The Charismatic Code of Ethics: RULE 1

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ, and this is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God.

Now, if you've ever, you know, listened to a charismatic evangelist, healer, televangelist, YouTube prophet, prophetesses, or apostles, and you've heard them make claims that, oh man, you know, we have testimonies of healing and stuff, and you've thought to yourself, oh, well, can you provide the proof for that?

A Charismatic Code of Ethics for Miracle Claims

Yeah, go ahead and hit the subscribe button down below. Don't forget to like the video. Ring the bell so you can be notified when we update the channel. What we're gonna be doing today is calling for the establishment of a charismatic code of ethics, and we'll kind of spin this out over a few videos over the next few weeks.

We'll intersperse it into our normal rotation. But basically, I've noted that there are a lot of claims out there regarding the miraculous, and here's the thing. I completely believe that God can and does miraculously heal people and stuff.

You know, I'm a firm believer in miracles. I do not believe that God has ceased performing miracles. No, not at all. In fact, I've prayed for people in my lifetime as a Christian, and I have seen God miraculously answer prayer.

I have. There's just no way around it. But one of the things I never would engage in, nor would I encourage you to do, is get up and have a healing line and knock people over and stuff, or claim that somebody watching the Fighting for the Faith YouTube channel was raised from the dead.

Unless, of course, I could actually provide documentation to that effect. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna be looking at some instances of non-verified miracle claims. One of them will be coming from Todd Bentley.

We'll throw Michael Brown into the mix as kind of a side note on what's going on, because we haven't weighed in yet regarding the Todd Bentley fiasco and the latest charges against him. I would note that those who've seen the documentation have publicly claimed that it's damning, that this is a slam-dunk, that the charges, the allegations leveled against Todd Bentley are absolutely true.

Now Michael Brown is going to be the guy who makes the decision as to whether or not the allegations are true or false, and he's gonna be getting back to all of us sometime in the near future. No clue as to how long his investigation will take.

No clue at all. But I will note this, that right after the allegations went public, that Michael Brown went into full spin control, damage control mode, and he said some very interesting things as it relates in the context of the Todd Bentley scandal.

We'll take a note, take a look at that as well. So let's whirl this up, and this is the YouTube channel for Jennifer Iwaz. This woman apparently is an apostle of some kind, and we're gonna note that this is going to be a quintessential example of a completely non-substantiated, non-verified miracle claim, and this is typical of the charismatic movement.

Here we go.

Supernatural Weight Loss and the Spirit of Heaviness

All right, so I want to talk to you about this supernatural weight loss testimony. This was like, like the one that I'm just like, oh it just blew my mind.

All right, supernatural weight loss testimony. Now a little bit of a note here is that every time you are in a crowd of people, that there are probably tens if not hundreds of high-definition video cameras present.

Yeah, these things. Yeah, I would note if you have an iPhone, you know, one of the newer models, you've got the ability to record in 4k. You know, we're not just talking high def here. You can record in 4k.

So I always find it fascinating that the claims are, oh yeah, you know, we've got a supernatural weight loss testimony. What's the person's name? Can you show me the video of the pounds disappearing off that person?

You know, so yeah, I just, just saying, you know.

This, this anointing actually came upon me. This miracle came upon me when I was...

She had an anointing come upon her, the supernatural weight loss anointing. Okay, by the way, when somebody talks like this, this creates the illusion that this, this person is super spiritual. This, oh, Jennifer Avatt, she's the woman of God.

She has a supernatural weight loss miracle anointing. Uh-huh. I was writing the last chapter of this book. I mean, I mean, oh yeah, it came on her when she was writing her book. How, how convenient. I'm sure it'll help boost sales.

Really just like.

I felt something just come upon me. I don't know how else to describe it as from. So she felt something come upon her. The Holy Spirit is very specific that it was for supernatural weight loss. I mean, what a crazy miracle because a lot of people think, well, you know, you just have better diet and exercise and that'll fix everything.

And I kept saying, well, I, I agree with stewardship and you need to be nutritionally mindful and steward your physical temple as best you can. But if it was that easy, then more people be healthy, more people would, you know, really be doing better than they are and they're not.

