TV evangelist Benny Hinn is staging his latest International Crusade in Suva, Fiji; January 20-22, 2006.
I wonder ...
WILL HE BE SO 'DRUNK' IN THE SPIRIT HE WILL BE UNAWARE OF WHAT HE SAYS?!
On December 31, 1989, at his church, the Orlando Christian Center (now known as World Outreach Center), Hinn presented a dramatic sequence of “prophecies” about events that were to occur in the 1990s.
Hinn closed his this New Year’s Eve “revelation” in dramatic fashion, asserting that he was so caught up in the Spirit that he was totally unaware of what he’d said:
“I wish somebody would make sure to tell me what I said. Did you tape that brother? Did you tape that? Ooh! I was totally drunk. I’m still drunk. Lord, if You spoke through me, if what You said is of You, then as I stretch my finger towards the people let Your power fall on every one of them. If what I’ve said, Master, is of You, let the power flow now. Here it goes in the name of Jesus.”
Some people shrieked, some fell as “proof” of the divine nature of it all. Hinn was in total control as he led his people into altered states of consciousness.
Hinn acted more like a shaman than a Christian minister. In occultic and pagan societies a shaman enters a trance-like state and presumes to act as a mediator with the gods or spirits. The shaman may declare cures or tell the future. Postmodern religious practices have now entered the world of the occult.
Noted German theologian and author Kurt Koch writes:
“Speaking in a trance is a practice of mediums. It only takes place when a medium is present who has mastered this form of spiritism. The medium puts himself into a trance, a kind of deep sleep, and the spirits are then said to be able to speak through the medium to the people present” (Occult ABC, pg. 219).
What Hinn purported to do belongs in the realm of black magic or a gypsy tea room. Divination or divining and predicting the future is soundly condemned in Deuteronomy 18:10, Jeremiah 14:14 and Acts 16:16 (in context). Apart from God’s ordained prophets in the Scriptures there are only false prophets. Even if one engages in the realm of “prophecy” simply as a product of the flesh, doing it is a dangerous practice.
It seems almost ironic that in recent months Hinn has loudly assaulted mediums by declaring that he was going to go head-to-head with the psychic hot lines. He asked for the support of his followers so that his daily program would telecast over the same secular television stations that broadcast the psychic’s advertisements and infomercials. In reality, what he has done and is doing appears to be a “Christianized” version of the psychic hot lines. His demonstrations of the supernatural, such as healings, future telling, words of knowledge, trances, and other antics are stock-in-trade in the occult world.
Hinn also, by virtue of his trance, gives to his faithful a skewed and unbiblical concept of inspiration. Divine inspiration is not robotic or mechanical. God did not use his prophets as mindless robots or mere drunken scribes. Those who spoke for Him were intellectually involved and knowledgeable in terms of what was being communicated. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth that “The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of the prophets” (1 Corinthians 14:32).
People need to wake up and apply the Scriptures to Hinn’s false statements and to all false prophets. The Church need not be afraid of speaking out against false prophets who deliver false prophecies. Either God is wrong and has made a mistake or the “prophet” is speaking presumptuously from his own mind. Going with God and His written Word is always the safest route.
[ Cited from an article written by G. Richard Fisher and M. Kurt Goedelman for 'Personal Freedom Outreach' ].
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