CONVERSATION: Costi Hinn (Nephew of Benny Hinn) on Defining Deception

Fighting for the Faith

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All right, welcome to another video edition of Fighting for the Faith. This will be available on the podcast.

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I'm very excited because I've invited Kosti Hinn, a famous relative of Benny Hinn, who used to do ministry work with him, onto the program to discuss his latest book titled

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Defining Deception. He's co -authored it with Anthony Wood, and let me just go ahead and bring him right into the program, and we will get everything started here.

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Kosti, thank you for coming on Fighting for the Faith to discuss your book. Thanks for having me, Chris.

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Good to be here. All right, so I've read your book, Defining Deception, and I got to give you props because there's a lot of things you could have done with this book.

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You could have made this like a tell -all book about all of the different things going on, you know, that are nefarious within the

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Benny Hinn ministry, and that's not what you did. You ended up writing a book that addresses the core doctrinal issues of the entire

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Charismatic and Pentecostal movements which have made men like Benny Hinn and others possible, and you've spoken a lot in the book about the core theology and practices of the

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New Apostolic Reformation. You named names, and you spent a lot of time talking about Bethel Church in Redding, California.

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One of the things I found fascinating is in the book you make a very sharp distinction between Benny Hinn and Bethel Church, as if Bethel Church is more dangerous because it's not a one -man operation.

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They're actually quite skilled at reproducing their theology and their leadership in others, and whereas Benny is kind of like a one -man guy, and he's not all that popular in the younger millennial generation.

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It's like my parents are the people who like Benny Hinn. So I gotta admit, I found the book compelling, well -written, and I love the theological work that you did on it.

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Well, first of all, thank you, and we're praising God. That was our prayer all along. My co -author, and he's also our teaching pastor here at the

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Church, I serve as the executive pastor, so love working side -by -side with him. When we started this, we prayed through it and talked through it, and the book was always going to be theological.

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It was just a matter of helping people connect the dots, and making sure we added some personal touches.

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Like, experience is good for illustrating. It sheds light on things so we can relate to an author and have a good reader experience.

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But overall, yeah, it's almost pointless, and I talked about this a lot with my pastor and good counselors early on.

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A lot of people said, well, why don't you write the first book on your testimony? Why don't you write it on an expose of your uncle, etc.?

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All of that is useless, because it's not theological, so no one gets closer to God if I expose things.

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I share my testimony. I'll put it in print form eventually so people can be edified by it, but everything has to point to the

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Gospel, to Christ. This is a rescue operation for sheep. We're trying to save people, and we know

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God saves, and who does He use? He uses men, and so we want to be faithful. And so, yeah, we're grateful.

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Your words are affirming, and just they're an answer to prayer. That was our goal all along, that that's what God would use the project for.

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Yeah, and so if you're looking for a tell -all book about The Dirty Laundry of Benny Hinn, this is not your book.

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If you're looking for a book that will carefully, methodically, with good research and good biblical grounding, offer a critique of the charismatic movement as a whole, going all the way back into its history with Parham, with others, you know,

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Katherine Kuhlman and Wigglesworth and others like that, and then examining what's going on in the current manifestation of the

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Pentecostal movement, and that portion of the Pentecostal movement that is within the

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NAR now. I'm assuming, since you write so much about it, that you don't think the

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NAR is the so -called NAR, that it's an actual real thing? Yeah, yeah,

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I don't. If I can go on a website with my wife and get a couple's discount to become an apostle, what is that?

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That's the New Apostolic Reformation. We have there, well I say we, not us, but as a whole, there is a reforming group now that have reformed.

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It's the New Apostolic Reformation, and in the book, we mention it, you've got C. Peter Wagner, post -Wimber's death,

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Wimber died in 97, and so C. Peter Wagner comes along and says that God told him that the apostolic era has now begun, and he's the guy, and many others have come along.

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So, yeah, I mean, this is the kind of thing that people, some people will say, well it's conspiracy theory, or this is just, you know, you guys are

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Pharisees in a corner, barking about nothing. I'll tell you what, this isn't a debate on cessation versus continuation.

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It's not a debate on miraculous gifts. This isn't even a railing judgment on the entirety of Pentecostalism.

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This is about the truth, about the facts, and if you just take what the text says, and take the gifts out of the debate, are we going to see another

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Paul? There's not going to be another Paul. There isn't going to be another Peter. So, yeah, there's a lot of distracting arguments around this type of topic, but if you look at the facts, there are those who say there are apostles again, and there aren't.

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Right, exactly. And you put Bethel right into that morphed version of the third wave, and I think you do so with good reason, and you document it very well in the book.

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Now, I understand your time is valuable, I get that, and so where I really wanted to focus the conversation on, because I really want people to get your book,

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I think your book will be a valuable tool moving forward in the years ahead to help open people's eyes.

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And one of the things that I do, I don't talk about it a lot, but it comes up from time to time, I can see your heart for helping those who have been deceived, and their eyes have been opened, and that's one of the big things that we've tried to come to grips with, and at least come up with a way to help people who have been deceived.

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And so the idea is that this book not only talks about what's wrong, it begins to give people the biblical basis for being able to figure out, where do

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I go now to get healing? You know, how do I unpack what happened to me? And so that being the case,

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I'd like to kind of focus in on a little bit of your discussion in chapter 6, and again, we're gonna just jump right into the doctrinal pieces of it, but people, you got to get this book.

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He gives a great history of the so -called generals of the Pentecostal movement, as put forward by Bethel Church and Bill Johnson, but I'm assuming, since you spent so much time in the

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Pentecostal movement, these doctrinal errors that you cover, you were either aware of them or bought in and believed them when you were part of the movement.

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And so one of the things that has come up in discussion, at least as far as kind of a bigger conversation that's taking place regarding the

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NAR and people like Michael Brown and others, is the Christology of the

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NAR and churches like Bethel Church. And at my

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Pirate Christian Radio Conference last year, I actually dedicated one of my lectures to addressing the canonic understanding of Christology, as put forward by C.