And I began to recognize, you know, just by the spirit of the Lord that there was something deeper going on and that people were not able to get rid of the weight because there was an actual spiritual root to it.

And there's emotional roots, there's spiritual, there's a whole bunch of stuff, but, um, I began to really, um, uh, examine what the spirit.

Of heaviness is. That's Isaiah, the spirit of heaviness. Yeah, that's what I suffer from. I suffer from the spirit of heaviness. This is loony tunes 61.

And that there really is a spirit of heaviness. And what does it do? It just makes you heavy. I mean, it puts a heaviness on you in a lot of different.

Ways, you know, depression and, and lethargy and poundage, lethargy, depression, right. All from the spirit of heaviness and hormonal issues, which I mean,.

You know, are medically diagnosed, but there's a spiritual root behind it. And what happens is your destiny gets, gets held captive because, you know,.

You're not healthy enough to. My destiny is being held captive by the spirit of heaviness of all.

Things. Run the race that God has set before you. And the Lord wants you to run and not be weary. And he wants you to walk and not faint. And so what I was discovering is all sorts of people have chronic fatigue issues.

They have weight issues that they can't, they can't break out of it no matter what they do. You know, they have hormonal issues that just like they can't get out of bed. They're depressed and all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, I, I really began to,.

To go after the spirit of heaviness. And I started, oh man, thank the Lord that Jennifer Voss has gone after the spirit of heaviness. People see, I started seeing people.

Lose weight supernaturally, you know, and it was like significant enough where I'm like, okay, Lord's really on this. And I've just stewarded, stewarded this. And for those.

Oh, she stewarded it, man. Yeah. She's, she's the woman of God, man. Oh man. She, her and God are really tight, tighter than you can ever imagine, or you could ever hope to be,.

You know. Do you like, you, you want to walk in signs and wonders. This really boils down to stewardship, being in the presence of the Lord, having a relationship with the Holy Spirit, which I talk all about that in this book, you know, that it goes back to your relationship with the spirit of God, but also stewardship that when he gives you something, you steward it.

And so anyway, I've been, just been going after the supernatural weight loss, you know, when he's talking to me about it, when I minister. So anyway, this, when I was in Tampa just a couple.

Weeks ago at the women's conference there. Yeah. Women's conference in Tampa. So we, we know the location of where the miracle took place. At Revive Tampa Church and.

At Revive Tampa Church. Again, just, that was what the Lord was doing. I'm asking people who deals with chronic fatigue and like half the room had problems with chronic fatigue. I mean,.

Can you believe that half? Yeah. By the way, if you declare somebody healed of chronic fatigue, there's no visual way of verifying the miracle. The room. Now that's a spiritual problem. That's.

A territorial spirit. When you got half the room and these are Christians, you know, when the Bible is so clear that the joy of the Lord is your strength and Bible is so clear, you're going to.

Run and not be weary. The Bible is so clear. So chronic fatigue, I mean, it could be a valid physical medical condition, but it's a territorial spirit that's causing that.

Do you have a biblical text for that? Where we get our energy from and our life load from. Half the room had chronic fatigue. So I knew I was dealing with the spirit of heaviness. So anyway, begin to attack that spirit in the name of the Lord.

So she attacked the spirit of.

Heaviness and because it's overweight, I'm sure it was like no match for her. I mean, she looks like.

She might be fitter than the spirit of heaviness. And to call it out. And, you know, one of the things I learned about this miracle is you can't like, you know, hold onto your dignity with this kind of miracle.

A lot of people, they want a miracle, but they don't want to, you know, they.

Want it in a dignified way. It doesn't work that way, you know? So, so if you get a supernatural weight loss miracle, it'll happen to you in an undignified way. When I tell you that you need.

To put your hands on your gut, your butt, or your thighs, wherever the fat is, you need to command.

The fat to go. No. You, you commanded people to touch their butts and command the fat to go.

