F4F | Rediscovering Bethel's Heresies Part 1

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F4F | Rediscovering Bethel's Heresies Part 2 - False Unity

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. Now, I don't know if you've seen the videos.

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It's been a while since they started coming out. Bethel Church Redding, California has decided that they're gonna take on their critics and clear the air regarding some of the swirling claims regarding their theology and doctrine.

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The name of the series was called Rediscover Bethel and let me just put it this way,

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I mean, I watched these things slack -jawed first time through thinking, oh man,

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I'm never gonna run out of material because all of their attempts to make themselves appear to be, you know, orthodox in the mainstream of right understanding of sound doctrine and what the

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Bible says, dude, they like straight -up confirmed all their heresies and it's just like, do you guys not know what the word irony means?

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So, what we're gonna do is this will be the first of I have no idea how many.

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I mean, I don't even want to do these, but we're gonna do them to offer a resource up for the body of Christ.

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I think we're gonna name the series like Rediscovering the Heresies of Bethel. This will be Rediscovering the

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Heresies of Bethel Part One and we're gonna talk about their theology of sickness.

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Does God always heal? Does the gospel promise? Does Isaiah 53, by his stripes we're healed, does that promise that God will always heal us?

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No, it doesn't and they can't bring themselves to actually say what the scriptures say and admit they've wrongly understood

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Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter 2 will talk about that and also they're just wackerdoodle claims regarding prayer.

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One of the things you're going to hear, I wish I was making this up, one of the things you're going to hear is that to pray thy will be done is somehow a prayer of unbelief, no joke, and we'll debunk that too.

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So, we're not even gonna get all the way through this video. In fact, I have no intention of getting through all of mine, just gonna pick apart some of the lowlights because they're not highlights, they're not highlights, they're lowlights.

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So, let's do this. Let's whirl up the desktop and yeah, always and again,

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I enjoy looking at San Clemente, that's a photo I took years ago, back in the days before COVID and when we could travel freely.

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Anyway, so what we're gonna do, I need to warn you ahead of time, because Bethel thinks that they are above the law, this is their behavior, and that the laws of fair use don't apply to them, they do, we're going to transmogrify the video that you're about to watch.

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So, it's gonna be distorted, there's gonna be wavy through there and the pitch is gonna be changed, all of that, you know, because that makes it transformative, so that we can critique, biblically, the claims that are made in the video.

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And so, if Bethel doesn't want us doing this in the future, it's real simple. Send me an email, say, we're sorry, we'll abide by the laws of fair use and we won't harass you anymore on YouTube when you use clips in order for the purpose of criticism.

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By the way, fair use allows for that, and the purpose of this video is to criticize their false teaching and their heresy.

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You get the idea. So, with that, let's dive into it, and here we go. When the Holy Spirit has his way in us, it's going to be seen through demonstrations of power, faith, purity of lifestyle, but it's all going to be, also gonna be, the endurance until the miracle comes.

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So, do you believe that it's God's will to heal everyone? Is that like Bethel standard teaching?

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Do you believe it's God's will to heal everyone? Is that Bethel standard teaching?

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Notice I didn't add to or take away from the question. This is Dan Farrelly, the Bethel associate pastor and the dean at Hogwarts, the

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Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. He likes to think of himself as like the resident theologian there at Bethel.

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So, the answer to the question is no. Let's, in fact, let's start with Scripture, all right?

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Just a couple of them. Galatians chapter 4, verse 13.

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The Apostle Paul, you familiar with that guy? One of the Apostles of Jesus Christ and, you know, abnormally born.

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Indeed, he knows nothing about the idea that it's always God's will to heal.

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In fact, in Galatians 4, verse 13, Paul says this, to the churches in Galatia, you know, it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first.

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And the Greek word for ailment here, asthenia, that can also be translated as sickness.

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In fact, let's take a look at that, asthenia. Got to make this bigger. Okay, so, a state of debilitating illness, a sickness, a disease, incapacity for something or experience of limitation or weakness.

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So, I mean, the standard definition is because of a illness, a weakness, a debilitating disease.

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And who was suffering from that? The Apostle Paul. Hmm. Well, if it was

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God's will to always heal, what was Paul doing with a bodily illness?

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Hmm? I thought Christ took care of that in the atonement, you know? By his stripes, we're healed.

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We were healed, yeah. We'll talk about that in a second. Here's another text. 1st

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Timothy 5, 23. The Apostle Paul, writing to young Pastor Timothy, offering him some practical advice near the end of this letter, says, no longer drink only water.

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By the way, in the ancient world, water could kill you, okay? But use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent, and there it is again, asthenia, sicknesses, your ailments.

