Category Archives: Individuals

Looking at some Lakeland revival issues

Posted on by
12

There is a lot of interest on the Internet in the continuing revival in Lakeland, Florida, under Todd Bentley. There are also reports of a similar, although smaller scale, revival in Dudley, England.

In a comment on my blog, Dave Warnock quotes me then asks a question:

Peter,

“I did wonder why the need to actually go there, why this revival can’t be caught from a distance, but on further reflection I believe they are right.”

Please would you unpack this more. I do not understand how this fits theologically.

Can you express that “rightness” theologically?

A good question indeed, and an issue I had only touched on earlier. Although of course God is not constrained by space and completely capable of working from a distance, there does seem to be some special power associated with being in the presence of his holiness or a holy or Spirit-filled person, and especially of being touched by such a person. This is what a number of people have experienced and it is also biblical. See for example, for presence 1 Samuel 10:10 and 1 Kings 8:11, and for touch Acts 19:6 and 19:12, as well as 13:3 and 2 Timothy 1:6 for the practice of laying on of hands for imparting spiritual gifts. This is of course just a quick summary. So I think it is right for people to seek the presence of the Lord in the places where he is working and the physical touch of those who he is using in special ways.

Dave Faulkner, a Methodist minister from the other side of my own town (but we have never met), gives a fascinating analysis of several aspects of Todd Bentley’s ministry. Thanks to Dave Warnock for the link. I would like to look at just a couple of these matters.

First, Dave F suggests that when people on the Lakeland stage apparently fall under the power of the Holy Spirit, in fact Todd may be pushing them – something which, Dave says, in different from what happened in Toronto. Well, I was watching some of the meetings on God TV projected on to a large screen (so much more clear than the YouTube videos Dave was watching). Yes, Todd may have been applying a little pressure to the head of the people being prayed for (but usually more downwards than backwards), but there is no way he was pushing hard enough to push over anyone who didn’t want to fall. I would suggest that the push was more symbolic, almost sacramental, an indication that this is the right time to fall over rather than a serious attempt to push anyone down.

Now I have been in ministries which encourage people being prayed for to fall over, and others which encourage them to stay on their feet so that prayer can continue. I have been in situations where I have been being prayed for, have felt weak at the knees, and have had to decide whether to fall over or stay on my feet. I would suggest that in most cases this is just a matter of choice. When the Holy Spirit comes on someone, he does so gently, leading them but not forcing them in any way, and that includes not forcing them to the floor. Of course in a situation where falling is clearly expected, especially if that expectation is encouraged by a gentle push on the forehead, most people will fall over, while a few will resist. The Holy Spirit respects their decisions.

But we should not focus too much on such matters, which are not the real issue here. Dave is spot on when he writes:

But if you asked all the responsible church leaders who were heavily involved in the ‘Toronto Blessing’ at least in this country, they would have said that the outward manifestation was not itself the proof of the Spirit’s work. … The evidence of the Spirit’s work is the fruit. Outward signs at the time may be commentary on the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit, or they may be ‘fleshly’ human responses.

Well, I would have put the last sentence the other way round, to put the emphasis on the fact that, even among some fleshly excesses, the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit is at work in Lakeland.

Dave also questions the financial accountability of Todd Bentley’s Fresh Fire Ministries. Well, here we can be grateful that it is based in Canada (just across the US border near Vancouver) and so there is no option for it to invoke the separation of church and state to avoid the moral if not always legal requirement of financial accountability. In fact I heard Todd confirm what Bene D comments on Dave’s post, that Fresh Fire is not short of funds. And so, Todd said, he is not taking any money from Lakeland to finance his own ministry. I’m sure that in due course that decision will be confirmed in published accounts.

In another comment on my blog with a follow-up, Scott Gray asks some interesting questions, but ones I find hard to answer because he is approaching this with a different theological viewpoint from mine. He asks if the Lakeland experience is “mystical”, and if so “how is it different than the experience of god in sacrament– eucharist, for example?” Well, the first question depends partly what is meant by “mystical”; if this word refers to an experience which is not readily explained by normal scientific laws, then yes, this revival is “mystical”. As for it being like a sacrament, apparently Scott understands a sacrament as about meeting Jesus, and as something to be avoided if one is not ready to meet him. Well, I think in a lot of the evangelical tradition I come from people are far too ready to worship God and perform sacraments with no real expectation of meeting Jesus or openness to being changed. Their attitude is well summed up in this cartoon. What Scott writes is much more appropriate:

if we expect to meet jesus anywhere … we have to be ready to be changed.

