“False” Prophets vs. Impatient Watch Dogs?

I must first state at the outset if you were led here by any link that mistakenly gave you the impression this post would be some kind of “I told you so” about Todd Bentley or the Lakeland Revival, I apologize.

But please don’t leave.

This post won’t be an attack on all the revival police and watch dogs out there who are definitely pretending they’re not gloating about the latest developments to come out about Todd Bentley. Nor is this a defense specifically about Todd, but I’d like to because frankly I’m seeing more stuff against him and even brothers of mine in the Lord saying he’s not really saved and ….urgh! Stuff like that that I don’t have it in me to assume about others–I’ll let the day of judgment reveal who is and isn’t.

I saw something happen in a well publicized YouTube edit of the night all these different leaders in the charismatic community ‘aligned’ Todd with them in order to bring him into greater accountability. I forget the woman’s name, but I have watched a clip and have read people tear her to shreds as a false prophet for what she spoke over Todd. Apparently, the recent weeks somehow invalidate the word she spoke over him and what God was going to do with his life.

Really?

No seriously, because a few weeks have passed it apparently shows her word as false?
Let’s seriously use our brains about this:

• Did Joseph really look in the natural like he was going to be ruling his brothers when he got thrown into prison by Potiphar?
• Did David really look in the natural like he was about to become king anytime soon while living in the land of the Philistines and running for his life from the current king, Saul?
• Did Jesus come out of the womb in the form of a 30 year-old man?
• Did he LOOK like he’d be the savior of mankind when he came out of the womb and was dependent on other human beings to feed him and change him?

Those are just a few questions off the top of my head. We could read the Old Testament and see prophecy after prophecy and do it in only a matter of hours, since it takes little time to read. But what we forget is we can read the story of Joseph in hours, but in actuality it was hashed out over decades. Dare I say it, things take time! What’s happened in Lakeland just goes to show all the more how much of a microwave society and church we are–only capable of seeing things in the here and now and not long term.

Not 5 months ago those buzzwords weren’t even on our minds and certainly weren’t being blogged about and preached against (or for) nor were people all that concerned about Todd Bentley or his tattoos. Now, it’s come and gone. I don’t know what the future will hold for these things, but I am discouraged… no…..I despise the attitude of some of his detractors who’ve already thrown him to hell themselves in their smug superiority. Whether you agree with the guy or not, I’m sure his life is not that great right now and millions of people are watching and judging with their own small pieces of the puzzle that have come to light. Nevermind that it takes half a man to criticize another, but how is blogging the snot out of all the rumors and truths about this man’s life, family and ministry solving anything?

It’s not.

So back to real life. Things take time. If God has had a word for a man or woman that He was going to use them mightily, then it will take a heck of a lot more history to unfold before being able to ascertain if that really happened or not. It might not even be noticeable in this lifetime, but in the ones to come.

We love people like Smith Wigglesworth (who was hated immensely in his day and was also known for kicking people when praying for them to be healed). But we also seem to forget or just fail to realize he also quit the ministry for about a 5 year period of his life. I recall learning somewhere that in a season of discouragement, he quit and went back to his old profession of plumbing for years. I’m sure whatever words spoken over his life in the first month of him quitting ministry looked like they were false words now that he’d packed his bags and gone back to his normal life. But eventually the man got back in the ring, even if it only reads like small chapter in a lengthy book about his life! Not only that but much history has passed, and history remembers him more favorably now that he’s dead than it did when he was alive! I could be wrong and confusing Wigglesworth with another high profile minister that quit for a number of years, but my point remains the same. But in our microwave church and society, we want the word to come to pass this week or we’ll change the channel. Isn’t it amazing…how quickly we write people off and assume the worst.

There’s so many sacred cows in that assumption about prophets and supposed false prophesies that just because things were prophesied over a man, and then shortly afterwards he falls from the public’s grace (not from God’s, hallelujah! I’m so glad God is not like man) somehow means we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Was Jonah a false prophet? He prophesied doom that never came? What about Isaiah–same thing–he spoke to Hezekiah stuff that wound up getting delayed by 15 years.

Dan and I once covered this subject in a sacred cow barbecue podcast, and though we didn’t do an airtight job, I think we still covered some aspects worth listening to and getting an idea that 100% accuracy isn’t what makes someone free from deserving to be stoned as false. Give it a listen if you’d like.

It can be listened to here:

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Blessings and fire on your head.