[Originally posted at Bene Diction Blogs on, Jan. 14, 2010]
In a post yesterday, I teased Matthew Robert Payne, a fellow from Australia who has started to post "words from the Lord" on YouTube. (His word for Todd Bentley either can't possibly be right, or it throws Bentley under the bus by implying that Jesus being on stage with him is in the future tense--which undercuts the new revival that Bentley has already started.)
I'll confess, though, that I like Matthew. He seems like a nice enough guy who wants to bless through what he does. But if I were one of the famous charismatics that he has been prophesying over on YouTube lately, I might be tempted to say "Thanks, but..."'
Take Steve Shultz. He is best known as a charismatic speaker and author who operates The Elijah List, which sends out propehtic messages, ads for conferences and such. I don't know Shultz as I know Todd Bentley, say, but I do know that some of my blogging friends have concerns about whether Schultz's efforts spread unhealthy teachings and theology.
Enter our hero Matthew Robert Payne, who has this word for Schultz on YouTube, just today (January 14):
Matthew seeks to bless Schultz by predicting that he will set cities afire for God. But how he does it is, well, interesting in a back-handed way that he doesn't intend.
Starting at 1:45, he says to Schultz:
"....The first image I get of you [Steve Schultz]...it's like a bowl, but it's like--the bowl is like a cauldron, but it's not like a cauldron you cook in, the caudron's like a whole city, and it's deep, and it's big, I'm just waiting for the Lord for the interpretation, the Lord says that you are going to come into cities and set them on fire, like a cauldron cooks up special ingredients for a witch, or that's what I have seen in the past, I don't know if that is a fantasy or if that really happens...
Imagine all the different ways that you could allude to this. He could be some paper lighting a campfire. He could be a fuse lighting fireworks. But instead, "the Lord" cites a witches' cauldron on the job.
I can imagine Schultz saying to himself, should he see this, "Oh great, some people already fear that I am not orthodox and you see my work as a witches' cauldron on the boil."
Twice now, we have Matthew, perhaps prophesying the opposite of what he may intend.
First, while saying nice and lovely things about Todd Bentley, Matthew notes that Jesus will be with Todd's word on stage in the future and thus logically not now--while Bentley already has preached at Morningstar for about a month and his new revival is already, shall we say, simmering.
And now, we have the mental image of Macbeth's three hags perhaps walking in to help with Schultz's future revival. "We brought the cauldron *cackle*!" :)
Is the Lord is putting things in this fellow's visions that warn the orthodox, Berean type of watchful Christian without Matthew even knowing that they are there? It's fun to think that that could be the case, isn't it?