ‘What do you mean, your raptures every day?’. He said ‘I go up every day!’. And I said ‘You go up EVERY DAY! I’d love to go up every day!’ And he said ‘Well, it’s by faith!‘…
A person’s FAITH supersedes God’s SOVEREIGNTY??
Bentley, Jones, and King declare they are going past the sovereignty of God into a contemplative heavenly experience. In scripture there is only one who declares himself to be as high as God — satan:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Isaiah 14:14
9:00 minutes into the video:
JONES: A lot of people see a lot of different colors [when in the third heaven], but when I take the children up most of the time, they see the “white light“. And they see the white throne, and nearly everything they see up there is white! That’s what God IS, is white light! But you got all the colors in it. And up there they see one another as white light, for they ARE light.
KING: Wow! I remember you saying to me one time, you said, if you can teach children to ascend into the third heaven and live out of that place then you will have a generation that will not be affected by the devil because the devil can’t go there. Isn’t that profound!?
JONES: Yep! Well, youth and children they hardly have any problem at all going there, especially 6 to 12. They go right up and I’ve seen them take them up and turn them loose! And then after you turn them loose, the first thing they’ll do, they’ll tell you what they’ve seen. So a lot of times with them, I let them tell me what they’ve seen, and then I interpret it to them. And then sometimes I will say, ‘Okay, go up again and see what you see for me’. And I’ll tell you some of the most seer prophecies I’ve got, come from some of them 6, 7, 8 years old! And some of the conferences I’ve been in, when the youth go up, I’ll tell those, the speakers of the conferences, you want blessed, go let the children pray for you. And see, they go continually there! They haven’t been taught the doubt that we have here.
In this video of Bentley’s Lakeland Healing Revival in Florida, Bentley talks about an angel of light in regards to children:
6:42 minutes into the video:
We’re going to have an anointing service because the Lord spoke to me about families and He was going to visit. I saw the angel today that was going to visit the children. I saw the angel that only two times have I seen that is going to visit the children. I tell you what, there is a glory moving into the room. Just go ahead and just… Ohhhh! Get under that! Ohhh! Ohhh! Lord, let it move across the whole place! A drunken glory! Heavy, heavy, weighty, weighty, weighty glory! Smoky glory, Shekinah glory, in all the colors in the glory!…
Todd saw the Glory Cloud of Revelation… that is, the cloud that is the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the seven Spirits of God. The Lord also showed Todd in the vision, an old Punjabi sadhu (holy man) [Ed. note: mystic], by the name of Sundar Singh, who lived in India and evangelized throughout the world over a hundred years ago. The Holy Spirit spoke to Todd about a new release of prophetic revelation coming… Todd examines the significance of Sundar Singh in his vision as an example of the extraordinary relationship God wants us to have with Him. It’s a wonderful life of devotion, humility, daily discipline, worship and contemplative prayer that calls us daily to soak in and seek God’s manifest presence. (emphasis added)
Why would God give his children a vision of a contemplative who combined the East and West in his meditative disciplines? Is this where Todd Bentley’s ideas about visions, spirituality, and ’soaking’ prayer are coming from?
Why would God, indeed. Bentley, King, and Jones are occultic mystics, doing the works of the flesh, a form of godliness but denying the power thereof (2nd Timothy 3:5). The power of God is not in evidence, nowhere to be found in their false teachings.
Love
Joy
Peace
Longsuffering
Gentleness
Goodness
Faith
Meekness
Temperance
The fruit or evidence of the Spirit is not false doctrines (heresies), excitement, shaking, barking, laughing uncontrollably, getting a shove from the preacher to be “slain in the spirit”, jumping in “the river”, etc., etc., etc…
Parents, please do not allow your children to be involved in these occultic experiences. Pay attention to what is being taught — not only their teachings but yours as well. Check EVERYTHING against the Word of God.
On March 30th, Lighthouse Trails reported that emerging church leaders Rob Bell and Doug Pagitt would be speaking with the Dalai Lama at the Seeds of Compassion event in Seattle, Washington on April 11th-15. Today’s article is a follow up of that report.
“Washington State Schools Busing Kids to See Dalai Lama”
Washington State public schools will be participating in the Seeds of Compassion event taking place in Seattle, Washington in April. Lighthouse Trails spoke with an assistant in the office of OSPI (Washington’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction), who said that students from all over the state of Washington would participate in the Seeds of Compassion. She told Lighthouse Trails that some people think this is a religious event but she said this was strictly about compassion… Read More…
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.
So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.
Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.
Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,
And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.
And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.
Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.