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Peter Wagner, but I have found that same theology embraced by Bill Johnson and others.

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And it's this general idea that Jesus says, greater works you will do than I have done, and C.

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Peter Wagner explicitly taught, and Bethel Church teaches, that Jesus did his miracles not because he was

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God in human flesh, but he did all of his miracles as a mere man who was anointed by the

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Holy Spirit, and as an anointed man by the Holy Spirit, he then becomes the model that we are to follow so that we can do the greater works that he has done.

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And so you actually pick that up as doctrinal error number one in chapter six of your book, and I just got to ask you, it's like, well, are you saying that these guys have a false

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Christology? Notice the softball there. Sure, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

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There's a reason why it's doctrinal error number one, is because that is a historical heresy.

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That's not even us picking on Bill or any of our guys like C. Peter Wagner and others.

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This is low -hanging fruit. It should be a softball for every Christian. Historical heresy regarding the doctrine of Christ does one thing.

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It diminishes his deity. If you believe in a Jesus who is not truly

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God, truly man, all the way through, how can a man, a mere man, save sinful men?

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Can't. It can't be the satisfaction of the wrath of God. He can't bear sin for us without sinning.

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There's no way, because he's not what God intended when he sent his Son to earth. So you diminish

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Christ and you got a false Savior. Jesus said there'll be many false Christs that go out there.

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So there's gonna be a lot of people that look like a Jesus that aren't. They're gonna be men who look like workers of righteousness and real prophets that are gonna be workers of deceit and false prophets.

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And so, yeah, 2 Peter 2 has become my favorite chapter in the Bible for explaining heretical teaching and false teachers, because it's so easy.

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And I'm a simple guy. I like things that are easy to understand, that are boiled down with small words.

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And Peter does a great job saying that there are those who will exploit people in their greed. They'll deny even the

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Master. And what does he say? That they're gonna secretly introduce destructive heresies.

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2 Peter 2, 1 through 3 will give you kind of a full picture there at the start of the chapter. And at the end of 2

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Peter 2, he says they'll be like dogs returning to their vomit. So they're gonna say, oh, well, that's not really what

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I meant. Oh, I'm sorry. I repent. And then go back to the same teaching. The main thing we got to understand when we're talking

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Christology 101, nobody's showing up saying, hey, here I am. I'm a false teacher.

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I'm here to deceive you, make money, and drive a Bentley off of your donations. No way. They're coming in with a whole lot of truth, and then the secret poison dripped in along the way.

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And that is one. To say that Jesus laid aside his divinity is absolute heresy.

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It was subtraction by addition. I love the way Sproul puts it. He added humanity to his divinity.

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He didn't lay aside his godness, to use a kind of a made -up or simple word.

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He didn't lay aside the fact that he was God. He added humanity to his divinity. There were, yeah, we could go on and on.

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It is heresy. And that's exactly, by the way, what the Athanasian Creed says, that God himself took humanity into his divinity.

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And there's nothing that Jesus did that he did purely by operation of merely his humanity, which doesn't make any sense.

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That would create two Jesuses. Now you and your co -author, you take this canonic concept, which is a core teaching with Bethel, with the

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NAR, and you bring it into the Arian heresy camp, which I think a strain of it, it can rightly go into that camp.

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I would argue that it's also a form of the Nestorian heresy. The Nestorian heresy kind of takes

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Jesus and splits him in two. So you end up with two Christs. And so you can't do that.

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Everything that Jesus did, he did as the God -man, you know, including the miracles that he did, including, by the way,

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I would argue that no human could have borne the wrath of God the way Christ did. So the

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God -man bore the wrath of God on the cross for us, which is the

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Genesis of Christ's dereliction from the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And so what

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I find fascinating is, by diminishing this idea of the divinity of Christ, and somehow

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Jesus can flip a switch and turn it off, which is not possible. Now it is absolutely true that Jesus chose not to fully operate with his divinity to such a degree that, you know,

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Mount of Transfiguration is quite a standout event, because now his glory is shining out.

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And then, you know, and then he mutes it again, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Jesus Christ is both true

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God and true man at the same time, from the beginning of his incarnation even to this day, which hasn't stopped.

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But by taking the deity of Christ, then, and basically making it so that Jesus can somehow turn it off or not operate within using his deity, then what they end up doing, that's the move that's necessary for me to now begin to operate, and I find the wording fascinating, the anointing.

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That's right. And you'll translate the word anointing back into Greek, it's the word

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Christos. Translate the word anointing back into Hebrew, and now you got the Hebrew word Mashiach. So I think their theology,

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I'm oddly blunt, I see it as a fulfillment of the warning that Jesus gives us in Matthew 24 of false

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Christs, of false anointed ones, because their whole theology is predicated on,

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I'm an anointed one. It exalts me and turns me into a little deity, and I don't think that's a mistake.

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No, and I find it interesting, and if you look at history, you mentioned Arianism and Historianism, I think you got

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Docetism and many others. Here's what I wish I could go back in time and look at.

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Were those men, the answer probably is no, but maybe some of them yes, were those men twisting

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Christology because they wanted to set up an enterprise to charge tuition to people to come to their

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Signs and Wonders school and create a myth, or were these philosophers and intellectuals and wannabe theologians, and some of them theologians, who were trying, well intentioned, but missed it, and others who are certainly, you know, demonic imposters or whatever you want to call them, or completely unregenerate men, just like we have today, who infiltrate and are just teaching wrong things.

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But what Bethel has done is brilliant in a millennial generation. They have created an enterprise from that theology.

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So I think it's off the top of my head, you write these kind of books, you start to memorize stuff and dream about it.

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Page 29, when heaven invades earth, right then and there Bill Johnson says, Jesus didn't do his miracles as he did his miracles as a man in right relationship with God, and then there's an ellipsis, not as God.

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And therefore, that lifestyle is attainable for me. Bill Johnson's not impressed unless he can do what

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Jesus did. Otherwise, what's the point? We sit around and wait for Jesus to return and twiddle our thumbs in a

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Baptist Church? Boring. I want Signs and Wonders. That's kind of his approach. And man, that makes for great marketing.

