Lakeland revival: Questions & Answers

If you look at the comments on the blog. I wrote about the Lakeland revival, you can see that people had strong opinions. Many focused their criticisms on Bentley himself. His flaws were an offense to them. And, while you can’t fault the hunger for God that many who traveled to Lakeland had, Bentley himself said and did things that were beyond the pale. His theology and methods were at times wacky and his character couldn’t support the worldwide attention.

In the wake of this announcement, it’s important that we take a closer look at what happened and ask what can be learned. And in doing so, it’s important to take stock of the many thousands of lives that were impacted. I had a number of friends who went down to Lakeland to check it out. They reported good fruit. One of them reported witnessing a dramatic healing. Another experienced what he termed “holy rain” – water inexplicably appearing on him. Others were greatly encouraged and are now growing by leaps and bounds spiritually because of what they experienced.

Still, there was excess. And to be fair, revivals are often that way – when you make pots on a pottery wheel, a lot of excess clay is going to fly off the wheel. God doesn’t order up tidy ceremonies when he’s dealing with affairs of the heart. He often seems to be more concerned with our healing than he is with our theology.

With all the positive testimonies, it’s a shame to see it come to such an abrupt end. We do well to learn from what happened. To that end, J. Lee Grady gives us the following assessment in his blog.  I excerpt some of it below:

Why did so many people flock to Lakeland from around the world to rally behind an evangelist who had serious credibility issues from
the beginning?

To put it bluntly, we’re just plain gullible.

From the first week of the Lakeland revival, many discerning Christians raised questions about Bentley’s beliefs and practices. They felt uneasy when he said he talked to an angel in his hotel room. They sensed something amiss when he wore a T-shirt with a skeleton on it. They wondered why a man of God would cover himself with tattoos. They were horrified when they heard him describe how he tackled a man and knocked his tooth out during prayer.

But among those who jumped on the Lakeland bandwagon, discernment was discouraged. They were expected to swallow and follow. I blame this lack of discernment, partly, on raw zeal for God. We’re spiritual hungry-which can be a good thing. But sometimes, hungry people will eat anything.

Many of us would rather watch a noisy demonstration of miracles, signs and wonders than have a quiet Bible study. Yet we are faced today with the sad reality that our untempered zeal is a sign of immaturity. Our adolescent craving for the wild and crazy makes us do stupid things. It’s way past time for us to grow up.

Why didn’t anyone in Lakeland denounce the favorable comments Bentley made about William Branham?

This one baffles me. When Bentley announced to the world that the same angel that ushered in the 1950s healing revival had come to Lakeland, the entire audience should have run for the exits.

Why didn’t anyone correct this error from the pulpit? Godly leaders are supposed to protect the sheep from heresy, not spoon feed deception to them. Only God knows how far this poison traveled from Lakeland to take root elsewhere. May God forgive us for allowing His Word to be so flippantly contaminated.

A prominent Pentecostal evangelist called me this week after Bentley’s news hit the fan. He said to me: “I’m now convinced that a large segment of the charismatic church will follow the anti-Christ when he shows up because they have no discernment.” Ouch. Hopefully we’ll learn our lesson this time and apply the necessary caution when an imposter shows up.

Why did God TV tell people that “any criticism of Todd Bentley is demonic”?

This ridiculous statement was actually made on one of God TV’s pre-shows. In fact, the network’s hosts also warned listeners that if they listened to criticism of Bentley, they could lose their healings.

This is cultic manipulation at its worst. The Bible tells us that the Bereans were noble believers because they studied the Scriptures daily “to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11, NASB). Yet in the case of Lakeland, honest intellectual inquiry was viewed as a sign of weakness. People were expected to jump first and then open their eyes.

Just because we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit does not mean we check our brains at the church door. We are commanded to test the spirits. Jesus wants us to love Him with our hearts and our minds.