That Time I Confronted Todd Bentley To His Face: The Back Story (And A Direct Personal Plea)

Justin Peters

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00:00

Which man? You. God bless you. This is a true promise though.

00:06

This is a true promise. Don't hit me with your brush. I'm just trying to bless you. Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen.

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My name is Justin Peters. I hope that this finds you and your family doing well today. I want to thank you so much for joining me.

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Ten years ago, I confronted Todd Bentley to his face at a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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It's hard to believe it's been ten years, but I am regularly asked about the backstory of what actually happened on that night.

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The video has been up on YouTube for almost the whole ten years, but never really the backstory.

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I've never really talked about it publicly. Since so many people have asked me, and since it's the ten -year anniversary,

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I thought, well, I'll just do a video to give you the backstory so you can know exactly what happened, exactly what transpired.

01:06

Did I actually try to hit Todd Bentley with my crutch? I think this next hour or so will be interesting for you.

01:15

I have asked Mike Miller to come on the program and join me. He and I are going to be talking about this evening.

01:23

Mike Miller was with me. I didn't know this until just a couple of years ago, but the video that is on YouTube of me confronting

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Todd Bentley, he actually recorded that video himself. He was on the other side of the sanctuary.

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The video quality is not great, but this was ten years ago. I learned in the video that he was using a

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BlackBerry. The video quality is not great, but you can see and you can hear exactly what happened.

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He and I are going to talk about it. He's going to give you his perspective on things, and I am.

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I actually learned some myself just having done this interview just a few minutes ago.

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I finished recording it, and I'm recording the intro now for it. I learned a few things in the video.

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Mike Miller is a great guy. He's a pastor in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. He's an accountant by trade.

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That is his tent -making job. He's a pastor, first and foremost, of Grace Family Bible Church in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, outside of Tulsa.

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I will put the link to his church down below in the description. He's just a great, great guy.

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He is on my board of directors. He has been for over ten years.

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He's just become a good friend. He and I have traveled to many places together internationally. We've made a number of trips together.

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I have a great deal of love and respect for Mike Miller. He's a really good guy. Without any further delay, here is me and Mike Miller talking about that time

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I confronted Todd Bentley. By the way, we will also talk about Mike Bickle.

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We're going to talk about him as well and some of the issues related to all of this. Thank you very much.

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Without any further delay, here's the interview. Mike, brother, thank you so much for joining me.

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How are you today? I'm good. I appreciate the opportunity always to talk to you and see how you're doing up in the

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Great White North. Yes, indeed. Indeed, Mike. We became friends back in 2011?

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Yes, 2011. I had seen one of your seminars at a

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Wretched Radio conference back in, I want to say, 2010 or 2009.

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I don't know if you remember, I had reached out to you about Hagee on a text message.

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Oh, that's right. John Hagee. I had inherited a large collection of Hagee books prior to my conversion because my entire family thought

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Hagee was a fantastic prophet, the Bishop of America or something. I asked you a question about Hagee and we got into a conversation and it turned into, you should come to Tulsa and do a seminar in Tulsa sometime.

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We met, if you remember, we tracked ORU's campus. We talked to students there.

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We talked about the possibility of going to Africa. When we had the conference,

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I remember I had an online friend, Bill, Pastor Bill in Uganda. I asked

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Paul Washer for advice on how best to help Bill because I knew that Bill had some challenges theologically.

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His background was coming from Islam into the charismatic movement almost immediately. Washer's advice was to go see him.

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I thought, well, why not drag Justin to Africa and let's go see him together.

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That's how that happened. Of course, Bill was open for it. That's how we met.

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From there, there was the second conference that we did a few years later. In the middle of that was the

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Todd Bentley thing. Yes, that is right. That is right. You and I have been on several international trips together, preaching together.

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We've been to the Philippines. We've been to India. We've been to Uganda, of course.

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We almost had Japan, but Japan fell through. Oh, that's right. Yeah. We've had some interesting experiences.

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In Uganda, we stayed in basically a renovated prison. Yes, Chibuku.

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Chibuku Jail. What was it? Chibuku? Chibuku. I think the name of the village was Chibuku. Chibuku Jail.

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Yes. I think it was a jail. It wasn't called, but I guess it was called Hotel. I remember right. You can check in, but you can't check out.

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Yeah. Well, they could lock in there pretty easily. Oh, yeah. The doors locked from the outside. Yes. The little food trough down and give you your gruel in the morning.

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Yes. Yeah. That didn't give me a lot of warm fuzzies as I realized what we were walking into.

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But we each had our own cell, so that was nice. That's true. That's true. There was mosquito nets.

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A mosquito net and a bed. No running water. No. Yeah. Running out of a jerry can, perhaps.

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Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Tom Bodette was not there keeping the light on for us.

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No. Oh, all right. Well, Mike, it is hard to believe, but it has been 10 years since you and I crashed the

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Todd Bentley meeting. Now, the way I remember this coming about, at the time,

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Kathy and I were living in Edmond. And, of course, you're in Sand Springs. Yeah. Oklahoma, outside of Tulsa.

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And I saw this on television and I was watching it. And I remember someone, one of the staff members, making the comment that this was being live streamed on the

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Internet. And he said that there were people in 77 countries, I think.

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Yeah. Watching the services live every night. And when I heard that, I thought, huh, well, this is just up in Tulsa, a couple hours down the road.