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So, who was suffering from stomach ailments on a regular basis?

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Young Pastor Timothy. He had two letters written to him by the Apostle Paul. Notice what

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Paul doesn't say. Just decree and declare your healing and, you know, and don't, whatever you do, don't pray a prayer that isn't of faith.

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None of that stuff. He actually gives some practical advice. Add a little wine to that water of yours in order to kill those bugs, you know, those bacteria.

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So, Timothy had frequent stomach ailments. Paul actually preached the gospel to the churches in Galatia because of a sickness.

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Okay. So, that being the case then, what is a proper way? Let me see if I can find where I hid this.

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There we go. All right. So, we're going to take a look at the text in question, but we're going to, yeah, we'll start at Isaiah 53.

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All right. Isaiah 53, that's the place where folks like at Bethel, and you'll hear

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Bill Johnson reference this, and let me get my Hebrew up for this portion of it in case

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I need to reference it. And so, this is Isaiah 53. Who has believed what he has heard from us?

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To whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? He grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground.

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He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

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And as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Who's this referring to?

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Jesus, right? Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions.

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He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

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Note that this is penal substitution. And by his wounds, we are healed.

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Okay? Now, the question is, healed of what? Is this promising that in this lifetime, that anybody who believes in Jesus will be healed of all their diseases?

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And I would note this, Benny Johnson, Bill Johnson's wife, has cancer and she has been undergoing chemotherapy treatment for some time.

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Keep that in mind. All right? So, does this text promise us healing? No. How do

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I know? Well, let's take a look at the cross references. One of the rules of rightly understanding

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God's Word is the idea that scripture interprets scripture. So, let's take a look at how

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Peter uses this text from Isaiah 53. So, 1

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Peter 2 .24 says, he himself, talking about Jesus, bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sin.

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Listen to the words. So, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds you have been healed.

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So, note here, Peter, in quoting Isaiah 53, is talking not about our bodily ailments, this side of the resurrection, he's talking about sin sickness.

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By his wounds you have been healed, talking about how we've been, we were dead in sins, but made alive to righteousness because of what

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Christ did on the cross. By his wounds you have been healed, and the context is sin sickness.

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Now, here's the other bit. Christians have been getting sick and dying for two millennia.

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And over and again, people like Bill Johnson can't explain this. They can't.

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Without ending up blaming you, you just didn't have enough faith. But my question is, how come this doesn't apply then to Benny Johnson?

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Benny Johnson has cancer. This is the wife of Bill Johnson. And they've been praying for her for a while, decreeing and declaring all this kind of stuff, yet she's taking chemo.

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So, you're going to know what they're doing is they're twisting Isaiah 53, which

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Peter gives us the right understanding of what it's referring to. And by the way, I'll put this in here.

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Ultimately, if you want to talk about eschatologically at the end of time, it is

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Christ's will to heal every Christian bodily.

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In the resurrection. And so, if you are a Christian and you have a debilitating disease, a disease that you've had for years and will have until you die, even if you don't die from it, you have some kind of an ongoing health issue,

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Christ loves you and you've, and you're forgiven in Him. And our hope is not in the false twisting of scripture, where it's always

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God's will to heal. No, no, it may actually be God's will that He will heal you in the resurrection.

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It is God's will always to heal all Christians perfectly, give you perfect health in the resurrection.

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So, you can be a Christian and have a debilitating, long -term, languishing disease.

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And, you know, that's not a problem. Think of Johnny Erickson Tata. She has been a quadriplegic for how many decades, right?

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And yet, she's a beautiful example of a woman who trusts in Christ. And there's nothing lacking in her faith that's causing her to not experience her healing.

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Far from it. So, you'll note then that nowhere in scripture, that's the thing that's missing, is the, is a text that actually says, when rightly understood, in context, using the cross references, that says that God wills always to heal.

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So, already we're off on a bad foot, and I mean that, really bad. Let me back this up just a little. Petey believes that it's

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God's will to heal everyone. Is that like Bethel standard teaching or? Petey This is coming from the place.

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We noted that when Bethel, when COVID hit Redding, California, Bethel closed their healing rooms and there was an outbreak of COVID at BSSM.

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Yeah, there was. I mean, weird, isn't that? You know, I mean, uh -huh. Why weren't they deploying all the

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BSSM students out into the world to go and save us from COVID? I have to approach that it is.

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So, yeah, it's always God's will to heal. I have to approach it as always

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God's will. And my lead on that is, everybody the

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Father sent Jesus to, He healed. Everybody that the

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Father sent to Jesus, He healed. Okay? This is a twisting of scripture, absolutely flat out.