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We are living in a social gospel era. Millennials love to get involved in a cause.

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Everybody wants to change the world. And what do you do? Give them a theology that diminishes

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Christ, elevates them, and now you've got a money -making machine. And that's what I'd say would tie it in even to a prosperity gospel approach.

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And really, 2 Peter 2 again, exploiting people in their greed. It's a money -making machine to basically diminish

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Christ, elevate man, and now you've got Bethel in Reading. Now how much does it cost offhand?

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You know, what's the average tuition, and how long does it take for you to attend the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry?

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Yeah, so this is a little bit personal, and it stings. The last time I checked into the tuition was when we were doing research.

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One of my sisters went, and she was in a very, very destructive relationship.

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She went to get healing there. Just a young woman, lost, and trying to find help.

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And so she joined the school. They call Chris Vallotton, KVAL is kind of his nickname.

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And so in going there, I started researching, and I was kind of telling my family, like, no, no, no, this is not good.

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And I'll look again if this has been changed, but it's going to cost you towards, in the neighborhood, with living and everything, $10K for the length of the program.

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And I think it can go up to two years. It's kind of a, you can leave early as well.

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But she went for, I think, a little over a year, and then left, thank

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God. But, you know, profit is training, and the whole bit, and that's one thing.

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And Chris, this is not to be, I'm not trying to be funny when I say this. I'm being literal when

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I say this. The theology that they have that says they're going to heal whole cities, and you've heard

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Todd White and all of them say this, that they're going to heal entire cities, they're going to solve the social problems, the crime, political, all of it.

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When we were doing research on the book, we did research on Reading. And my own sister was concerned, my parents were concerned, that this is one of the places that can be considered one of the rape capitals of California.

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I mean, this is, they're not solving these issues. They're creating their own mecca of false healing, false hope, while the community around them is destroyed.

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And, like a true false movement and false teachers, they're doing some good. They're helping the poor.

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They're opening their doors to people. And it looks good enough to get the passing grade. But Reading is not changing because of Bethel.

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And local news stations have even put out reports of the chaos that they're causing when students run out towards all the customers at a

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Jamba Juice and start prophesying over people. And people just want to be left alone. That's not the gospel.

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So I'm not being funny. You're laughing, and I get it. I'm laughing because it's just absurd on its face.

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But what's fascinating is that in the book, you actually make a connection between Simon the

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Sorcerer and what Bethel is doing. Simon the Sorcerer in the book of Acts saw how the apostles were operating, and he wanted the same power that they had, and he was willing to pay money to get it.

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And in reality, Bethel Church is engaging, and the name of the sin historically has been

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Simony. That's the name of the sin. The belief that you can buy the power of God with money.

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But by putting a price tag on it and saying, you can come to our school, you pay us $10 ,000, and you will receive the training as a prophet, that's

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Simony. I don't care how you, what you do, but that's exactly what

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Scripture speaks against. And Peter had the sharpest rebuke for Simon, basically saying, you perish with your money, you son of the devil, you know?

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Yeah. And that's, I love doing this for the sake of argument and conversation is, you and I even talked about this a little bit before we were on, if you take the cessation -continuation debate and just stick it on the shelf for a minute, the

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Holy Spirit, so let's pretend there's a charismatic Pentecostal, we got all of us in a room together, put the debate on the shelf, and every man must agree biblically that the

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Holy Spirit never distributed His gifts under His sovereign will and authority. There was no measure given that someone got by paying money.

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Yeah. The gifts of the Spirit are from the Holy Spirit, so even a

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Pentecostal and a charismatic, an open but cautious guy, we all together have to sit in a room and go, at the end of the day, anybody selling this stuff, saying, hey, come here to get this stuff, they're out.

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We can all debate the rest under kind of an Orthodox umbrella and go, hey, quit babbling, guys, and they'll say, hey, stop being a hyper -Calvinist, and we'll say we're not.

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You know, all that stuff. We go back and forth all day, but everyone must agree, and that's what the whole book is trying to do, is help evangelicalism say

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Bethel is out, the New Apostolic Reformation is real, they're out,

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Brian Simmons and the Passion Translation, out, Todd White, out, Gateway Church, out, unless they come back to Orthodoxy and resume the old debates.

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You know, now we can be golfing buddies and debate signs and wonders or the signed gifts. Fine. But no third wave, no

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NAR, none of that stuff. The good old days were when it was

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MacArthur and Piper and it was open but cautious and cessationist. Those days are gone, and these guys have infiltrated mainstream evangelicalism with heresy.

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Yeah, no, they have. And so let me ask you this, because you actually spend a little bit of time talking about sharing the stage, and I think you do a very good job of cautiously making a distinction between where we can work together with people and where we can't.

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And so I'm gonna put you on the spot and ask you a tough and kind of straightforward question, and that is that, you know,

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Michael Brown, who's made it clear that he's not a Dominionist, he's, you know, clarified his position, he's not a

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Dominionist, and that he has ought theologically with those people who are talking about the need for people to take their ministries and put them under modern -day apostles.

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So he's made that clear. He still shares the stage with men like Bill Johnson and Todd White and Reinhard Bonnke and a whole bunch of other people who are clearly in the

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NAR. And the question I have for you, based on the fact that you actually cover this as like a whole discussion in your book, is that an appropriate sharing of the stage?

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And if not, why not? Great question.

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So no, it's not an appropriate sharing of the stage. I'm not saying that anybody who shares a stage with a false teacher is the heretic themselves, but I will say that it is unwise, and you do not want to be endorsing by simply being even a part of something, because new converts, let's boil it all the way down to Paul's use of Christian liberty.

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Let's say, you know, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. Okay, so I can go where I want if I'm trying to preach the gospel.

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It's not my fault if Bill is there. All right, I understand that. However, you've got people watching their hero, who's faithful, and a heretic hang out.