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If it's being live streamed, what a great opportunity to call Todd Bentley out when they can't do anything about it.

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I mean, they can't, you know, it's going out live, so they can't. They're going to take invitations from people. So it was a great opportunity for that.

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Yeah. Yeah. And we had heard about he was coming to Tulsa. He hadn't, to my knowledge, he hadn't been in Tulsa before.

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And that particular church, you know, they had been, and I don't know the direct relationship between them and ORU or the other charismatic churches there.

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What was the name of the church, by the way? River something. I think it's changed since then. It's right next to the

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Arkansas River. That particular group, a lot of them were

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Assembly of God people. Obviously, there's a lot of charismatics there, but not necessarily a lot of extreme views within that theological circle.

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In other words, there weren't a lot of Todd Bentley people there in that church, because a lot of those are older people that had grown up under ORU's tutelage.

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And for Bentley to come with the biker boots, that was an escalation. And we had heard about it from a person who was a member of our church at that time.

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And he was sort of in the, I guess you could say, on the YouTube side of things.

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And he understood IT stuff, and he had suggested the possibility. He was the one who initially told me, hey,

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Todd Bentley's coming to Tulsa. You know, you guys should go watch it, you know, and see if it's as bad as we had seen on the videos.

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Because we had watched some of those videos before together. And so, then you heard about it, and then one thing led to another.

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Right. And we brought Jacob, my son, with us to that. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

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Yeah, and it was quite a show. And the video doesn't capture it, but we had been there for quite a while.

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They sang, I think, three or four songs over and over and over and over again until they got, they whipped the spirits up.

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And then there was ladies up front who were going into their mode before they took the invitation.

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That invitation that they did was at the very end of the evening. Right. And so, you were on one side, as you're looking at the pulpit, you were on the right side.

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I was on the extreme, like, northwest side of the sanctuary. I remember

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I was on the front row, all the way over to the left in a chair. I had the row to myself.

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There was nobody else on that row. But as you said, the service went on for hours.

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And I had just about talked myself out of it. Like, I thought, okay, am

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I really going to do this? Because I was going to go up and call him out. I'm really going to do this.

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I just about talked myself out of it, and then just kind of like, all right, I'm doing it. So, I stood up, and I walked up behind him.

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And the first thing is, think of the irony that we are in a room full of 300 or 400 charismatics.

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Prophets. Prophets, yes. Prophets, no less. All of whom claim that God speaks to them directly on a regular basis.

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Todd Bentley gets words of knowledge from God about everybody that comes up to him.

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You know, God's this little chatty Cathy doll, and Todd Bentley hears him with crystal clear clarity all the time.

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And yet God did not. And he has the entity. Do you remember he has Emma? He has the entity. Oh, that's right. Yeah, the female angel,

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Emma, that started the Lakeland Revival, right. Yes. Never mind that there are no female angels in the

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Bible, but hey, let's go with it. There's only one. Right. But God did not apparently bother to give him a heads up about what

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I was about to do to him. Nor did he give anybody else in that room a heads up about what

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I was about to do. Perhaps all the real prophets stayed home that night. Yes.

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If they had come, they would have. Right. They must have. Yeah.

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Yeah. Maybe they were not hitting on all their prophetic cylinders that night. So, Mike, this video is on the

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Internet, and I literally did not know until not too long ago that you're the one who recorded this.

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Yeah. So you're on the other side of the sanctuary. You recorded it. And to this day,

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I don't even know. I found it on a YouTube channel called Exposing Charlatans, but I don't even know how did this video even get on the

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Internet? Well, if you remember when we were first there, we were in the very back because we were sort of scoping out the territory.

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And then when you moved up forward during the invitation, I came around to the right side. And it was the only side that there was enough to see anything up front happening.

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And when we got the video taken, I sent it over to one of the other church members, the guy that had talked about Todd Bentley's coming to town.

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He's the one that initially posted it. And from there, it's been reposted quite a few times, if I remember.

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I've seen it a couple of different times in different areas of YouTube. And it was on my phone.

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It wasn't the best recording. Right. But I didn't think bringing a big camera into there would have...

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Yeah. And this was 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Cameras weren't what they are now.

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I had a BlackBerry at the time. A BlackBerry. Okay. That was the last customer. All right.

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Well, Mike, I'm going to play this video. And we'll watch it.

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And then we'll talk a little bit about it. Sure. And Jesus will look at them.

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And he said, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

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This man is a worker of iniquity. Which man? You. God bless you.

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This is a true promise, though. This is a true... Don't hit me with your crutch. I'm just trying to bless you.

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Well, thank you, sir. I'm not giving you my anointing because I have nothing to give. Thank you.

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Just bless him and just pray. Hallelujah. So anyways, if you would like the text 67076, and just send a message, get ignited.

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You can be on that list. We just bless our friend tonight. You know, that is a true scripture, by the way.

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That is a true scripture. If you do not know the Lord in intimacy, you can do miracles.

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You can move in power. You can move in signs and wonders. But we really do need to know Jesus. And I just thank

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God for our friends here tonight. And we just pray you bless them. Hallelujah.

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How many of you have come ready to receive and you're happy tonight? Okay, so...

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Yeah, so I walked up behind him. And I'm glad he was down on the floor, not up on the platform, because I couldn't climb the steps.

