Response to Comments on Anonymous Posting May 30th 2008

Hi again

Thanks for your responses. If I hadn’t felt troubled in my spirit I simply won’t have bothered to check things out. I am from a church that likes to believe we are at the cutting edge of what the Holy Spirit is doing and we run classes in the prophetic and the supernatural and current teaching materials from the former-Kansas city prophets are passed around. I love the prophetic and am drawn to all of this stuff. I interpret dreams and see angels, have had ‘people’ appear and disappear in front of me in human form. 15 years ago I had a visit to the third heaven during some incredible worship at a major event where I saw the great cloud of witnesses and ‘recognised’ many departed saints. One of these people, a pioneer missionary, told me we had come into new revelation which had not been revealed to him and to ‘go for it’. I cherished these things in my heart as some of the most exciting spiritual revelations I had had.

I was also in a Latter Rain church for a number of years in another town and, while there, was introduced to the teaching of William Branham and others. I was both puzzled and intrigued by his interest in UFO’s and other mystical things and the strange anointing which came from watching copies of his healing meetings which caused people to do weird things such as stand on their heads during bouts of hysterical laughter. Our pastor tried to avoid the more strange and controversial aspects of this teaching but we were perpetually waiting and prophesying about the New Day. Yes, unbelievably we had the occasional guest speaker who taught us that God was moving the church from the Age of Pisces into the Age of Aquarius as God had put these signs in the stars. In this New Age the fivefold ministry would be restored to the church. How we longed and prayed for it. Earlier this year the leaders of my present church went to a conference where they were told that we were now at a point in history were it would be possible, with enough faith and spiritual growth, to live forever!

My Latter Rain church was not really into the Toronto Blessing but I went to other churches whenever I could. I enjoyed more mystical and supernatural experiences at these events and dismissed criticism by assuming that either people did not understand the prophetic nature of God or that the devil or the flesh had occasionally got in there somewhere.

I am well aware that we are a fallen people with faults and weaknesses and we swim in a polluted river where the purity of the gospel is contaminated with all sorts of stuff. I understand that the church is made up of many traditions and teachings some of which contradict each other and that God uses weak and unusual people to fulfil his purposes.

Despite this sometime ago I began to be concerned that the Word was not being taught much anymore in my church, and that often the bible was not even opened. I became aware that many visiting teachers were saying very exciting things but they were talking about themselves. A couple of weeks ago I heard someone preach that the anointing within us touched people we met and encouraged us to look for divine appointments to ‘hug’ people. I also realised that somewhere along the line we had stopped speaking about Jesus but were talking about God, the anointing, glory clouds, angels, visions and the third heaven. I read a blog yesterday which said that Todd had taken references to EMMA off his web-site and the article asked ‘where did EMMA go?’ Well I am asking ‘where did Jesus and the gospel go?’

So, as I said, it was only because I was troubled about the EMMA Angel that I started to look into this - I didn’t even know why I was troubled after all I see angels and loved the prophetic in all its various forms. Indeed I like to consider myself a ‘people person’ and find unusual or different people very interesting so while my conclusions may appear to be biased I did not come into this research prejudiced again Todd per se. I wondered if John Glass just didn’t understand that people really did see angels or whatever. I agree my findings may not be entirely accurate, as there is so much differing opinion even on the same events and experiences; however over a 10 day period (which is woefully inadequate by any type of research standards) I read everything I could on these topics. I also spoke to people who have been avidly watching these things, both those who are upset and those who are ecstatic and spoke to and read reports from people who have been there. I looked at the history of the movement and the Elijah list people. I looked at the writings and teachings of the Latter Rain movement, of the Kansas City prophets both historically and currently and the writings of Todd Bentley. Basically I used university style research methods to look at the big picture in order to understand what is happening in the smaller one. I do realise that not everyone in the Latter Rain movement and similar churches will believe or endorse everything their leaders or founders say (or said in the past) but if you want to know what a denomination or movement believes you need to examine who they fundamentally are.