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And there are people that are, and I don't mean this rudely, they're too young in the faith or too ignorant still to make that distinction.

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And part of our job as shepherds is to what? Lay out the boundary lines of the pasture so that the sheep remain safe.

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I cannot, and I turned down an opportunity, I'm not saying this to be self -aggrandizing either. There was a big organization that helps orphans, and they said, hey, would you be willing to take some travel dates, go and help kids get sponsored, or orphans, since you came out of the prosperity gospel, and you guys were pilfering all the poor for all those years,

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Kosti, you know, why don't you help us out? And so I'm like, okay, makes sense. You know, and all good.

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And they said, we need to tell you one thing, though. And I said, well, what's that?

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They said, we know how you feel. I was writing the book with Pastor Tony, and we're clear about stage sharing and all that.

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They said, we did just sign Bethel, and we know you have concerns, and we did just sign John Gray, who is

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Joel Osteen, and I'm going, you guys, like, come on. You know

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I have to say, no, I would have loved to go somewhere, share my testimony, and I go, listen up, everybody.

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Sponsor orphans. It's a good thing. Let's help people. That would have been fine. The minute you have to put me at a conference next to Bill, and we're toeing the party line for the same organ,

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I'm not going to stand with a guy and say, hey, we'll put bygones aside. Yeah, Christological heresies, well,

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I understand, but we're just here to help orphans. It doesn't work that way. Peter, you don't see a model, biblically, for teaming up with false teachers.

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They are in a category on their own, they stay at arm's length, we call them to repent, we mark them, but nowhere in the

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Bible do I partner with one of them, because it benefits me, and it helps expand my ministry reach.

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Last thing I'll say on that, too, Chris, we got turned down left and right from really, really godly men, men

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I deeply respect. Left and right, though, on endorsements. And the reason is not because they disagreed with the book.

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It's because they said, well, I have no interest in being an endorser on a book that goes after that guy.

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We said, well, he's a prosperity gospel proponent, he's clearly dangerous.

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Well, I understand, but I need to stay in my lane, this isn't my fight.

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And you see, one by one, shepherds run from the sword, they lay down their staff, and they expect to protect the sheep from wolves, but they're empty -handed.

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That's not a man of God, in that sense. A man of God, yes, is peaceable, and yes, don't need to be in every fight, waging war all the time.

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But for this kind of thing, I really wanted a few more of my heroes to come to the table, our heroes,

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Pastor Tony and I both, and it would cost them greatly. They would lose swaths of people if they endorsed a book like this, and we're thankful for the men that have.

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Some men stood to lose a lot and still endorsed it. But yeah, if I were to ever talk to Dr.

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Michael Brown, and I've never talked to him personally, I wouldn't be going after him. I would say the same thing if you shared a stage,

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Chris. I'd say, come on, brother. There are the guys that are out, and the guys that are in, and the guys that are in, we can debate some things.

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But if someone's clearly out, you want to just steer clear. Lose money, lose followers, lose whatever, but don't confuse the sheep.

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That's just not what a shepherd does. Yeah, I agree. Now let me ask you another question, then. This is not exactly, in so many words, covered in your book.

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It's somewhat alluded to, and within the Charismatic Pentecostal movements, and especially the

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NAR, is this belief that if signs and wonders do not accompany your preaching of the gospel, then your gospel is deficient.

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It's not a true, full gospel. Now you didn't say it in so many words, but I did note that there were some sub -themes that you were kind of teasing at it with.

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What would you say to the person who says, you know, we must operate in signs and wonders. I think you covered in one of your appendixes when you covered the long ending of Mark, but it was a slightly different topic.

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But the issue is that there are a lot of people who take the long ending of Mark and say, listen, no, it's a gospel imperative that there have to be signs and wonders, and if there isn't, then we're doing something wrong.

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Yeah. We can go a couple of different places. The first I would say is, if you're going to take the long ending of Mark and do something with it, and let's say we have to, okay, and we got to answer those questions, and you don't want to go textual criticism or go too far with certain things.

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Let's just say, Paul is a great fulfillment of being bitten by a snake and brushing it off.

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I can think of time after time throughout the Bible that there is a command given, and it's clear, and there are functions given, and it's clear, and we can actually obey what the

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Bible says, do it, and it's great. Great example, you walk in obedience with New Testament commands, and the church benefits, right?

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You bear one another's burdens, you restore, you can exercise church discipline. All those things are completely prescriptive.

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They're prescribed. You should take them and do them, and they'll create a functioning, blessed body of Christ.

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If you drink poison, I can assure you, you will probably die.

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That's not what you do. You don't go and say, well, let me get bitten by a snake, and you see

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Pentecostal churches, charismatic third -wave churches do these things. You've seen them snake handle and all that on YouTube.

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I would say to somebody, first of all, Romans 116 says it's the gospel, the good news, that is the power of God unto salvation.

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So there is no single lane model where the gospel always accompanies signs and wonders.

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Otherwise, how in the world are people being saved in churches left and right, true converts, without a sign or a wonder at all?

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The gospel itself is a sign. Salvation's a miracle. So I could easily argue that dead men can't save themselves.

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Therefore, it is miraculously raising of the dead, that is salvation, a dead sinner being raised to new life.

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So yeah, every time a convert comes to know Christ, and he calls them and opens their eyes, that is 100 % miraculous.

30:40

So signs and wonders are following you and I every time somebody's converted within our scope of ministry, Chris. I would say this too, though, the greater works, that's another big one.

30:49

Greater works will you do than I? It's pure biblical logic.

30:55

You can't raise better dead people than Jesus. You can't raise a better dead dead person than Jesus.

31:01

You can't do a better miracle than Jesus. So what are greater works? Well, Jesus's ministry was three and a half years.

31:07

Also, Jesus's ministry covers a very small geographical location. And then what does he say in Acts 1 .8?

31:14

You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. We have ministries now upwards of one, two, three, four, five decades.

31:23

You look at six decade ministries. We have greater works in extent and quantity, but not quality.