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But he was down on the floor. I walked up behind him. And of course, he sensed that I was there. He turned around and he saw me.

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And what didn't get recorded was the very first part of the interaction. But he looked at me and he said,

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Well, I'm going to pray for you. Meaning, when he saw me on my crutches, he assumed I was up there to be healed.

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And he said, Well, I'll pray for you later. Referring to when they have the healing line and all that. And then

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I said, I said, I have a word. Do you remember that? Could you hear me say that?

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Yeah, I do. And I think one thing that's happened with the video over the years is that I think there's a front part of it that isn't on that particular clip.

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Uh -huh. But I do remember that. And then I figured he couldn't resist any crippled person for the invitation.

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Right. You were issuing to get up front. But I think if I remember right, he said something about for you not to touch him.

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Like you were going to bash Todd Bentley with your crutches. Right. Right.

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So when I said, I have a word. And I remember he said, Is it a good word?

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Yes. And then he put the microphone in front of my face. You know, like, and so when he put the microphone in front of me, that's when

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I quoted Matthew 7, 21 through 23. Many will say to me on that day,

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Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name? Cast out demons, perform many miracles. And then

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I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. And then

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I said, this man is a worker of iniquity. Yeah. And he said, which man? I said, you. This man is a worker of iniquity.

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Which man? You. And then he said that line. Well, don't hit me with your crutch.

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This is the truth. Don't hit me with your crutch. Well, what he meant by that.

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So I'm standing there on my crutches. And Mike, you and I are cessationists. We're not mystical kind of people.

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But I can tell you that being standing next to Todd Bentley was palpably dark.

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Yeah. And the thing is, even that entire room was disturbing.

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Yes. And I've been to, and I'm sure you have well, like if you go to New Orleans at night, you know, during Mardi Gras to hand out tracks, you'll feel that you're not in a great place.

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I have no doubt that Emma was present. Yeah. Emma was there with Todd.

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It was definitely, this wasn't just a minor difference in some theology issues.

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This isn't, you know, Baptists and Presbyterians arguing over infant baptism or on their view of eschatology.

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This was something sinister. Yeah. Not a disagreement, a minor disagreement.

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This is very sinister. Right. Yeah. I believe without any hyperbole, and I don't say this about all of the word faith preachers, but I believe without any hyperbole, two of them for sure are demon possessed.

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Todd Bentley and Kenneth Copeland. I believe they're both genuinely demon possessed. But standing there, that guy was, it was all

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I could do to stand next to him. You know how when you put two magnets together, the same pole, and they just repel from each other.

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I don't know what he was feeling, but that's the way I felt. I mean, everything in me wanted to get away from the guy.

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And when he, the reason he said, don't hit me with your crutch is because he actually reached out.

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You can't see this on the camera, but he reached out with his hand to touch me. And I instinctively just kind of raised my arm in a defensive position.

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I wasn't about to swing at him. I just kind of raised like, dude, don't touch me.

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I don't want you to touch me. And then he said, don't hit me with your crutch. I don't want to get any Emma rubbing off on my shirt. And I think one thing that's also stark to remember about that is this particular group of individuals, because they've been in Tulsa for a long time.

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And this church has taken different names and different shapes over the years. But they don't normally have a

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Todd Bentley type of situation. From my experience in Tulsa, usually when their sermons are about your feelings, about your finding your inner

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Jesus, finding a lot of self -help talk, a lot of moral platitudes, but not usually people on the ground flopping around.

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Like a fish or any of that. And so this was an escalation for them. And to my knowledge, Todd Bentley has not been back there.

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I mean, I don't know for sure, but not that I've ever heard him necessarily back to Tulsa. Well, this was 2014.

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So this was six years after the Lakeland revival that started in 2008. So he was already a well -known.

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Yeah. He was an up -and -coming star for sure. Yeah. They were already the clips of him claiming that God told him to kick an elderly woman in the face.

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And I'm thinking, God, why is not the power of God moving? He said, because you haven't kicked that woman in the face.

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And there's this older lady worshiping right in front of the platform. And the

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Holy Spirit spoke to me. The gift of faith came on me. He said, kick her in the face with your biker boot.

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I inched closer and I went like this. Bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell into the power of God.

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All that was well, well -circulated. Everybody knew that about him. He had already left his wife, his handicapped wife named

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Jonah, I think. And, you know, probably didn't look real good for a faith healer to be married to a woman who was handicapped.

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And so he left her and then married this woman, Jessa, Jenna, married this woman with whom he was having an affair back in 2008.

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Right. Yeah. He was more popular then than he is now, for sure. As far as within those circles, but this was a definitive escalation for that particular church, as far as I could tell.

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Right. Yeah. And shame on that church for inviting him. Because, like I said,

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I mean, he had already been exposed as an adulterer, a drunk, sexually immoral back six years before.

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Shame on them for having him come. And he was the up -and -coming star. And, you know, there's only so many times a person can go.

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And, you know, one of the sad things about some of the charismatic churches is, you know, they talk a lot about sometimes raising the dead and, you know, the personal power, but there is no power.

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There's no personal power. And so if you're in a place where it's constant moral platitudes, eventually, and you hear about, you know, this, here's the superhero like figure who's, you know, got an angel that helps him, you know, why not invite them?

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Right. Get the power going on. Right. And unfortunately, it's the wrong kind of power. And I don't really remember afterwards, we had some interesting conversations with those individuals that were politely escorting us from the building.