And I am sure that is true also of revival meetings in Lakeland or elsewhere. We need to go there prepared to meet God and be changed. If we don’t, God is patient and kind and so doesn’t actually squash us with his big sandal, but we are likely to leave the meetings offended and critical, as in some of the comments on Lakeland which I have seen. But if we go to meetings like this with a positive attitude and an openness to change, even if we continue to watch out for possible ways in which the experience is less than ideal, then we can expect to truly meet God and know his presence with us, not just in a mystical moment but as a lifelong relationship.

God and Mammonianity

Posted on by
Reply

Agathos of the blog Scotteriology has been blogging about what he (gender assumed from the grammatical gender of the Greek word “agathos”) calls “Mammonianity”. This is basically criticism of what is otherwise known as “Prosperity Gospel” teaching, that Christians can expect to prosper materially and the key to this is giving.

Now there is some truth to this teaching. God does indeed desire to give good things to his people, and especially to bless those who give generously to his work. But it is a complete perversion of this good biblical teaching to make material prosperity, rather than serving God, the aim, and also to make giving into a means of becoming prosperous rather than a cheerful sacrifice.

I remember long ago reading a book called “A Daily Guide to Miracles”. I was indeed looking for miracles. But as I read the book I found that every example given was of someone living a reasonably good life, certainly by international standards, who was looking for and received a miracle of financial or other material provision enabling them to live more of the Great American Dream. I found this book, and the selfishness it encouraged in its readers, so repulsive that I rejected it and, to a large extent, the Christian ministry which had recommended it, which was sadly moving towards that teaching.

Todd Bentley has been accused of following this prosperity teaching. I don’t have any evidence that he does. One thing I did hear him say from Lakeland is that he is not accepting offerings taken up there towards his own ministry which, he said, is fully funded from his home in Canada. This is not at all the attitude of the stereotypical prosperity gospel teacher who encourages crowds to make offerings as “seed faith” and then (allegedly) takes tens of thousands of dollars for himself.

Here is some of what Agathos has to say:

This my friends is what the prophets of Mammon prey upon. People that are unaware of how blessed they are and want more. The prophet of Mammon promises them that he has a formula to get more. Their heart makes them susceptible long before the prophet of Mammon ever speaks. Which leads to the next point.

The heart disposition that is adopted to make one susceptible to the lies of the Mammonian prophets leaves absolutely no margins for joy, contentment, gratitude, or thankfulness. There is literally no room for these thing, especially in relation to a God that is holding back on you because you do not have enough faith or haven’t “seeded” enough. A heart full of envy, covetousness, and greed cannot be thankful for the many blessings that have already been recieved just by being born in a North American society.

There may be no sadder commentary on the North American church today than the sector that already has incredible blessing and abundance but sits around desperately unhappy, conniving how to get more from God.

Those heart dispositions and actions are not Christian. They are Mammonianity.

Amen! The worship of Mammon, even by professing Christians, brings one into bondage. The worship of the true God sets one free.

Lakeland revival with Todd Bentley continues

Posted on by
67

UPDATE 3rd June: I know a lot of people are finding this page from Google searches on “Todd Bentley” and similar. Welcome! Note please that this is only one of a series of posts I have made about Todd and the events in Lakeland. For the rest of the series follow this link to my Todd Bentley category.

Today I watched quite a lot more of Todd Bentley and his team from the revival in Lakeland, Florida, which friends had recorded from God TV. I am convinced that this is a real move of God’s power, although through imperfect human agents and so not entirely perfect. My previous post on the subject generated some discussion, but I will not try to engage with criticisms of what is happening.

Henry Neufeld offers an interesting perspective on these revival meetings from his friend and former pastor, rounded off with some of his own thoughts, cautious but not negative. The former pastor, who was involved in the Brownsville revival in their home town of Pensacola (also in Florida but several hundred miles from Lakeland), writes as follows:

My experience at Lakeland was awesome. It is nothing like Brownsville. Everything about this move of God will drive everyone’s religious spirits crazy. Nothing fits the normal church theology. God just shows up and melts people. …

I recommend that everyone who wants to make a commitment of more of themselves to the Lord, to go! If you go as a spectator you will come away only with disappointment and criticisms, which only hurts the critic. The healings are awesome. Are some fake? Probably. Are some real? Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! …

As long as God gets the glory, I believe this will continue to grow around the world.