Oh man. You just need to do it. Okay. This is no time to be ladylike. And so anyway, I'm telling them to do it. Yeah. And they're a little bit struggling with that. And then I was telling them, you want to bust through the chronic fatigue, you need to turn this church into a track and start running.

Cause I've learned that sometimes you just, the way to break through something is you have to, you have to do something. You have to move, you have to do something crazy.

So Tampa Revival Center and Health and Fitness Club.

And they just kind of stared at me and I'm just like, if you don't do something ridiculous, you're not going to get the miraculous. So, so yeah.

The miraculous is conditioned on the ridiculous, apparently.

Anyway, I just, you know, coached them in all this stuff and they started running. Those who had chronic fatigue, they started running. People who can't run, they started running. And then the, those that had the weight issues, you know, they started commanding that, that weight to come off of them.

And we're definitely, you know, getting breakthrough in that. But this one girl in particular, now this is what touches my heart. This one girl in particular, she comes up and like, she's melting before our eyes.

I mean.

Again, everybody in the room had access to something like this. A few didn't. Um, could you show us the video footage of her meltage?

This is the most incredible thing. And she pulls out her pants, like six to eight inches. I'm not exaggerating. She came in with very tight pants and now she's.

Pulling them out like, like this. What was her name? Could we see the before and after photos? Really, really loose.

All right. And then she just keeps melting so much so that she had to go home and change her clothes because she couldn't even keep her clothes on. It's like, she literally, you know, everything.

Became like, what was her name? Where is the medical documentation?

This big tent on her. And you can see this beautiful face coming out, um, at the same time. And it was just so touching knowing that, you know, she, she had become very big on the outside, but it had made her very small on the inside.

And now she was breaking through that. And she said this, she said, it felt like bricks were coming off of her.

What was her name again? I'd like to know her name. So let me, let me put this out there. Rule number one for the charismatic code of ethics that we are putting forward is that no claims to miraculous healings, healing or healings will be made public by any charismatic leaders until the healing or healings have been verified by independent third-party medical doctors.

Rule number, it's a standard code of ethics here. So, you know, you don't get to get on YouTube and claim that somebody had all their fat melt off until it has been absolutely verified by an independent third-party medical doctor.

Yep. And any charismatic that refuses to abide by this rule, they are engaging in complete flim flam and are, you know, they are deceivers. Case in point, I would remind you from a couple of years ago, this was, you know, Todd Bentley.

Todd Bentley and the Need for Independent Verification

Yeah, the infamous Todd Bentley. He was holding some kind of a healing revival in Texas near Houston. Listen to this particular claim.

I begin right now, a quick testimony. It just happened. We're still in the hospital. We're at Houston Medical Center. My brother, 26 years old, overdosed on heroin, was pronounced dead on arrival. D-O-A.

We played tonight's meeting on our cell phone and his body, we started praying, he was just raised from the dead in the Houston Medical Center. Resurrection from the dead, died of heroin overdose, watched the broadcast live, and we just had a confirmed resurrection of the dead after a 26-year-old boy died of a heroin overdose, pronounced D-O-A, dead on arrival.

And we just got to search down this story, but we're getting it in right now.

It's happening. All right. So again, rule number one for the charismatic code of ethics, no claims to miraculous healing or healings will be made public by any charismatic leaders until the healings have been verified by independent third-party medical doctors.

Now, a little bit of a note. When Bentley made this claim, I got on the phone and I called headquarters for the Houston Medical Center, asking the name of the fellow who was raised from the dead and if they had any way of validating and verifying the claim.

Now, we put a video together with some really goofy pirate animation and stuff, and we'll put the link to the video down below. You can click on that and watch and hear the actual phone call that I made to the Houston Medical Center.

And I will say this, they did not validate or verify what Todd Bentley said. In fact, some of the things that they said made it clear that the person making the claim about the resurrection wasn't, let's just say, wasn't operating in any kind of real knowledge as to how the Houston Medical Center works.

And when we confronted Todd Bentley, I think of Steve Kosar, Steve Kosar in particular, of the Messed Up Church, he called Todd Bentley out on his Facebook page regarding these claims and asked for independent verification.