31:31

It's impossible to do better miracles than the miracle worker himself,

31:36

Christ. So I deal with these conversations often. I've had my own mother ask me things recently.

31:43

I'm very proud of her. Actually, I'm going to say this live on your show. I'm happy to. My mom, just a few weeks back, actually now it'd be a few months to be accurate, said,

31:52

Hey, you were right. That Jesus calling gal, Sarah Young, she's crazy, Kosti.

31:58

I said, well, what do you mean, mom? She said, I read in the beginning. She says, I know God gave us the Bible, but I yearn for more.

32:04

She said, that's totally wrong. You can't say that. And my mom is still a charismatic woman. And I said, good job, mama.

32:11

You keep studying and keep digging. And so she said, I want to be like a Berean. I want to study. I want to get this stuff right.

32:18

I don't want to be crazy. I know you're writing the book and all this stuff. And I said, well, what other questions do you have? And my mom asked me about greater work.

32:25

She was saying, so what does that mean? And my mom actually had a tumor on her pituitary gland in 2008 and nine.

32:32

And that caused our family to ask even more questions. So if you've got greater works, guaranteed healing, we should all be doing this and everybody should be getting it.

32:41

Then when life happens, people are very confused because they've been being spiritually abused.

32:48

So it's a great question. But I would say the gospel is much more than just doing miracles.

32:55

The gospel is the good news of Christ dying for sinners. It's a wrath we deserve. He takes our place, gives us his grace.

33:02

I mean, that gospel 101, it is a straw man argument and a ploy to say, where's your signs and wonders?

33:10

I'll say one last thing, Chris. It's a long monologue, but thanks for listening. I used to do that.

33:16

My dad and I both. This was our big line when we were in ministry together and with my uncle. We would say, you got theology,

33:25

Chris. Oh, yeah, you got a big head. You know everything. You show me your power. What can you do? Watch what we can do.

33:32

We would use the power card to say that you are less, you are weak, and we would elevate ourselves as the signs and wonders guys.

33:40

And we would pass off Baptists and anyone without a signs and wonders theology.

33:46

We would say, these are weaklings. We're the real men of God doing signs and wonders.

33:51

It's exactly what Bethel's still doing. It's an old game. Yeah, no, when I was in the charismatic movement,

33:57

I gotta tell you, I felt a lot of pressure put on me to glow in the dark. I call it that way because it's kind of along those lines.

34:08

It's that, you've got to speak in tongues. You've got to hear directly from God. I never was really successful at being able to speak in tongues, but there was a lot of pressure put on me to do so.

34:22

And you mentioned that kind of in passing in your book about how in the charismatic movement, there are a lot of people who have anxiety that they're not saved because they don't speak in tongues, or that they're a lesser

34:34

Christian because they don't speak in tongues. And that's all kind of part of this is that in so historically, the two distinctives of the

34:44

Pentecostal movement are a second baptism, a spiritual baptism, as evidenced by speaking in tongues.

34:50

And that some of the generals that you mentioned in your chapter on the generals explicitly taught if you're not speaking in tongues, you're not saved.

35:00

And so this is kind of a football that gets kicked around a little bit within the charismatic and Pentecostal movements.

35:06

And John Wimber eschewed the idea that you had to speak in tongues to be saved. He was a fellow who suffered and ended up dying of cancer.

35:13

But over and again, you have this pressure with this false doctrine being put on you.

35:20

And Scripture explicitly says not all speak in tongues. The Holy Spirit gives differing gifts for the purpose of creating a body, and we're not all the same body part.

35:29

But one of the things you kind of bring up then is this idea that when somebody isn't healed because the expectation is created, they take the atonement of Christ and they say, your healing's in the atonement, therefore it's up to you to reach out and grab and activate this by faith.

35:50

And I always say to people, don't trust a faith healer who wears glasses because that person hasn't grabbed their healing yet.

35:59

But the reality is that over and again, and I've seen this happen when I was in the charismatic movement, when people are not healed, it is their fault.

36:10

They didn't have enough faith. Talk about that. Number one, it's spiritual abuse.

36:18

Completely. And we need to stand up against that every time, all the time.

36:24

Number two, it's completely unbiblical. Absolutely unbiblical. To say that somebody is unsaved because they don't speak in tongues is to just spit on Paul's letters.

36:40

What do you do with that? Even as you say that, I want to take every single person in the entire world that's been abused by this movement, put them in a giant stadium, and just set it all straight, and then send them out to Bible churches.

36:54

I mean, it's wolves plucking sheep and attacking the flock of God.

37:03

And if people would read the Bible, and I'm not just gonna blame all the false teachers.

37:09

Christians, read your Bible. Go to the text. A biblically illiterate

37:15

Christian is a sitting duck. You gotta be on guard.

37:22

You and I probably spend a lot of time, Chris, exhorting pastors and leaders, our own selves, looking in the mirror, and as leaders, keeping the bar where biblically it is.

37:31

It's high. But we also need to demand of people who wear the label Christian to behave like one, to read like one, to pray like one, to study like one.

37:42

Arm yourself with the Word of God, and you will have a lot less to worry about. And so that's one of the things

37:49

I'm passionate about equipping people with. So that's false completely.

37:54

And then this idea that, you know, if you're just gonna have enough faith and name it and claim it, you can get it, or it's your fault if you're not being healed.

38:03

Look at the New Testament healing ministry of Christ. Just look at it. Yes, there are beautiful moments where he's moved with compassion.

38:12

When the guys lower their body through the roof. When a woman crawls to touch the hem of his garment. Absolutely. And then what does

38:19

Jesus do when he turns to the woman with the issue of blood? Daughter, your faith has made you well.

38:25

He calls her daughter. Interesting. There's salvific significance to his miracles. He's saving people.

38:31

His most important ministry was not even healing. He just did that to show, here I am. And then sometimes he did it just to rattle the

38:38

Pharisees. He would forgive sins and heal on the Sabbath and say, now what? I instituted the

38:44

Sabbath. I'm the fulfillment of the law. And the Pharisees didn't get it. So you can't take Jesus's model and say, well, here's what it is.