Some people from my church are flying all the way to Lakeland next week to catch the revival fire and bring it back to England and this town. In some ways I wish I could go with them. I did wonder why the need to actually go there, why this revival can’t be caught from a distance, but on further reflection I believe they are right. I have already heard stories of church leaders who have returned to the UK from Lakeland and seen revival start to break out in their churches. I long to see that happen in my own church, and in all the churches in my town. In fact we have already seen some small signs of it, just enough for us to realise that we need and can hope to receive far, far more.

Pentecost and Tongues of Fire

Posted on by
11

Singing in the Reign, despite being by Roman Catholics, has become one of my favourite blogs. Michael Barber has marked Pentecost there not by quoting Aquinas, as he did for Easter and Ascension Day, but with a fascinating post on the significance of the tongues of fire which appeared at the first Pentecost.

Now, despite what some translations make of them (and my humorous misunderstanding of one of them!), “tongues as of fire” in Acts 2:3 cannot mean “tongues that looked like fire”, at least in any sense that these were the physical body parts tongues. Rather, surely, they were tongue-shaped pieces of fire, or what looked like fire. That is, they were what we would now call flames. It is good to keep the word “tongue” in a translation to preserve the link in the original text with the “tongues”, languages, in which the first Christians began to speak in verse 4, but the word can be misleading in a language like English which doesn’t usually call flames “tongues”.

What did these tongues mean? Michael Barber considers some possibilities, and I am sure that the meaning is not exhausted by any one or two of them. One idea which he does not mention is that the tongues which rested on people without burning them are reminiscent of the flame which did not burn up the burning bush, Exodus 3:2. That fire was of course the presence and glory of God, and surely the tongues of fire at Pentecost symbolise the presence and glory of God the Holy Spirit resting on the believers.

But there is more to it than that. Michael points out the description in the Jewish book 1 Enoch of the heavenly temple as “built with tongues of fire“. Since this book would probably have been familiar to Luke and the readers of Acts, the suggestion is that the tongues of fire at Pentecost symbolised the believers as a new temple, whose stones were the first Christians as in Ephesians 2:21 (and more clearly, I would add, in 1 Peter 2:5).

Todd Bentley, like many revivalist preachers, makes a big thing of praying for the fire of the Holy Spirit to fall on his congregations. This is clearly a re-use of the imagery of tongues of fire at Pentecost, although I haven’t heard of visible flames of fire at modern revival meetings. This fire is understood as the power of the Holy Spirit inside someone, to burn up what is wrong in their life, to ignite within them a passion for God, and to continue to burn as a symbolic light of God’s presence. Michael’s post suggests another sense in which believers today need this fire, to be built together all the more firmly as God’s church. For it is by the Holy Spirit that

you also, like living stones, are being built into a temple of the Spirit to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. … 9 … you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

1 Peter 2:5,9 (TNIV, following the marginal reading in verse 5)

Could this one be the Wright letter?

Posted on by
2

About a month ago, as I reported, Bishop NT Wright referred to a letter which Archbishop Rowan Williams was supposed to have already sent to Anglican bishops, supposedly in an attempt to dissuade from attending the Lambeth Conference those who were not committed to the Windsor Process and the Anglican Covenant. But, it seems, no such letters arrived. What was sent out at about this time was a video message. Ruth Gledhill suggested that this video was in fact what Bishop Wright was referring to. But, as I wrote at the time, the content of the video was nothing like the message which Wright described.

Now, a month later and only just over two months before the Lambeth Conference begins, another message from Archbishop Rowan has arrived in bishops’ letter boxes. Ruth Gledhill gives the full text and again speculates that this is the message that Wright was talking about. And indeed the content seems to fit what Wright had to say. Well, given the current state of the British postal service it is believable that these letters have been in the post for a month. But as the message is explicitly linked to the feast of Pentecost, yesterday, surely Wright was misinformed about it being in the post, even if it was already being drafted a month ago.

Actually it is a really good letter. I am impressed with the seasonal appeals to the Holy Spirit:

The Feast of Pentecost … is a good moment to look forward prayerfully to the Lambeth Conference, asking God to pour out the Spirit on all of us as we make ready for this time together, so that we shall indeed be given grace to speak boldly in his Name. …

We are asking for the fire of the Spirit to come upon us and deepen our sense that we are answerable to and for each other and answerable to God for the faithful proclamation of his grace uniquely offered in Jesus. That deepening may be painful in all kinds of ways. The Spirit does not show us a way to by-pass the Cross. But only in this way shall we truly appear in the world as Christ’s Body as a sign of God’s Kingdom which challenges a world scarred by poverty, violence and injustice. …

And our ambition is nothing less than renewal and revival for us all in the Name of Jesus and the power of his Spirit.

