A Response to the
Lakeland
“outpouring”
By Neil Thielke,
June, 2008
Due to the growing fervor over
the events in
Lakeland
Florida
over the internet, there is a need
for a quick response from church leaders. The events of the
Lakeland
"revival" are very amazing... and very troubling at
the same time. The validity or helpfulness of a movement cannot
be established by miracles and healings which were meant to be a sign post
and never an end in themselves. We must
remind ourselves of Jesus words, "You will know them by their fruits"-
not their gifts! Fruit is for validity, gifts are for advertising. We
do well to not mix those two words up!
First, there is no adherence to
the Bible as the established framework in the
Lakewood
environment. May I express that I am
sorely distressed at the "Christian" leader who says
He went "beyond the God's Spirit" for power? Todd Bentley
says: “I was impacted years ago, and first
introduced to this kind of intimacy, through the ministries of Benny Hinn and Kathryn Kuhlman. They opened the way for me to go
beyond the power of God’s Spirit, the gifts or any kind of experience like the
baptism of the Holy Spirit.” But the Bible says, "Now, brothers, I have
applied these things to myself and Apollos for your
benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, 'Do not go
beyond what is written.'" 1 Cor. 4:6a. Galatians 1:8 says, "But
even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we
preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! When God leads us outside OUR
box, it is never outside HIS box- the Word of God. The way
Lakeland
is handling
things leads the church one more step toward a disregard for the Word of
God.
The Jesus People movement
was VERY successful. They were the original mega-church in the cities.
Who had not heard of
Jesus
People
Church
in the 60's? One of the greatest manifestations of the Holy Spirit in my life
was in that church! Yet the scattering of the 3000 people around the
cities when the whole church imploded left thousands of refugees
scattered around our state unable to trust a church- many even till
this day. Success is not the measure of how something should be
judged. There are many who say that we should be able to "spit
out the bones and eat the meat"... but what happens when some people
choke on those bones? Should we just ignore it? What happens when
there are more casualties in the end than the whole thing is worth?
Haven't we as leaders been given a responsibility to protect our sheep?
The
Lakeland
leadership in my observation has no
credible oversight (Todd Bentley's angel, Emma, does not count). So the
leaders of local churches whose sheep are heading down there in
droves are left on the outside to deal with the excesses.
Visions and prior/current
celebrities are given the same level as the Bible (it appears they
are taken even higher) at
Lakeland
.
I have read evidence that some of the references to Todd's personal angel,
Emma, are being purged by him from his website so current readers
would not be aware of the historical non-Biblical aspects of his ministry.
What a person writes reveals the substance of their beliefs- see http://earthless.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/todd-bentley-lakeland-revival . There is much mixture in what Todd Bentley writes- some good- and some very
bad. Mature men of God do not get rid of the bad by "cut and
paste" to appease the palates of the masses- like our
shallow politicians who, though they be vehement anti-hunters in their
voting history, go hunting publically to get the votes of the less
discerning. Mature Christians confess their wrongdoing and repent. Public repentance by leaders has always been a hallmark of great revivals
in the past. It was so in Jesus day and the altars of our churches should
be available today too.
The problem is exacerbated
by the reluctance of leaders to pass judgment because of our fear of
being labeled pharisaical, narrow minded, or ignorant of spiritual
things. There are sometimes unwritten or unspoken stronghold fears
among us that we might miss out on one of the stepping stones to our
success or growth if we pass up on these "outpourings". In
my opinion, the churches that have been extreme in their seeking
of outpourings in our immediate midst have suffered extreme loss- one
from running to every location of what might possibly be the Holy
Spirit as "the answer" and the other by manifestations from
extreme fasting as "the answer". In one situation the sheep
freaked and in the other, the people were given an appetite/craving
for a growth ingredient given too much emphasis. The remaining
small remnants of either church would probably agree that
the extreme measure taken in either course of action was
not "the answer".
Furthermore, our
Bible-believing brothers and sisters are shocked by the blatant disregard for
the Word of God in
Lakeland
.
Just when God is moving in this season to unify us with our evangelical brothers
and sisters, we are becoming the target of their disgust and scorn-
and rightfully so. I appreciate a recent
article by Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine that can be found on their web site where he cautions is regarding the
Lakeland
events:
http://fireinmybones.com/index.php?col=051408
There is some mixture in the
Lakeland
meetings.
Some is God... and some is god... and some is the devil. Just because some
of it is God, does not lend credence to the total event. One
challenge for me is that often I have overreacted in the past or acted
with inflammatory language. May God forgive me of my past shortcomings. But that should not affect my current
responsibility to take a reasonable course of action on this issue.
The seeking after Christian
celebrities and celebrity hotspots in these days for the answer is
also disheartening to me. When people run after celebrities that model
themselves after Branham, Jones, or Kuhlman, they are not following after
the kind of people I admire or adhere to as my models: Ten Boom, Rick
Warren, The Calvary Road, Billy Graham, David/Gale
Williams, Gordon, Aylward, and the list
goes on but you get the gist. The Branham group is so weird
and so frequently not Biblical that the lists are mutually
exclusive. May I be added to the second list at the end of my life (AMEN!). It is my prayer that the people of our churches
follow the latter list of models too. In fact as I recorded this
list, I called Gale in
Moscow
,
Idaho
, and told her that she
is on my list! d:-) She goes in to the doctor to
have 2 more melanoma spots removed from her scalp on June 16. David
arrives home from
South Lebanon
to be
with her on Monday. (Please keep them in your prayers.)
My question is how much bad do we
overlook to get something from God? At this point, I am
encouraging our people in Outfitters
sub-network to NOT attend nor promote the
Lakeland
event from
our pulpits nor promote their website- no matter who is singing the
praises of the last "event". I have communicated with my
oversight on this issue and he shares many of my concerns although he may
not express himself identically. While penning this I have also followed
in the steps of our prophetic network as well as Charisma magazine in
sounding the alarm on the
Lakewood
events.
Finally one must recognize that
there are many sounding the alarm on this event. There may be over reactions,
rancor, and ridicule toward the
Lakeland
event. It has been my desire to avoid such tactics. I pray that I succeeded.
Please be free and blessed to
pass on this warning to the people of your flocks.