38:52

Create an enterprise from it. Make it a commodity and go out and do it. Jesus did heal and was moved by faith and compassion.

38:59

And then one of my favorites in John 5, what does he do? He heals a guy that's just sitting at the pool of Bethesda in a multitude.

39:06

He heals one. The guy's been sick 38 years. And what does he do? He heals him.

39:12

Pick up your pallet and walk. The Pharisees come and go, what are you doing? It's Sabbath. You can't do that.

39:17

Who told you you can pick up your pallet and walk? What is Jesus saying later on in John 5? He goes, listen, it was me.

39:25

In other words, I'm paraphrasing. But he goes, I don't know who the guy is. He goes, Jesus finds him later. Jesus slips through the crowd and he's blown away.

39:32

He runs and tells the Pharisees after that. Yeah, he rants on Jesus. He rants on Jesus. If there's not a more obvious instance that he didn't know who

39:42

Jesus was, it's right there that he goes and tells the Pharisees, proves that he didn't even perceive who

39:50

Jesus was. And what does he get? He gets a healing. You can't take

39:57

Christ and turn him into a formula. And so people need to understand James 1, 2 is in the

40:03

Bible for a reason. You're going to have trials. If you are going to stand up for Christ, you're going to be persecuted.

40:09

We're going to suffer. You've got passage after passage after passage throughout the New Testament that uses the phrase, one another.

40:18

Why? Because Chris, I got to bear up under you and hold you up when you're going through tough times.

40:23

If it's a Galatians 6, 1, 2 moment where I need to bear one another's burdens with you, I got to do that.

40:29

You got to do it for me. We're a body, which means it's not going to be wholesale healing all the time. Wholesale health and wealth.

40:36

There are a plethora of other things we could talk about as well going down that rabbit trail, but it's a teaching we need time and time again to go back to is we're going to suffer.

40:46

It's going to be hard. Some people are going to get healed, and that's great. And God is a sovereign God working still today through prayers of faith, wielding healers who think that they've got a gift that they don't, but they can't clear a hospital.

41:01

We just need to stick together as the Church and stick to the text. Yeah. Let me ask you this. What would be the implications if God the

41:08

Holy Spirit were actually performing legitimate miracles in the ministry of Bethel Church and Benny Hinn?

41:15

I mean, what would that literally be signaling to us in the body of Christ?

41:23

It would, first of all, signal I'm turning in the book of Acts. My favorite one is when

41:28

Philip is talking to the eunuch, and then he's transported. He just disappears. If you're going to wield miracles and do that, first of all, that would be an indicator that we're still rocking the same old way, and there was no cessation, no fading of certain gifts.

41:48

I would then be more open to a debate about signs and wonders and modern -day apostles, because guys would have to be—they would be wielding these things, wild things would be happening all the time, and what?

42:01

They would have an orthodox gospel. That's the main issue here, too. I want to just touch on that as well.

42:07

Find me somebody who is wielding the sign gifts however they want, whenever they want, and also preaching an accurate gospel.

42:17

You can't find one, Chris. You cannot find one. I haven't met one, and I'm not saying that I'm the infallible source of that.

42:26

There's probably other Pentecostals and Charismatics who would want to speak into that, too. You can't find them. The only people saying that that exists today are the leaders of the third wave and the

42:36

New Apostolic Reformation, who are claiming remarkable experiences. Sure, some people get healed, and some people have great moments where God intervenes in their situation—believers in the church, all those things—but if that's not happening all the time, and it's not happening at your word or at your hand, and you're not wielding a gift, praise

42:59

God for it. What about all the women that are still barren? What about all the people still dying of cancer?

43:06

So that would be one thing I would say on that.

43:11

Is there more you want to talk about with regards to that? Well, so the idea then is that if you're going to talk about—you keep mentioning these as sign gifts, and if Benny Hinn were legitimately performing signs and wonders,

43:29

I would argue that we would have to add all of his books to the back end of our Bible, because God, the

43:34

Holy Spirit, is validating the doctrines that Benny Hinn is teaching as well.

43:40

And I've heard so many crazy things from Benny Hinn, and I understand that he eventually offered some correction to his

43:52

Nine Members of the Trinity doctrine, and later did that. And from what

43:57

I understand, he got that from Phineas Dake in his Bazaar Bible, which

44:03

I own a copy of. I've owned it for decades. I grew up with one in my house. So Dake's annotated study

44:11

Bible with all of its crazy end -of -the -world eschatological charts and stuff. But I've also heard

44:18

Benny Hinn give prophecies that haven't come true, and regarding Fidel Castro and gay people in San Francisco, and all of these things were going to take place before the end of the 90s, and the 90s ended a while ago.

44:37

And so one of the things that happens in the NAR and third wave, and in the

44:42

Pentecostal movement as a whole, kind of in its generic sense, is that they've lost the biblical definition of what a false prophet is.

44:51

And so if somebody prophesies falsely, that doesn't make them a false prophet.

44:57

If they prophesy falsely, that means they're just a true prophet who prophesied falsely, which doesn't make any sense at all.

45:04

What is your experience with that, and how would you define a false prophet? Great question.

45:11

And we didn't even talk about that beforehand, so I love that you went there. As you started to talk, I turned back to the book of Deuteronomy, because the

45:18

Old Testament tends to be where things get borrowed from a lot for the NAR and third wave and charismatic theology.

45:25

But the first time I ever called my uncle a false prophet, my parents said,

45:32

Kosti, be very careful. Do not touch the Lord's anointed.

45:38

And that's tied to not doing my prophets no harm, God said, to David, who was dealing with a monarchical king in the lineage of Israel, and that meant don't kill him.

45:52

Don't commit a violent act. It has nothing to do with New Testament commands,

45:58

Romans 16, 17, and 18, to mark those, literally scopeo, like a scope, put the crosshairs on them, those who are teaching things that are completely contrary to what

46:08

Christ taught. Those are divisive people. Titus says to put the factious man out. You got

46:14

Ephesians talking about exposing the deeds of darkness, not participating.