Todd Bentley would give an “Amen!” to that, even though his style is entirely different.

The “indaba” discussion groups Archbishop Rowan describes seem a helpful model for this kind of conference. But as for Wright’s suggestion that Williams was trying to persuade certain bishops not to attend, Williams writes that something (I’m not quite sure what)

makes it all the more essential that those who come to Lambeth will arrive genuinely willing to engage fully in that growth towards closer unity that the Windsor Report and the Covenant Process envisage. We hope that people will not come so wedded to their own agenda and their local priorities that they cannot listen to those from other cultural backgrounds. As you may have gathered, in circumstances where there has been divisive or controversial action, I have been discussing privately with some bishops the need to be wholeheartedly part of a shared vision and process in our time together.

Will this actually stop any bishops coming? I doubt it, unless “discussing privately … the need” is a euphemism for “ordering”.

Will the letter persuade any to come who were not planning to? Well, it might win over some who were wavering, and increase the number attending both the Lambeth Conference and Gafcon. The latter, the alternative conference in late June in Jordan and Israel, arranged by conservatives, is currently expecting 280 bishops, compared with the total of about 800 invited to Lambeth.

But a letter like this will not go far towards healing the deep divisions in the Anglican Communion. A month ago I wrote, actually quoting Wright’s words, that the letter he was referring to

is far too little, far too late.

The letter which has now arrived is still far too little, and it is even later.

Meanwhile Dave Walker suggests to me, with a cartoon to illustrate it, another way in which Archbishop Rowan might be discouraging Lambeth attendance. He will not be flying anywhere this summer. But of course he is the only bishop who can reasonably walk from his cathedral to the Lambeth Conference. The next nearest diocesan bishop, Nazir-Ali of Rochester, could just about walk the 30 miles or so to Canterbury, but is not expected to attend. So, by giving up flying, is Rowan giving an example which he doesn’t expect any other bishops to follow, or is he giving a subtle message to those from outside Europe not to bother to travel to Lambeth?

Moses, Charles Wesley and Todd Bentley

Posted on by
Reply

Maybe some of you, my readers, have been offended by my recent posts about charismatic phenomena and the Todd Bentley revival in Florida. Or maybe you know others who have.

I was a little surprised to read a post by Jim West which, I hope, puts any doubts about these matters into proper perspective. Jim presents a poem by Charles Wesley based on the rather obscure Bible story of Eldad and Medad, Numbers 11:26-30. Here is one stanza:

Moses, the minister of God,
Rebukes our partial love,
Who envy at the gifts bestow’d
On those we disapprove.
We do not our own spirit know,
Who wish to see suppress’d
The men that Jesu’s spirit show,
The men whom God hath bless’d.

Let us indeed have the attitude that Moses had when he said

I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!

Numbers 11:29 (TNIV)

Todd Bentley revives Florida, and prays for revival in the UK

Posted on by
19

I linked here in passing to the ongoing revival led by Todd Bentley in Lakeland, Florida. You can find out what is going on at Todd’s Fresh Fire Ministries site, which includes a page with live video streaming during the meetings, and recordings of previous ones, although the latest recording currently listed (which I have watched part of) is from 5th May.

The site also includes a blog. The latest post includes a report on Thursday evening’s meeting. Here are two extracts, taken from among many testimonies of healing and deliverance:

What can be said that hasn’t already? What God is doing here in Lakeland, FL is simply indescribable and amazing. As we continue to gather each night the presence comes stronger and like never before. …

=======================================
TODD CALLS EVERYONE UP FROM ENGLAND
=======================================

The line stretches from one side of the arena to the other…
BAM BAM BAM…

The entire line of over 60 people SLAM TO THE FLOOR!!!

THEN, IRELAND AND SCOTLAND… BAM BAM BAM

===============================
PRAY FOR REVIVAL TO BREAK OUT
IN THE UNITED KINGDOM!!!
===============================

Now I can understand why some people are sceptical about this kind of thing. There are times when I have been. I have only seen a small extract from a recording of this, so I don’t know enough about what is happening to give it an unqualified endorsement. But if it is indeed as I have heard reported by people I know and trust, then this is indeed an exciting new movement, and something we need here in the UK and worldwide.