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Yeah. We did. And I want to ask you about that, too. But then you see on the clip, he said something interesting.

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He said, quote, I'm not giving you my anointing because I have nothing to give.

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Well, thank you, sir. I'm not giving you my anointing because I have nothing to give. That has always struck me as an odd thing for him to say, because the

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Bible teaches that all Christians have an anointing, right? First John 2, 27, the anointing that we receive from Christ abides in us.

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And yet he said, I'm not giving you my anointing because I have nothing to give. In other words, I don't have an anointing.

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It's like, well, that's true. Sometimes they're accidentally correct. Right. In the ultimate irony.

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And I think with some of these individuals and their collaboration with this kind of evil, while they may not be very theologically in tune with reality,

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I think the demonic entities that surround them understand some of these things.

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And Lord knows how this is going to turn out. And you weren't with me at this particular time, but there was a time downtown in Tulsa and I was out witnessing.

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And I had been praying for God to send a difficult person to witness to.

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I don't know. It was not a good idea. But I mean, in a way it was, and I had one. And this guy, he was chock full of demons crazy.

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He was claiming to be Christ. And in my dialogue with this individual, as I was witnessing to him, he was saying things that clearly he didn't understand.

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I understood what he was getting at. And I have no doubt that his Emma was the one that was doing some of the communicating.

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And he eventually left in a tirade, screaming and yelling and running off. I mean, it was bizarre. Wow. There are other

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Todd Bentley's out there. Yep. Sometimes they're randomly walking down the street.

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There are. Yeah. I don't know how much of Todd was really, how much he was thinking about it.

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I was going to respond. It's a weird comment. It was a weird comment for him to make. It was.

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Ironically true. And then he turned around. You can kind of see on the film, there's a couple other guys there.

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And one of them had grabbed my arm. He was trying to pull me away.

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And, of course, I'm standing on my crutches. And if you pull my arm away, it's like pulling my legs out from under me.

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Down goes Frazier. And I told him, I said, you're going to make me fall. And he just, he kept doing it.

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But then as he turned around, as Todd Bentley turned around, you can kind of hear it in the background.

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I was trying to, I was saying the gospel is not about money. The gospel is not about healing. Thank you.

25:50

The gospel is not about just blessing and just praying. Hallelujah. I was trying to preach the true gospel.

25:57

And then they escorted us out, escorted me out anyway. And you followed me, right?

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I was trying to get out there as quickly as I could. So there was a lot of people and they're all standing up in the way. And as you were going down the aisleway and you were talking to people, there was sort of a, it was kind of loud.

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I couldn't hear everything that you were saying, but I could get the gist of it. And then they had a whole group of like,

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I guess, church slash ushers that were coming in from the sidelines.

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And when I met you back at the end outside the sanctuary, that's when they sort of handed us off to the two individuals we talked to, if you remember.

26:45

Yeah. They were not particularly thrilled. No. Yeah. I remember as they were walking me out, got out of the sanctuary into the foyer there.

26:55

And I saw a man, young man in a wheelchair, a quadriplegic, severely, severely involved, not just physically, but mentally too.

27:07

I'm pretty confident, obviously severely disabled, handicapped.

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And I can remember I kind of lifted my crutch up and pointed at him. And I said to the people escorting me out,

27:20

I said, where's that man's miracle? Yeah. And of course, they didn't have an answer and walked out, as I recall, and the police showed up, right?

27:32

They instantaneously called the police. I know. I mean, it was, all of this happened within just a couple of minutes.

27:39

Yeah, five, 10 minutes tops after three hours of sitting there. And what was interesting about that is, when you, in a church service, when you do an invitation, that isn't necessarily something that you call the police about if it doesn't go well.

27:57

Right. You didn't have anybody walk the aisles, where's 911? This wasn't

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Joel Osteen's church with the tragedy that happened the other day. This was an individual who, he said he had a word.

28:07

There was no promise that the word was going to be a positive one. Right. That's not any kind of crime.

28:13

No. That's not a threat. That's not an implied threat. There's no need. And it's not like you came in like Hulk Hogan.

28:23

Uh -oh. Potentially, like you were a danger to Todd Bentley, okay?

28:28

Yeah, I know. Despite the ominous crutch. Right. I mean, I'm literally standing there on my crutches.

28:35

What did they think I was going to do? I mean, they beat somebody up. I mean, my goodness.

28:42

Yeah, a turtle could outrun me. It reinforced to me that the Bible talks about how the wicked are afraid to go out on the street because there's a lion.

28:52

Yeah. And the roaches are bold. And you can see some of that, just a little bit of pushback in person, unexpected.

29:01

And if those individuals, the ushers, could have got away with manhandling you out of that place, they would have.

29:07

Yeah. And the only reason that they didn't is because, one, you didn't physically resist them.

29:13

And then, two, you had crutches. If it had been me up there, they probably would have drugged me out of there on a rail a lot more violently.

29:24

But they couldn't do that to you in front of their 500 disciples. I mean, that would have looked terrible, dragging a person with crutches out of the place.

29:34

But it shows the overreaction that you see with the wicked. And that's why, if a person's engaged in any kind of evangelism or outreach out there, when you get involved in it, you need to understand that you're not going to be treated the same way as if you were hawking hot dogs.

