weighed and found wanting

Heal or heel?

While the Bible shows that God can heal people supernaturally, claims of particular faith-healers should be examined. Here’s what WORLD learned about the “Lakeland Outpouring” healings of television preacher Todd Bentley

This whole article is an indictment against those in WoF and apostolic/prophetic movement that try to make much over someone who claims to have "power" or "the anointing" or "the power of God" or whatever they wish to call it.

It's pathetic that these so-called prophets and apostles and healers can be so easily duped, and do nothing or next-to-nothing, and even endorse, when these charlatans come along, draw bigs crowds, draw in big bucks, put on a big show, make a loud noise, and claim big things while not deliving much of anything.

At the height of what many called a revival, WORLD asked Bentley to talk about the healings, like Fogle's, and asked for a list of people who had been healed at the services. His associates told me Bentley was out of the country and a list could not be produced. But six weeks and more than a dozen requests later, the ministry eventually sent a list of 13 names. Fogle was No. 12 on the list, along with this note: "Healed through the Outpouring and is back to fishing."

That was on Aug. 8, 2008. There was just one problem. Two weeks earlier, on July 22, Christopher A. Fogle—according to his obituary in the Keokuk (Iowa) Daily Gate City, "left this life . . . after a courageous battle with cancer."

When contacted, Ansley confirmed that she had attended the Lakeland Outpouring for about a week, and she confirmed that she did ask for prayer for an old skiing accident. She said that after the prayers the knee "was not as stiff" as it had been. As for the migraines: "I still have migraines," she said.

And then there's this person, who gives a whole other meaning to what some may mean when they say they have been 'healed'.

Not only did any healing take place elsewhere, Smith now admits that the scans are not now clear. "The doctors tell me that my numbers are going up," said Smith, who told me that she, too, had a healing ministry. "But we don't buy into that. That's a fact, but it's not the truth. The truth is that I've been healed."

Not sure where the Bible says that we should stick our fingers in our ears and ignore when told bad news about our health. Must have missed that somewhere.

Anyway, this article highlights one of my frustrations with charismatics. I'm someone who believes that the gifts are still for today, which is one reason I'm not a very good Baptist. At the same time, it seems that most charismatics are going off-the-deep-end with regards to legitimzing anything that has 'manifestations' and uses the right lingo.

Charismatics need to stop letting these fakers get away with it. More than that, they need to stop letting their apostolic/prophetic "leaders" get away with letting this kind of thing go on, let alone legitmizing it. Which means they need to stop just taking the words of these apostles and prophets without discernment, but to weigh what they are saying by the Bible and see if it's really so. And if these apostles and prophets get their undies in a knot over that, well, that probably answers the question very well.