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Now, it's true that everybody who came to Christ with an illness, Christ healed them. That does not mean, ergo, everybody who comes to Jesus today and prays,

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Jesus, heal me, that they're going to be healed in this lifetime. That's not what He promises. He promises,

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I am the way, the truth, and the life. Anyone who believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live.

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That's the promise of Christ. And anyone who believes in Him will never die. They won't experience death.

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They won't even taste it. That's what Christ promises. And you say, well, Christians have been dying for 2 ,000 years.

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I understand that, but however Christians experience death, it's not the same as an unbeliever. And that's what

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Jesus is getting at in John 11. So, we got a problem here. He just twisted scripture, okay?

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Because there is no text that says, therefore, everybody who's a Christian, Christ wills to physically heal them any time they have a disease.

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Petey - Everyone who came to Jesus, he healed. Even the Syrophoenician woman, the one who would have been disqualified, because she was -

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Again, this is a twisting of scripture. Taking a descriptive set of texts and turning them into, you know, it's not even a prescription.

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It's a promise that isn't even implied by those texts. Wasn't a

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Jew. He still was moved by her faith and healed her. So, in following him,

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I have to take that approach. I have had two exceptions that I can think of.

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Petey - How about your wife? She has cancer. Petey - When I've been praying, one lady, as I was praying for her,

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I could tell, you know, when you walk sensitive to the

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Holy Spirit, you don't want to grieve. You don't want to quench your - Now, notice, he said, absolutely, it's

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God's will to always heal. And what he's saying here, well, there are some exceptions.

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But always, it's always his will, but there are exceptions. Walking that road in a relationship with him,

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I could tell that if I prayed for healing, it would grieve him. And - So, it was a different idea.

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It wasn't like, if it's the Lord, if it's your will. So, it's not like I'm having that in your prayer or in your thought life, because in your, it's like practical theology, like you approach everybody like, the

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Lord's going to move right now. Petey - Yeah, yeah. And I can't pray if it's your will, because for me, that's a prayer of unbelief. Listen to what he just said.

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This is utter blasphemy, and I mean it. I cannot pray thy will because, listen to the words again.

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Petey - It's going to move right now. Yeah, yeah. And I can't pray if it's your will, because for me, that's a prayer of unbelief. Jared -

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So, to pray if it's your will, that's a prayer of unbelief. Well, then

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Jesus isn't our Savior, is he? Yeah, that's the implication here. Let me explain.

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In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus, Matthew 26, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane.

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Jesus is about to die, and so, he's about to be killed.

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And here's Jesus' prayer. Here's the account. So, then Jesus went with him to a place called

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Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. And taking with him

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Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. And then he said, my soul is very sorrowful even to death, remain here and watch with me.

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And going a little farther, he fell on his face and he prayed, saying, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

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Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. If praying that, if praying that is a prayer of unbelief, then

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Jesus didn't have belief, he didn't trust the Father. And he broke faith, and he sinned, and he's not our

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Savior. Yeah, here's the other rub along these lines, and that is that, let's come back to that Lord's prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done.

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Yeah, you know, Jesus taught us to pray that way, your will be done.

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If it's your will, your will be done, Lord. And then, well, then there's these, there's this other text, 1

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John chapter 5 verses 14 and 15. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

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And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him.

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So, note here, the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, he even says that if we pray according to his will.

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Huh. And then I think of James, you know, that James fellow, you know, James chapter 4.

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James puts it this way, so, what causes quarrels, what causes fights among you?

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Is it not this that your passions are at war within you and you desire and you don't have, so you murder?

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You covet, you cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask and you ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

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Hmm. Which begs the question, is it possible that when you're sick, that when you're praying for God to heal you, you could be asking with the wrong intentions?

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Yeah. So, you know, Jesus prayed, not my will, but your will.

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Jesus taught us to pray, your will be done. John says explicitly that sometimes we don't have because, well, what does he say?

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Well, actually, John says that we have confidence that when we ask according to his will, and so, you'll note then, how do we learn the will of God?

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By reading the biblical text. Let me give you a few examples, okay, when we talk about praying

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God's will, all right? So, let's see some things that we know are in the will of God.

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Matthew 5 44, Jesus says, I say to you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.

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Ah, so, God wills that those who persecute you, that you pray for them. And so, you can have confidence when you're praying for your enemies, that God hears you.

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Luke 10 2, the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few, therefore pray earnestly to the

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Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. So, we should be praying that Christ would send laborers into the harvest field, who will preach the word and evangelize and proclaim

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Christ and be crucified for our sins. Matthew 26, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.