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If you're out in the street giving away coupons to come to a restaurant and somebody doesn't like it, you're not really in any danger.

29:57

But if you're out there sharing the gospel, there is danger. And you need to understand that that exists.

30:05

Yeah. And that opposition is spiritual. It's not even a political opposition.

30:13

It's far, far darker than anything like that. Yeah, 100%.

30:21

And so we got outside. The police officer showed up, lights flashing.

30:28

And as I recall, he said something to the effect of, sir, if you don't leave, you're going to be arrested, something to that effect.

30:40

And I said, no problem. I'm headed to my truck and walked out to it.

30:45

And then as I was getting in the truck, then this lady came up behind me, a black lady.

30:53

And she was very kind. And she said, sir, are you okay? And I'm kind of climbing in my truck.

31:01

And I said, yes, ma 'am, I'm fine. I have a clear conscience about this.

31:07

And she said, well, I was in there too. And I saw everything. And she said, I just had an uneasy feeling about what was going on.

31:15

And so she was very kind.

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And I wish I had been able to get her contact information. But she knew something was wrong.

31:26

She could tell it. But the officer was also there. And he was kind of –

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He immediately went into obedience compliance mode when there was no – there was never any resistance to leaving the place.

31:40

So normally a police officer, a professional one, would come in and say, what's happening?

31:47

Before they trespass a person. There wasn't even dialogue from him as to what even happened or why you were there or anything like that.

31:58

And I think with the woman, I think that reinforces my gut instinct on it was that this particular church was in some ways caught off guard by what some of them had invited in to that congregation.

32:11

Because we had gone years before when I was a baby Christian to not that particular place, but another place that's closely associated with it where they had a

32:20

Christian concert we had been invited to. Where I knew better to go to this Christian concert. And it was those same individuals,

32:27

I'm sure. And the concert was terrible, of course. But it wasn't a

32:33

Todd Bentley concert. And so my impression, especially after she came out, and I think that was providential, was that there was a lot of individuals in there who were going along for the ride.

32:43

They had no discernment. I'm not saying that – and we're not privy to whether or not there were any sheep in there.

32:51

But there were individuals there that definitely had no expectation, I think, of what had come in to that.

33:00

Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. I think there were some people there in the congregation that were not aware of who

33:08

Todd Bentley was, probably how dark he is. But the leadership, the leadership of that church has no excuse.

33:15

Of course not. No, absolutely not. And I think that really reinforces also the danger in that when people who –

33:23

I'm not talking about necessarily genuine Christians, but people who profess Christ drop all discernment.

33:29

You can end up with some very dangerous things happening theologically.

33:35

Yeah. Far worse than what – again, far worse than a secondary theological issue or even an excess or even – there was a church in Sand Springs that had a deal where they were mad at us for handing out tracts or something at a festival.

33:51

I don't know why. They were giving away training classes on raising the dead.

34:01

Yeah. That's not a very good discipleship class, okay? Yeah, no. And not a successful one. But if you take that theology to its natural conclusion, you're going to end up with some

34:12

Todd Bentley -like individuals and behavior because where else are you going to go? When you're not – when you have the raising the dead class and nobody's raised from the dead, you're going to have to have something else happening.

34:21

Right. To keep the hype up. That's right. There's so many public vendors you can have. That's exactly right.

34:28

And I've heard John MacArthur say this before. I thought it was a fascinating insight that the charismatic movement is doubt looking for proof.

34:41

Yeah. Doubt looking for proof. And the truth of the matter is that there are large, large masses of people within the charismatic movement who are riddled with doubts about what they believe, what they claim to believe.

34:58

They're riddled with doubts about what they're being told from the pulpit. And so in an effort to satiate these doubts, to kind of put those doubts to bed, that's why they're constantly searching after the next buzz, the next experience, the next dream, the next vision.

35:16

The next hero. The next superhero. The next hero. That's right. Yeah. There's a lot of that kind of idol worship thing.

35:21

And it's not just in America. We saw the same thing in Africa. Bill told us about how the churches compete with one another to have the spirit by being as louder as they can, so to speak.

35:31

Yeah. Whoever's loudest has the spirit. That's right. The doubt comes out when the presumptions don't play out.

35:42

So if you're promised healing and you've done everything that you can and you've given money sacrificially, you've even borrowed against your house to give money, and then you still get rickets or diabetes or something.

35:57

Right. A lot of these individuals, they will get very angry with God, very bitter against God for not keeping his end of the deal, or they become very self -flagellating.

36:08

Like they're really, it's me. It's something that I did 40 years ago before I was a

36:13

Christian. God can't forgive me. And they start doubting the promises of God. And it's a very depressing thing to see it happen.

36:22

It happened with my uncle and other people that I've known that were heavily esteemed in that movement.

36:29

Again, presumption, you can presume upon God all the time, all over the place, but God's not going to change how he operates, satisfy a person's lust or doubts.

36:43

God's the one that's in charge. He does what he wants to do. He doesn't do what man demands that he do. That's right.

36:49

There's a lot of that. He's not our cosmic bellhop. And he's not a Santa Claus -like figure that we can placate with a few trinkets of the flesh.

37:00

And a lot of that is trying to placate God with trinkets of the flesh, as if $77 .77

37:07

for 77 months will mandate that God must now heal my cancerous bunion.