In a comment on this blog Alastair made this good point:

I get wary when I see talk of “revival” and “outpouring” and “annointing” and “angels” but I hear no talk of repentance of sins and no emphasis on Jesus and his work.

Indeed, so do I. But is this a fair description of what is happening in Florida? I asked a trusted friend who has been watching with a somewhat critical eye. When I heard from him I commented:

I had a reply from my friend who has been following what is happening at Lakeland. He tells me that in the morning meetings, attended by thousands, there is “teaching on sin, repentance, love of the Father, Jesus’ death, resurrection and atonement”. The evening meetings, just as large, are more for testimony and ministry, but “there is always talk of salvation and accepting Jesus as Saviour”. This from someone who is not taking this all in uncritically but watching carefully to see if it is OK. So if you “hear no talk of repentance of sins and no emphasis on Jesus and his work”, it may be because you, like me, have not actually had the full Lakeland revival experience.

Archbishop not replacing press officer

Posted on by
Reply

Ruth Gledhill writes that

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s director of communications returns to parish work next week and is not being replaced.

Good news or not? During the fiasco over Archbishop Rowan’s sharia law speech his director of communications was clearly not doing a good job. But, if rumours are correct, this was because he was not allowed to do it, but was bypassed by the Archbishop. If so, no surprise that he has resigned, but a disaster that he is not being replaced.

Now I’m not going to go all the way with Ruth’s journalistic complaints about lack of access to bishops at the Lambeth Conference. Anyway she should realise that the way she reported the church attendance figures yesterday is not going to win her or any journalists favour in the eyes of the Anglican authorities. And she can hardly complain about the swimming pool with a view she will enjoy – and can perhaps invite some bishops to share.

But the Archbishop and everyone in the higher echelons of the Church of England need to realise that they have a serious image problem. And the way to do something about that is not to shun the media and do without a press officer.

Two Anglican priests' thoughts on charismatic experience

Posted on by
Reply

My post on speaking in tongues seems to have stirred up quite some interest. In addition to several comments and the link from Darrell Pursiful which I mentioned in my first follow-up post, it has attracted links from two Anglican priests on the edge of the charismatic movement, Tim Chesterton and Sam Norton.

Tim, once of Essex but now of Canada, dispels any suggestion that for him charismatic experience was something he enjoyed as a teenager in the 1970s but has now grown out of. In his new post he writes about “words of knowledge”. I didn’t mention in my previous posts that these “words of knowledge” are a major part of the prayer ministry at my church (which, sadly, is not well described at its website). Every Sunday morning before the service a group of us pray together and also wait for God to reveal to us specific prayer needs, such as sicknesses which God wants to heal. These are read out in the service before the final time of worship in song and prayer ministry, to encourage people to come forward for prayer for healing etc.

I don’t personally have such words on a regular basis. But a couple of weeks ago I had a sort of vision of someone with a particular health problem sitting in a particular part of the church. I wasn’t at all sure that this was from God and not just my imagination, but I shared it with the group in a very tentative way. Despite my uncertainty this was read out, there was indeed someone with that problem in that part of the church, and they came out for healing prayer.

Now it took a long time for my church to get to the point where that was acceptable; other churches may need to move gradually in that direction.

Sam, still here in Essex, linked to a recent post of his which I had not read before, about his visit to the New Wine Leadership Conference. It is good to see how he is edging towards a greater acceptance of the charismatic movement. To me, as an evangelical Anglican, the kind of “worship” experience which he criticises is quite normal, but I can see why he as a high churchman found it difficult to accept. And if he can’t take Bill Johnson, I certainly wouldn’t recommend to him Todd Bentley!

But I wonder if there is really “an underlying disparagement of the intellect” and “a division between ‘head and heart'” at New Wine. What I have seen is the opposite, a rejection of the division between ‘head and heart’ which underlies the idolatry of the intellect and disparagement of experience so common in many church circles, together with messages intended to appeal holistically to the whole person, including head and heart. I quoted here before Smith Wigglesworth’s 1947 prophecy that

When the Word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest movement of the Holy Spirit that the nation, and indeed, the world, has ever seen.

Surely it is this coming together of the Word and the Spirit which New Wine is aiming to achieve. And there are signs that it is beginning to happen.

I’m sure Sam will be happier as a “Charismatic Catholic” than he is in New Wine circles. And I hope on Pentecost Sunday, this Sunday, he will indeed have the courage to carry out his intention to preach about a “release of the spirit”, and that this release becomes not just words or doctrine but a real experience of many in his congregation.