46:20

It's Ephesians 5, 11. New Testament command after New Testament command. We're to test the spirits.

46:26

We're to weigh a man's teaching, weigh his life. First Timothy 3, the qualifications of a pastor, elder, overseer, across the board.

46:33

Touching the Lord's anointed or talking about a false prophet or calling somebody a false prophet has no bearing on Old Testament commands not to touch the

46:43

Lord's anointed. Here's what I'm going to say, Chris. Prophecy needs to look like the

46:49

Bible. You might get into the baseball Hall of Fame by batting 300, but you don't make it into the prophetic

46:55

Hall of Fame batting 300. You can't go 3 for 10. You need to go 10 for 10 if you're God's mouthpiece.

47:01

And I go back to the book of Deuteronomy on this, and here's what

47:07

I told my parents and what I told one of my uncles, not my Uncle Benny. Another uncle called me and he said, you're out of your jurisdiction.

47:14

He's actually, he preached a series called the New Apostolic Reformation. He's a full on NAR apostle, believes he's an apostle.

47:21

He said, you're out of your jurisdiction, Costi. I agree with what you're saying. These abuses have gone on for years, but as a pastor, you're out of your jurisdiction.

47:30

It's my area to handle. In other words, he's an apostle. I'm a pastor. It's his job to handle it.

47:37

And I asked him if he would hear me out. And I read to him God's word on this, and it says, and it shall come about that whoever,

47:44

Deuteronomy 18, 19, whoever will not listen to my words, which he shall speak in my name, talking about a prophet,

47:50

I myself will require it of him. Now that's an actual prophecy regarding Christ right there. Moses is prophesying about Jesus coming.

47:58

Yeah. But the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in my name, capital

48:05

M, my name, God talking, which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.

48:14

And I told my parents and my uncle, I don't want Uncle Benny to die. I don't want him to fall by the wayside because of God's hand upon him, striking him.

48:22

But if he's a prophet and you can't touch him, he needs to be measured by this. And you may say in your heart, how shall we know the word which the

48:29

Lord has not spoken? People are wondering, well, God, how do we know then what is and what isn't?

48:35

When a prophet speaks, verse 22, in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the

48:42

Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously, and you shall not be afraid of him.

48:48

I told my uncle, told my family, our pastors and leaders here at the church have talked to people about it. We're not touching the

48:54

Lord's anointed. We're not scared to call a man a false prophet if what he prophesied does not come true and does not match what the

49:01

Bible has made clear. He is not a prophet. That is a false prophet. I do not fear him. I love him and pray that he will repent.

49:08

But I do not fear that man. That is a false prophet. And I'm to now protect the bride of Christ.

49:16

The bride that we should be protecting the purity of. The bride that we should be correcting, reproving, loving, caring for, disciplining, raising up, exhorting, discipling.

49:29

I'm gonna protect the flock of God every chance I get, and I know you are too, because that's false prophecy and these are false prophets.

49:38

Right. Now I find it fascinating that the continuationists will always go to passage in the epistle to the

49:44

Thessalonians. I think it's the first one, but talking about not despising prophecies but to test them.

49:50

But then when you test them and the test comes back negative, then they play the touch not God's anointed card.

49:56

You know. You gotta dump it. It's done. Yeah. So it's like, listen, you do not have to be a cessationist to test somebody like Benny Hinn and find that he's a false prophet.

50:07

You can still believe an ongoing prophecy and say, whoa, Benny doesn't actually fit. You know, because the test is given to us by God in Deuteronomy 18.

50:16

And you're right. Prophets have to bat a thousand. Now I'm gonna watch our time here real quick.

50:23

I want to cover just another little bit of the topic that you discuss in chapter 6, and that is the

50:29

Kingdom Now theology. This is the Seven Mountains Dominionism post -millennial theology that is pervasive within the

50:38

NAR. And when I was in the latter reign movement, I was explicitly taught this doctrine.

50:43

And I was taught it in this sense, that the bride of Christ has to clean herself up and make herself clean and worthy before Jesus will return because the wedding feast of the

50:54

Lamb. So it was always likened when I was in the latter reign to the bride has to take a shower and really be clean before the wedding day.

51:03

And so therefore that's our mandate that we've got to take over the world and we've got to clean everything up and take dominion and take this to all the nations and stuff like that.

51:13

That's how I was taught it when I was in the latter reign. And there is some eschewing of this concept or the poo -pooing that Bethel teaches this, and yet you put this

51:24

Kingdom Now idea and this post -millennial dominionism squarely into Reading's Bethel Church.

51:33

Explain why you do so, and can you verify and provide the documentation?

51:40

I think you do, by the way, in your book to say that they're into this. Yeah, and I'll let people kind of decide.

51:47

This is one area that we spent a great deal of time digging into. In the footnotes, you'll see it.

51:55

We clarify and we provide the documentation. And this goes back to what we talked about.

52:01

I was going to kind of joke with you and say, when you were in the latter reign movement, why didn't you solve all our problems by now, Chris, if you were going to kind of bring the

52:07

Kingdom? This would be the one that ties into their lack of change.

52:17

They're not bringing anything in. And the Kingdom Now idea is that we are kings and priests, and like many things, they're going to take biblical truths and now apply it in a man -centered way.

52:30

It's a man -centered theology. It's all about me. I'm going to usher in the Kingdom. We're going to hand it over to Christ.

52:36

We are the Kingdom. I probably, the last five years before I was converted, was brought up under this from one of my other uncles, who is a

52:45

Kingdom Now theologian. And I'll tell you what, they can sin like they want.

52:51

They can live how they want. They are the elite. And one thing that will be done, and I'll tell you this, you know, to a fault or whatever, is our book will be even by that side of the camp to say, you know, this is good.

53:06

This is part of cleaning up the bride. This is all part of God's plan. And they'll actually affirm what we're saying to meet their eschatological framework, only to more affirm that.