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This folds perfectly with what Jesus taught us to pray, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from the evil one.

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So, God wills for us to pray these things. So, the spirit indeed is willing, the flesh is weak. 1

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Timothy 2 verses 1 to 3, first of all, I urge that supplications, these are requests, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and for all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful life, peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

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This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior. We need to be praying for politicians, whether they be members of parliament, members of Congress, senators, presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, you get the idea.

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God wills for us to pray for them. And then when it comes to being sick, well,

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James says, is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful?

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Let him sing praise. James 5 .16, therefore confess your sins to one another, pray for one another,

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God wills for us to pray for our brothers and sisters so that you may be healed. And so, you'll note that if you're sick,

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God wills for you to pray for your healing. But here's the issue that you may be healed.

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That is eaomai, eaomai, sorry, eaomai.

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And eaomai means what? Well, here it's a plural, aorist, passive, subjunctive.

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You see, the verb itself is basically saying so that you may be healed. You may or may not pray that you may be healed.

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Subjunctive. There's no promise that you will be, but when you're sick, pray that you will. Pray of a righteous man has great power as to its working.

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Colossians 4 continues steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

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So, the Lord wills for us to pray with thanksgiving. And Philippians 4, 6 and 7, don't be anxious about anything.

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Anxiety, bad, that's working from doubt. But in everything by prayer and supplication, these are requests.

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With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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And then let me come back, let me come back here to what

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Jesus taught us to pray. Our Father in heaven, may your name be holy, holy among us.

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Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Pray for daily bread, give us this day our daily bread.

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We pray that God would forgive us our trespasses as we have forgiven others, right?

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That we're led not into temptation, but delivered from the evil one. Well, David teaches us to pray, have mercy on me, oh

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God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.

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Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. So, here's a sampling of praying according to the will of God.

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And note that healing is, God wills for you to pray when you are sick and you need healing.

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But the text says, it's a subjunctive, that you may be healed. No promise you will be, at least not in this lifetime, that promise comes in the resurrection when

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Jesus returns. So, we got a big problem here. I want you to hear again what he said.

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Petey - Or it's going to move right now. Ben Yeah, yeah. And I can't pray if it's your will, because for me, that's a prayer of unbelief. Tavis Do I need to go any farther?

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Rediscover Bethel's heresies. Yeah, indeed. I'll go a little farther though, but you get the idea. What this guy's preaching and teaching right here runs totally against Christ himself, who humbly prayed, not my will be done, but yours.

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Petey - Okay. Because he's already revealed to me, it is his will and his provision for healing.

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And personally, I use Isaiah 53, but you can come at it from many different angles.

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It's an aspect. Tavis Isaiah 53 out of context is not promising us healing in this lifetime.

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And that not at all. You totally twisted Isaiah 53. Again, how do you explain the fact that Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry was, um, had a

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COVID, uh, you know, a lot of high COVID cases running through it? How do you explain that?

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How do you explain the fact that you had to shut down your healing rooms there at, uh, Bethel? How do you explain

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Benny Johnson's cancer? Either God lies or you're twisting

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God's word. Those are our only choices. I'm going to go with the second one. God doesn't lie because he hasn't promised

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Christians that he will always heal in this lifetime. Let me back up. Petey - Revealed to me, it is his will and his provision for healing.

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And personally, I use Isaiah 53, but you can, you know, you can come at it from many different angles.

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It's an aspect of the kingdom, which is a present reality. Uh, Jesus made provision for it.

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So, I have to, I have to pursue it in that light. There's nothing wrong with asking

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God for healing. There's something terribly wrong when you say that God always heals.

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Yeah, we're two minutes into this and it's a train wreck the entire way through.

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This is their attempt to make themselves look orthodox, but they're not.

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They are twisters of God's word. They teach false doctrine. They have false manifestations of the

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Holy Spirit and their, and their theology is not only inconsistent and contrary to the word of God rightly understood, it's also contrary to reality.

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The very reality that the folks there at Bethel live and experience day to day.

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And it's this false theology that wrecks people's faith and shipwrecks them because when their healing doesn't come, ultimately who's responsible for that?

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Well, in their theology, not God, it's gotta be somebody else. Maybe you.

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I think you get the idea. So, hopefully you found this helpful. If so, all the information on how you can share the down below.

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There'll be more in the series in the days, weeks, months ahead. I have no idea how long it's going to take us to get through all of this, but we'll try to make it a series.

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Periodically we'll come out with more of them. But again, all the information, how you can share the video is down below. And until next time, may

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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.