Todd does attribute his revelation and anointing to EMMA and other angels. He does claim that Jesus appears to him as a real person surrounded by incredible light and speaks to him. I don’t think anyone disagrees with this. He does encourage and teach people to enter into the third heaven (the place of the dead) to receive impartations and to engage in the supernatural. He does teach that he met the Apostle Paul and Sundar Singh and that he follows Singh’s teachings to reach heaven and that a special anointing from Singh will be released. I read this on the Elijah List website, under the title ‘prophetic words 2003’ I believe. He produces books and CD’s on the third heaven, mystical music and similar topics. Todd is not denying this, the question is, is this scriptural, is this wise and what spirits are we opening ourselves up to if we follow this teaching etc?

I looked into some teachings on dream interpretation from other members of the Elijah List being interested in this topic, and was very surprised to see it was lists and lists of meanings and interpretations. As a teenager I tried to interpret my dreams via this route having never met people who believed that God spoke in his way. Later God showed that me that this was spiritualism and that if I needed interpretation to seek the Holy Spirit. I had to repent of this sin.

I came across Akiane a few months ago and was entranced by her beautiful work. I was so interested in her I began to read about her and researched her, but as I read something started to bother me. In her interviews she said that some people believed she has a special gift from God while others believed she was a Crystal child. In one interview she is asked if she understands the gospel and she says she doesn’t know anything about it. I then asked the Holy Spirit to show me what kind of spirit (if any) was working through her. I then came across a transcript of an interview promoting her work where she said she went to ‘heaven’ with the help of her spirit guide. On YouTube there are videos of her talking about meeting God who she also describes as a being of incredible light. If you go onto her website there are links to her appearances on Patricia King’s and other Christian shows as well links to other non Christian things. I will try to find the link about her spirit guide again and post it up. Steve Shultz of the Elijah List has written a book about her and you can buy it from their website. I should point out that there are many people who believe she is a fraud as her works are copies of other work and she is unable to work when independent witnesses are in the room. Some people believe her father or other family members do it instead. Christian web sites say that she had a genuine encounter with the Lord Jesus and she led her whole family to Christ. New age type sites quote her differently and say she is a ‘Chrystal’ child. In fairness I have no idea if Todd has even heard of her although she has appeared on Patricia King’s TV programme and King is Todd’s mentor. I was trying to make the point that historically the Latter Rain prophets believed a new perfect seed would be born on the earth from 1973 as prophesied by Bob Jones and this is the same teaching as the New Agers. I was saying that (some of) these prophets, of whom Todd is part of, seem to be teaching that we need encounters with the supernatural in order to become the spiritual new breed (if we are not born this way) so that we can herald in a new day and possibly even live forever.

Even if this is not the case and the research I found is inaccurate or unbalanced Todd is still teaching people to visit the third heaven and get revelations from the dead! Although, like me, he may not recognise this is what is happening of course. Additionally, visitations of Jesus surrounded by light are a biblical description of Satan and one should be guarded against such things.

When I reflected on my research I realised that I had at times in my life swam in some very muddy waters. I realised that there is a big difference between differing interpretations of the Word and doctrines of Demons! I also realised that I had often never bothered to test the spirits nor search the scriptures. If it was exciting or had an ‘anointing’ or if there were miracles or healing then it had to be God, so I jumped right in. I realised I needed to wake up and yeah I needed to repent of some things and be cleansed! So yes. I suppose my blog entry is very biased.

Over the last 20 years we have been told never evaluate or look into what was being taught as this was ‘touching God’s anointed’. We were also told if we failed to ‘get right in there’, or to ‘jump right in’, then we were hindering the move of God. I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water but I for one will be testing the spirits and looking into the scripture before I taste anything else like this in the future. I will also be praying, pleading even, for spiritual discernment.

I hope my blog entry has stirred you up! Even if you think some of the facts I present are wrong, then check it out for yourself. I urge you to prayerfully look into everything and test the spirits.

God Bless.

You can see Todd’s Tattoos on: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2909690/AN-ANGEL-CALLED-EMMA