37:16

Right. Right. I know. Yeah. I wish I had a running tally of how many emails, how many people

37:24

I've talked to who have told me that either they themselves or their parents or their grandparents have basically given almost, in some cases, literally everything they had to the man of God.

37:39

Because you sow a seed, reap a harvest. In fact, Todd Bentley, right after you can see in this clip, right when he turned away from me, the next words out of his mouth were, text your gift to whatever number.

37:54

You can text your offering to whatever. So anyways, if you would like to text 67076 and just send a message, get ignited.

38:06

You can be on that list. I mean, that's also how they measure their success is by the financial benefits from these activities.

38:17

And what's dangerous for genuine Christian groups that maybe are not as biblical as they ought to be is that some of this does bleed over.

38:27

And you'll see conservative churches, Presbyterian and Baptist churches sometimes that they don't go as far as a

38:36

Todd Bentley thing, but what they will do is they'll measure their success by financial fruit in the church budget.

38:44

There's a church running in black is how many people came to Sunday school this Sunday compared to last Sunday, how many people came to church this

38:51

Sunday as compared to last Sunday. The donations more this Sunday than last Sunday. And you'll see that they'll put up a board and I'll have all the statistics on there.

38:58

And that's irrelevant. Absolutely irrelevant. Right. Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent.

39:06

Influence is dangerous for non charismatic people. Yeah, absolutely.

39:12

Certainly is. And with Todd Bentley, Mike, and I want to, was there anyone else?

39:19

Was there another conversation? I think you had mentioned a couple. There was that lady. Was there someone else? Inside the church four years before we left,

39:26

I was talking with two of the usher people about, you know, and I wouldn't say that their conversation was cogent because they were so angry, you know, that what was coming out of them was not great.

39:42

Not profanity necessarily, but as you were talking with the one woman that had the, I think he had a developmentally disabled person or something.

39:50

Yeah. These other individuals were there and they were very offended. And I was trying to explain within the one or two minutes that we had, you know, the danger of what they were doing.

40:00

Yeah. It wasn't much of a conversation because again, you know, the immediate response was, you know.

40:10

Right. Unbelievable anger. Right. Describe it. Yeah. Well, I hope by God's grace what we did that night bore some fruit because there were people watching all over the world and they saw it happen live.

40:29

And so hopefully by God's grace, there were some of his sheep out there that saw that and maybe, you know, got a little heads up and warning about who

40:41

Todd Bentley is. And Mike, too, one of the things that we see, and Jude describes false teachers this way,

40:48

Peter describes false teachers the same way. They are marked by not only greed, but they are also, their lives are also marked by immorality.

41:00

Right. And we see that with Todd Bentley. We've seen it very recently with Mike Bickle, and that's still in the news a lot.

41:10

In fact, just in the last few days as of this recording, some very, very, very disturbing stuff has come out with Mike Bickle that he was sexually abusing minors as a married man.

41:25

I mean, just like I can't even wrap my mind around that. But we see this is part and parcel for false teachers because by definition, a false teacher is not regenerate.

41:39

Right. There is no indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and so therefore there is no restraint on their flesh, right?

41:47

Yeah, and even if they are religious in an external sense in terms of the do not taste, not touch, not sort of attitude, we know from collages that it has no power over the flesh.

41:57

And so one of the individuals that's one of the elders in that group of churches in Tulsa that's sort of affiliated with that university, he's infamous in town for being pulled over for DUIs.

42:09

Usually it doesn't even get to the paper anymore, but for a while, I mean, there were several, and police officer friends of mine have told me about it like, oh, yeah, we constantly, constantly, and we'll just call somebody to come get him.

42:20

And there's no resistance because there's no spirit there that's able to resist the flesh.

42:27

It's just a question of what flesh entices them the most. And so some of them get into sexual immorality.

42:33

Some of them get into just the avarice, the greed of constantly trying to get more extravagant lifestyles.

42:40

And you see it with the way that they live. They're unrestrained. Their religion is vain in that context.

42:49

It has no power. That's right. And the real danger for the church at large is that undiscerning people, maybe

42:58

Christians and whatnot that come into those denominations looking for truth, they get led into some of those.

43:08

If God saves them, he'll pull them out of it. But there's a lot of damage that's done by those individuals.

43:17

And the worst thing that we can do as genuine believers is to not say anything, to not confront this evil and expose it to the light of God's word.

43:32

My uncle, who's now deceased, for years, everyone in the family knew that he was way out there in the

43:42

Word of Faith stuff, even beyond. He had an apostle ring on one finger. He had a prophet ring on the other finger.

43:49

He told me that he believed he was on the 12 foundation stones. No one told him the truth for years until I was able to talk to him and told him the truth.

43:59

He did not accept the truth at all. It's very belligerently unfriendly about when

44:06

I told him. But at least somebody told him. At least somebody told him, brother. You know, so, you know, for us,

44:11

I mean, Todd Bentley didn't repent. No. We don't know if that lady did or other people that were there saw and maybe they were being bothered because maybe there's some baby

44:21

Christians that were drug into this because that can happen. It can. You know, but, you know, we're called to be heralds, and part of that process is the uncomfortable reality that sometimes you're going to have to confront somebody over their bad theology.

44:34

And, you know, that may turn out to be not very comfortable.

44:40

You know, we were out witnessing one time in another friend, and it's the only time that I've ever felt like a person might get punched.

44:49

And it was a group of Ramah Bible students, and all my friend did was give him a track.