Who was the person that was raised from the dead? Do you have the documentation that says he was DOA and now he's been resurrected from the dead? And no joke, Todd Bentley said that he couldn't reveal that information due to hippo laws.

Mm-hmm. He did use the word hippo. And yeah, so I would note that Todd Bentley, when one of the major news channels, I think it was ABC, when they went to the Lakeland Revival and documented it in the news and stuff like that, they asked him for independent verification of the miraculous claims that he was making at Lakeland.

And he said that he would get that to them. He never did. Never did. Todd Bentley has never performed a miracle that has been independently verified. All he does is make claims like Jennifer Avaz. And I would note that this is so, so rife in the charismatic movement.

It's so many people out there making claims but never provide medical documentation. So all charismatic leaders, I am challenging you to sign on to the Charismatic Code of Ethics, rule number one being no claims to miraculous healings will be made public by any charismatic leaders until the healings have been verified by independent third-party medical doctors.

Michael Brown's Spin on Healing Gifts and Character

Now, a little bit of a side note. And that's what this is. It is a side note. And that is that we all know about the claims, the allegations that have been leveled publicly against Todd Bentley, that there's ongoing sexual sin.

And the claims are actually quite horrific. And I would note that many of the videos regarding those claims have disappeared off the internet at the request of Dr. Michael Brown. Because Michael Brown now is the guy who's leading the investigation and he'll determine whether or not the allegations are substantive and true or if they were trumped up and false and Todd is just the victim of slander.

My prediction, and I'm not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet, I can just tell you I've seen a repeated pattern from Michael Brown, the apostle of obfuscation. I predict that what he will end up doing is saying that some of the allegations are true and that they are serious enough that Todd is no longer above reproach and he should not engage in any public ministry.

I predict that that's what he will say. But along with it, Michael Brown will take a swipe at men like myself and others who have said that Todd Bentley is as phony as a Clintonian $3 bill. And he has been from the beginning.

And why do I say that? Because Michael Brown, the week after the allegations were made public, he did two broadcasts dedicated to the topic. And one of them is a very fascinating thing. One of them is this claim that God, when he gives the gift of healing, that people will be able to operate in that gift of healing, even if they're engaging in egregious sexual sin, as well as engaging in teaching false doctrine and heresy.

I'm not making that up. This is his attempt at spin control. But here's the thing. The reason why he's doing that is because he wants to protect the charismatic movement's claims regarding healing anointings and things like this.

But I'm going to tell you, there is no evidence whatsoever to say that Todd Bentley ever had a healing gift from God. Never. All he has been from day one is a spinner of yarns, tall tales, made up stories, and lies.

He has never had a gift of healing and not one of the claims to healing that he made recently or in the past was ever true. Ever. And I mean it. But let's listen to Michael Brown as he tries to engage in damage control relating to the gift of healing, man.

It doesn't matter if you're sinning or teaching false doctrine and stuff. Like Todd Bentley, if you've got it, you've got it, and you can use it whenever you want.

You can't turn the plate into a prayer meeting, right? So I've gotten off the plane and I'm.

Weird. So he's telling a story about how he's traveled a long distance, gotten off the plane, maybe wasn't very pious while he was on the plane, right? He wasn't engaging in pre-fasting and.

Prayer and meditation and stuff. But listen to what he says. Jet lag. And it's like, come on, Mike, we've got to go right now. Right now we've got to get to the meeting and go there and preach and the anointing is there and the Holy Spirit's working and God will give me insight and etc.

So I'm blessed. I know that the gift of God operates and it's not based on how many hours I prayed that particular day or how long I fasted or something. But what's disturbing is you would think in the natural, this is the way I would think, all right, that if I really blew it in blatant disobedience that the gift wouldn't operate.

Follow what I'm saying? I don't have the gift of healing. We prayed for sick people and seen miracles over the years, but certainly, not the types of miracles in an ongoing way I'd want to see. And I clearly do not have gifts of healing operating in my life.