Sam also links to an older autobiographical post of his own, Guarding the Holy Fire, which is long but fascinating. May there be in his parish of Mersea a real visitation of the Holy Spirit, not as an explosive fire which blows itself out (read the post to understand this allusion) but as a long-lasting holy fire which burns up all the rubbish and provides lasting heat and light. Todd Bentley is praying that the revival fire in Florida will light fires all over the world. May this happen even in Mersea, as well as here in Chelmsford. And while I don’t want to wish anything uncomfortable on Sam, he just may find that this revival doesn’t fit his expectations about a proper liturgical setting!

I was interested to see also in this post of Sam’s these words from Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. …

Sam gives the whole quote. These words, as seen in a clip from the film Coach Carter (which in fact cuts the quote to leave out the parts about God), formed the basis of a recent sermon at my church’s youth service. It was certainly a powerful sermon. With the Holy Spirit working in us we are indeed “powerful beyond measure”. But for many of us our deepest fear is of allowing that power to work in us (to continue the Williamson quote)

to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. …
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

It is the Holy Spirit who can liberate us from our own fear. May we have the courage to let him do so.

Filled with the Spirit, not with emotionalism

Posted on by
18

Dr Platypus, Darrell Pursiful, linked to my last post on speaking in tongues and also gave a link to an older post of his, Filled with the Spirit. That post gives, it seems to me, some very sensible teaching on what baptism and filling with the Holy Spirit really means. But I am not entirely convinced by the distinction he tries to make between pleroo and pimplemi.

Darrell brings up the old chestnut that encouraging the gifts and manifestations of the Holy Spirit, especially speaking in tongues, is in fact encouraging emotionalism. But those of us who have experienced these gifts in our own lives know very well that they are not just matters of emotionalism. Yes, human emotions are affected by the touch of the Holy Spirit, often leading to releases of tears or laughter, and to joyful praise and worship. For some people the Holy Spirit brings release from years of oppression and suppression of emotions, and healing from depression. When the pressure is released the emotions bubble over, like the froth from a newly opened champagne bottle. But in the bottle there is not just froth, there is the beautiful new wine of God’s presence, which is clearly felt and known by those whom the Holy Spirit touches.

Anyway, what Darrell says is true of most churches in western countries, except for some extreme Pentecostal and charismatic ones:

Some will wonder about the danger of emotionalism if such experiences are encouraged. To that I would say that there are no doubt many spiritual dangers facing the churches of which I have been a part for the past forty-some years, but unrestrained emotionalism has rarely been one of them! Rather, the danger for most of us in our relationship with God is not emotionalism but the lack of emotion. Every loving relationship involves emotions. There must be more than emotion—things like friendship, communication, honesty, trust, and so forth—but if I never showed emotion toward the people I love, something would be missing.

Meanwhile there is an amazing revival going on in Lakeland, Florida, led by Todd Bentley. Apparently there have been meetings there every night for more than a month, with wonderful miracles happening. This has been showing on God TV (late every evening here in the UK), and also as live streaming from this site, with (rather poor quality) recordings of previous meetings available at all times. Christian leaders from all over the world are flying to Florida to catch the fire from this revival. I have just been watching some of this – the evening meeting from 5th May, starting after the “worship” about 90 minutes into the four hour broadcast and listening for about 40 minutes.

Now Todd Bentley, a tattooed former drug dealer from Canada, is not everyone’s style. He is certainly very different from the other preachers from British Columbia I have mentioned here recently. His preaching is not classic expository preaching, and I’m sure he makes no claim that it is. He is quite deliberately appealing to his congregation’s emotions rather than to their intellects. Not everyone likes this, I know. I have seen some really rather ridiculous criticism of what is going on in Lakeland. But it should be clear from watching it that people are being touched by the power of the Holy Spirit and their lives are being changed. I believe this is God’s work. If others are not convinced, they should at least follow Gamaliel’s principle in Acts 5:38,39, and remember what happened to those who opposed Moses.

Google found for me an excellent post on the subject by John Allister, who quotes Greg Haslam quoting Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Here is part of John’s post:

But just because we have the Holy Spirit, that does not mean that we have the fullness of experience of the Holy Spirit.

And if someone asks “Surely we got it all automatically when we believed?” Dr Lloyd-Jones replied “If you have got it all, why are you so unlike the New Testament Christians? Got it all? Got it all at your conversion? Well, where is it, I ask?”

Filled with the Holy Spirit by Greg Haslam in Preach the Word