44:55

And the guy lost it. He threw back on him like he was going to hit him. You know, how dare you question me?

45:02

You know, I go to Ramah Bible school. I mean, it was unbelievable anger. Wow. You know, and I told him,

45:08

I said, well, we can't tell if you went to Ramah Bible school or not. We just, you know, people coming to a restaurant we gave you a track to. And he said some choice words.

45:16

If somebody were to walk up and give me a track, I would welcome that. I would love that, you know, because that's, hey, wow, you're a believer?

45:25

Let's talk about that. So, boy, that kind of anger reaction, that's quite telling.

45:33

Somebody gives you a gospel track, and you react by drawing back on them. Yeah, he was angry. I think the only reason he didn't hit him is because there was a bunch of people around watching, and his friends kind of held him back.

45:44

And another time we went to, I don't remember if it was Joyce Myers that came to Tulsa or if it was Beth Moore. I don't remember.

45:50

They kind of blend together sometimes in my mind. Yes, they do. But, you know, it was a bunch of older people, older ladies, and I think we probably, you know, we were just giving out some tracks.

46:01

Because there was thousands of people there, and there's not really enough time to talk to somebody if there's thousands of people walking by.

46:06

So we handed out thousands of tracks to these people. And I think I'd never seen old ladies so angry in their life.

46:13

I probably had about ten of those where I gave this lady a track, and she literally just, like, one lady almost ripped it up.

46:21

I'm a Christian. How dare you question me? And I'm like, well, you're just a person walking down the sidewalk.

46:27

I gave you a track. That's scary. It is. I mean, when people react that way to, professing

46:34

Christians react that way to being given a gospel track. That reveals in them a level of pride and arrogance that is truly scary.

46:44

I don't think a regenerate person reacts the way to being given. Why would you? Let me correct myself.

46:51

I know a regenerate person does not react that way. Well, another example of that that I saw here in Tulsa was a few years ago there was a pride festival.

47:00

I went to the pride festival. I was sharing the gospel with people. I had four or five witnessing encounters with people that were homosexuals.

47:07

None of them had ever heard the gospel before. Nobody was offended. They never heard it. They had no idea anything about it.

47:14

There was an Episcopalian lady preacher person, I'm going to call her that, who just went ballistic.

47:24

The track that I was using, when I witness to people, I don't contextualize the witnessing encounter differently just because of a particular sin.

47:36

If it comes up, we'll talk about it. The gospel is the gospel. Whether the person is a homosexual or a Muslim or a Hindu, it's the same

47:42

Christ in whom crucified. The track doesn't talk about homosexuality at all. It's not a homosexuality track.

47:49

It's just a gospel track. This lady took the track and she was looking for that. Of course, it's not there because I've used that track a million times.

47:57

She goes, these people are trying to deceive you. She was yelling and screaming at us. All the people that were there in the pride festival, they were really confused by this lady, why she was so mad.

48:08

She was the one person there that was professing Christ, but in a way that was illegitimate, obviously.

48:16

The other people that were there were just pagans. They were just pagan people that were living a homosexual lifestyle that had never heard the gospel, at least the ones that I talked to.

48:27

Of course, after that, it was a riot, so I had to leave. What she was teaching those people, and she had this big billboard out in front of her that I couldn't see initially, was that they were apologizing for the church being against the homosexuals.

48:48

Again, it was the Episcopalian minister lady, if you want to call her that, who was, out of her mind, angry.

48:57

Very telling. It is. It is very telling. People ask me occasionally, and I'm sure you've had similar conversations, how do

49:05

I share the gospel? Where do I share the gospel? Who do I share it to? I tell them, I said, well, you'll find that if it's pagan people, a lot of times it'd be a lot easier, and thus dangerous, at least initially.

49:19

But if you go to people who have a profession of religion that they're very proud of, that touches on anything regarding Christianity, it can easily get very, very vitriolic a lot quicker than you think it will.

49:33

That's been my experience. Yep, yep. Same. That resonates with me, absolutely.

49:43

Well, Mike, thank you very much, brother. We've talked about Todd Bentley, and I would point out, just kind of as we wrap up here,

49:52

Todd Bentley, as I tell people, you would have to, if you can't tell

49:58

Todd Bentley is a false teacher and a false prophet, you shouldn't be allowed outside of the house without adult supervision.

50:06

I mean, this is a guy who is just so manifestly dark, and was proven to be that way back in 2008, and yet he was endorsed, heartily endorsed, heavily promoted by Stacey Campbell, by Patricia King, by John Arnott, by Cheyenne, by Rick Joyner, by Bill Johnson at Bethel Church.

50:32

And not only did they endorse him and promote him back in 2008, but after his sin was exposed, after people saw who he really is, then a few years later,

50:45

I think it was like in 2015 or 2016, after this event, after I called him out,

50:52

Rick Joyner and Bill Johnson endorsed him again. Yeah.

51:00

You endorsed Todd Bentley, you have no business being behind the pulpit at all, on any level.

51:09

Get out of the pulpit, examine yourself to see if you're saved, because I don't see how that you can be.

51:16

There's no way. There's no way. So I have no problem saying Bill Johnson, Rick Joyner are wolves.

51:23

They are false teachers. If you can't tell Todd Bentley is a wolf, and you have no problem, then you yourself are one.

