Todd Bentley's November 17 webinar is proving to be part of a series. And something that he says in the taped version of his webinar on "the anointing", as saved on his website is unnerving, if not scary.
I've listened to Bentley preach for years, and so his mixture of things that are good, thoughtful and Biblical sprinkled on a body of things that sound aberrant, if not heretical, within the same address, is something that I am used to in one of his messages. Such is his webinar on the anointing.
[His next, fans might note, to be on on the subject of "intimacy with God". It's set for December 15.]
I might add more on his webinar in the comments below, but there is one thing that he says that sets off an alarm that I feel that I need to cite. It fails my smell test.
It comes after Bentley has been talking about David at length. David didn't look like the "best" person for God to use, Bentley points out, but God did nevertheless. Gradually, David grew in his anointing, i.e., his sphere of influence and power. When David became King of all Israel, Bentley argues, he came into his "third anointing" and all the promise of the day that he had been anointed by the prophet Samuel had been fulfilled.
Some of his listeners, Todd says at the end of the 64th minute of his webinar, are about to come into their "third anointing" this year.
Starting at 64:26, Bentley says:
"Everything changes when the kingly anointing comes. When the kingly anointing comes on you life, that's when you begin to reign--"he [David] began to reign at 30"...and then all of a sudden the third anointing comes, the kingly anointing....when you come into you third anointing, that's when you begin to reign. I'm telling you what I touched in Lakeland, what I touched two years ago, what I touched five years ago, it was just on my way to third anointing, it was on my way to kingship, and I'm saying, My God, I haven't even began.... "
He goes on to promise that his listeners will go on to operate in the fullness of their giftings soon, but the damage has already been done.
Recall the wrong teachings of Lakeland. The people who weren't healed. The people who were "healed" and then went on and died. Does Bentley expect now that all this will happen in a bigger and worse scale?
Let's give Bentley the benefit of the doubt for a moment and assume that Lakeland was a great and fine revival. We see no Evan Roberts style humility here. Had Bentley said, "I really liked being an evangelist. People were blessed and touched and God did some great things. I'm sad that that is gone," it would be one thing. But he doesn't.
We have Bentley proclaiming, with raised voice and flailing of arms that he is to be a king, with incredible amounts of authority and power. He has not yet begun to operate in the levels of mischief, er, anointing that he plans to.
This isn't the humility of a humbled man. This is pride, if not hubris.
If I had the flawed record of Bentley, I would hestitate in wanting to be a king. I would just try to not be in the King of King's way as I served Him.
Some of Bentley's critics feared that the evangelist was flirting with the Manifest Sons of God heresy. Would this fit? I fear it does.
Scary. Really scary, I would say.