53:19

And you know, Dr. Michael Brown's doing a great job. I think he's coming out with a book in April or something like that, playing with Holy Fire.

53:25

They're trying to clean the movement up. That's fine. I commend that. But this all plays into this idea that they're going to clean up the church, clean up the world.

53:35

And I got news for you. If you're pre -mill, awemill, whatever, post -mill, the

53:42

Bible provides a picture for things getting much worse before they're going to get much better.

53:48

And I'll tell you who's going to make it all better. The King of Kings, not the NAR, and not us.

53:53

You and I aren't going to solve it, Chris. The King is going to solve it. And that's where, again, orthodox circles can come together and go, sure, let's argue when such and such is going to happen, and how it'll all look, and what's literal and what's not.

54:07

That's totally fine. But you know what's out? This idea that we are going to do something that actually

54:13

Christ is the one who's going to do. That's the elevation of man, again, in the simplest terms.

54:19

It's the NAR's main game, to get people thinking that they are it.

54:25

And closely related to this Kingdom Now theology is the Sonship Doctrine. Basically, this is a little bit of a crass way of depicting it, but since I'm a child of the

54:37

King, that makes me a prince. And as a prince, I get to exert my royal authority, and decree, and declare, and command, and pull the kingdom down into the now.

54:49

And I always find it fascinating that they manipulate, like classic post -millennialism, they manipulate the

54:55

Lord's Prayer, where the Lord will say, you know, when you pray, say, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

55:03

And over and again, they'll argue, well, there's no poverty in heaven. There's no sickness in heaven. And so you've got to bring the kingdom to earth by exerting your royal authority as a son of the king, and as a prince or a princess.

55:16

And that's a total mishandling of the Lord's Prayer. It's just eisegesis. You're going to take a little bit of something and then unload your man -made doctrine on it.

55:28

That's what they do. I mean, it leaves me speechless. It makes me want to write more, preach more, help.

55:35

It's why you do what you do. And good news, just to kind of make you feel really good, this isn't going to stop.

55:43

I don't know, that'll give you some really bad news to make you feel good. It's only going to get worse.

55:50

More and more delusion is going to happen, but I'll tell you what else is going to happen. The true bride is going to keep getting saved, and the sheep are going to keep getting drawn in.

56:00

And so we've got to be the watchman on the wall. We've got to be the bad guys, and that's fine. Some people say it's hateful or too polemic or polemic or whatever.

56:10

You know what? We're just doing what Paul said to do. Preaching the Word, refuting the error, loving the sheep, serving

56:15

Christ. And yeah, you call us Baptists twiddling our thumbs, waiting for Christ to return or us to go home.

56:23

Proud to do that and honored to serve the Lord doing that. Twiddling our thumbs. I'm too busy doing good works.

56:30

And Jesus prepared them ahead of time anyway. It's like, come on. All right,

56:36

Kosti, we are going to have to have another conversation, because I got to admit, I am thoroughly impressed with the work.

56:43

I love the tone of the book, by the way, as well. And I love how you, in the book, kind of anticipate that criticism that what you're doing is unloving.

56:51

I love the illustration that you gave of the mother whose child had been burned, and it was necessary for that child to be able to heal, that she had to do the painful thing with him.

57:05

And that's a great way of describing the work that we are called to. I do not revel in any of the fights that I find myself getting embroiled in, in order to defend the truth.

57:16

Oftentimes, it's kind of the drudgery of being a daily soldier. It's like, yeah, I got to put my uniform on again and get into the fight.

57:24

But here in the now, the church at war will be the church triumphant when

57:32

Christ returns. And so, you know, in the take your sword out, and you get into the fight, and you stand your ground.

57:41

This is what we're called to do. And so I think the work that you and Anthony have done in putting this book forward is,

57:49

I really love that this is a good resource that will provide that wedge, and say, these guys are saying this, the scriptures are saying this, and let's have this conversation and actually address these abuses.

58:03

So thank you for the work that you've done. I get the feeling we're going to be talking again. Let's do it for sure.

58:09

Yeah, we've got, I want to just mention kind of one other guy as well, our editor on the project.

58:15

His name is Joe Miller. He's a university graduate. And it was really neat to have him involved in the project, kind of combing through everything.

58:24

And he's been through that. You'll see him in the editor's preface, actually. And some of what he brought to the table, it was like sitting in a room with you, me,

58:37

Pastor Anthony, Joe, all of us guys are just guys, and we're just sharing the gospel and doing what we can.

58:45

So I'm thankful for the entire team that put it together. Excellent. Thank you for your time, Kosti.

58:50

Lord's blessings to you, and we will pray that this book gets a wide distribution, and that the

58:57

Lord will use the Word of God within it to open people's hearts and minds to the truth, to set them free from these wolves who have captured them, and for their own purposes, rather than for the purposes of God.

59:08

Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Again, the name of the book is Defining Deception, written by Kosti Hinn and Anthony Wood.

59:18

It is a fantastic resource. If you're in the charismatic movement,

59:23

New Apostolic Reformation, and you're having a difficult time sorting out what is truth regarding what is error, this is a book that's going to go a long way towards helping you, and if you know anybody who is caught up in these movements, and you need to be able to help them be able to sort these things out,

59:39

Defining Deception is a great resource that will give you the Pentecostal history, as well as the biblical grounding, in order to refute those errors, and to hopefully shine the light of the gospel and God's truth from the

59:56

Word, so that people can be set free from these false teachers. Again, Defining Deception will make it available at FightingForTheFaith .com.

01:00:03

If you go to the website, the book cover itself will be like an ad banner.

01:00:09

You can click on it, get yourself some copies of this book. Well worth the read, and hopefully the

01:00:16

Lord will use it in order to open people's eyes and set them free. Thank you again for watching.

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If you'd like to support Fighting for the Faith and Pirate Christian Media, you can do so. The information on how to support us is down below.

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You can join our crew or be a patron of ours on Patreon. We would truly appreciate the financial support, because we truly cannot do what we are doing without it.

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And thank you for watching. Until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.