But let's say I did, that in my mind, okay, so I didn't get to pray at all. Today is emergency. In the morning, I was on the road running and there was this crisis and texting back and forth. I still haven't prayed yet.

And it's three in the afternoon and there's a need for prayer and someone's sick and they want me to pray. They know that God uses me to heal. All right, fine. I'll go pray. No problem, no difficulty, no issue, no question, because it's the gift of God.

It's the mercy of God. It's the love of God. God cares about that person. This is for the glory of Jesus name. It's not about how much I prayed. It's a gift. I understand that. And I love that. It's not by our works.

On the flip side, on the flip side, my mind would think, all right, that God forbid, you know, when I robbed a bank before a meeting and now we've got 10 ,000 people there and I come out, you know, just robbed the bank and took the, you know, the ski mask off and nobody saw me do it.

I'm going to get up to preach that I'd not be able to talk and that we're going to pray for the sick and nobody's healed at all. I would think that God would withdraw it. You know what I'm saying? And yet that doesn't seem to be the way it works, which means that people could really be self-deceived and deceive others.

And it also means that just because someone's being used supernaturally doesn't mean that what they're preaching is true. And it doesn't mean that their character is right. So apparently God doles out.

Gifts of healing to people who are, and allows them to keep operating, who are teaching heresy and engaging in gross, egregious sins like the kind that Todd Bentley is alleged to have committed.

That's a scary thing because especially those of us in the charismatic Pentecostal movement, we can very easily be impressed by gifts and power. And it may well be.

I think your guys are impressed by tall tales and stories, but not real gifts or any real power.

That the Lord has entrusted someone with his gifts and power because of something in that person's life where they sought them earnestly. Or someone just broken hearted with compassion, wanted to see the sick healed and for years fasted and prayed and cried out.

So they earned the gift through their fasting prayer and calling out.

Lord helped these people in God's mercy, God's grace and imparted something to them. Yes, it's still the gift, but God imparted it to them. And so I don't take it lightly when God's spirit is on somebody, but that doesn't mean that what they're preaching is true.

It doesn't guarantee that their character is right. We must analyze what they're preaching according to scripture. That's A. And B, we must look at character to see if their life is right with God or not.

Those close to them, accountability, how is this person living? And that person should be living in a way, if they're in leadership in public ministry, that they are above reproach.

Indeed.

Yeah, it's a high standard, but we're representing a high calling. We're representing the Lord Jesus. Now look, it's good news that God is not waiting for perfection before he uses us because none of us.

Yeah. Now you kind of get the point. All of this was part of his spin control. Again, I would argue Todd Bentley has never possessed a gift of healing or a healing anointing from God. He has always been a teller of lies and tall tales, and he has never once provided actual independent third-party verification that God healed anybody or raised anybody from the dead through him.

So again, I'm calling for a charismatic code of ethics. This is the first installment in that call. And the call is for rule number one, that no claims to miraculous healings will be made public by any charismatic leaders until the healings have been verified by independent third-party medical doctors.

Any charismatic who refuses to abide by rule number one of this code of ethics is a liar. They are telling tall tales. They do not have a healing gift. They are not performing miracles. All they are performing is performances, performing lies.

It's spewing lies and making tall tales up. And Michael Brown, because he refuses to call out those who are telling such tall tales, and he instead has felt the need to, well, you know, you can have a healing gift and stuff, and you can be spewing straight out heresy night after night after night after night and sleeping with your babysitter while spewing the heresy.

But if God gave you the miracle gift, well, you're going to be able to operate in it no matter what. Hogwash. Todd Bentley never has had a healing gift. And I would argue Jennifer Avaz doesn't have a special weight loss anointing, you know, miraculous weight loss anointing.

These are all tall tales that they're telling. And sadly, all in the name of continuationism, people in the charismatic movement refuse to actually call for the verification and independent validation of these miraculous claims, and that is a problem.

You clean up the charismatic movement literally overnight by abiding by a rule like this one, that no claims to the miraculous will be made public until independently verified. Just saying. So if you found this helpful, all the information on how you can share the video is down below.

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So 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. Amen.