51:31

In a way I'm thankful that they do that, because a lot of those individuals, which are very dangerous to people in their theological heresies, they're kind of counterfeit, they're kind of hard to tell.

51:46

They're not as openly, obviously demonic. Some put on a better show. There's a sort of camouflage.

51:53

They come in and they'll say things even that sound, and some of them are correct. They'll say correct statements and then they'll blend it in with a bunch of other nonsense.

52:00

That's right. So when they come out and they endorse somebody who is obviously heretical, demonically influenced, if not possessed, then it's a blessing in a way, because you can see there's no discernment in this person.

52:18

The Holy Spirit should be like Mordecai, screaming at the gate, and he's not, because the

52:25

Holy Spirit ain't there. That's right, because he's not there. I don't want to go on too much of a tangent here,

52:33

Mike, but one of the things that strikes me. So Todd Bentley endorsed and then re -endorsed, after everybody knew who he was, by these people, by Bill Johnson, Rick Joyner and others, and even others who were supposedly more sane.

52:51

It still took years and years to have a study. You know, we're going to have a full investigation to see if Todd Bentley is really qualified to be in ministry, like an investigation.

53:04

He claims God told him to kick an elderly woman in the face with his biker boot.

53:10

No, he's not qualified to be in ministry. He's talking to Emma. He's talking to Emma, yes.

53:16

That's the end of the conversation. Right, I know. And these are the same people,

53:22

Mike, that claim that God speaks to them regularly, gives them words of knowledge.

53:28

And yet God, so let's talk Mike Bickle, IHOP. This guy we all now know.

53:35

What's that? A very dangerous cult. Very dangerous cult. So Mike Bickle was promoted, not just by the likes of Bill Johnson, but Dr.

53:49

Michael Brown, Sam Storms. These are much more respected, if you will, more intellectual folks within the

53:58

Hispanic movement. Reasonable. Yeah, I mean, but yet Michael Brown and Sam Storms both claim that God speaks to them in a direct quotable sense outside of Scripture.

54:11

And Sam Storms, I know for certain because I heard him say this, and he's got it written that he has been close personal friends with Mike Bickle for decades, served on staff with him.

54:25

How is it that God talks to you, gives you words of knowledge?

54:31

In fact, just not long ago on the Remnant Radio channel, I heard them mention that God gave

54:38

Sam Storms a word of knowledge about someone's bum foot or something like that. Like, okay, no way.

54:44

The cancerous bunion. So God gives you words of knowledge about stuff like that, but not

54:50

Mike Bickle? Who this man was? And he's surrounded.

54:57

I mean, Mike Bickle was held up as this paragon of charismatic humility, and he's the real deal, and he loves

55:05

Jesus, and he's surrounded by and supported by thousands of charismatics.

55:12

God didn't bother to give any of them a heads up, drop them a little word of knowledge about what

55:19

Mike Bickle was? They could qualify their support and say, I think Mike Bickle does a great job on Tuesday, but the false prophecies are a problem and all the other things are a problem.

55:30

There's none of that. It's unqualified. Unqualified. Support is fantastic.

55:38

There was one individual, I don't know for sure if it was Francis Chan, but I think it was

55:44

Francis Chan that went there at one point. You do. He did. You know, we did that episode on the billion soul harvest.

55:53

Wait, say that again. The billion soul harvest. You're rubbing off on me. Mike Bickle is contagious.

55:59

It happens. But for these young leaders of revivals that are rising up, how do you steward that well, and how can we learn from you?

56:10

So we want to talk about those things. Are you going to attack Mike Bickle? Are you going to attack some of these expressions in the body of Christ that may look a little...

56:19

I'm just saying, dude, put that down. I've met these people, and I see their hearts, and I hang out with people from these different denominations.

56:29

I'm like, man, they love Jesus. It looks different for me, but I can see the spirit in them, so we better be careful.

56:36

You know, how does that happen? Well, the reason how it happens is it's God's grace to reveal that there's a problem with some of the individuals, even though they aren't as extreme in their behavior.

56:52

There's, you know, again, as a Christian, and you know this, you go around the world, you meet people. If they're genuine

56:58

Christians, there will be a lot of times an instant affinity, even if you barely know them or don't even know them at all.

57:04

If you start talking, it becomes obvious that you have another saint there. I mean, you may not be best friends for life, but, you know, it's fortunate, almost immediately.

57:15

And the opposite is also true. You run across somebody, and it doesn't matter what you do.

57:21

It's like Joseph and his brothers. They had nothing good to say to him. So how is it that these individuals have such power and so...

57:27

Right. Almost Pope -like speaking ex -Cathedra. Yes. That's really what they're claiming that they're doing.

57:34

That's right. Yep. Can't confront the adultery of some of these individuals or their heretical nine -member

57:42

Godheads or any of the other crazy stuff that they're doing. They don't esteem the scriptures. Right.

57:48

That's right. They don't have the Holy Spirit. They have a spirit. Yeah. Perhaps. You know,

57:54

I'm struck by what we read in the book of Acts when we see real apostles. I mean,

57:59

Peter, in Acts chapter 5, Peter did what real apostles do or did, and he goes up and he confronts

58:10

Ananias and Sapphira to their face. He had apostolic authority.

58:17

God was speaking to him, and he confronted Ananias and Sapphira. For lying to the

58:25

Holy Spirit. Yeah. And they dropped dead, and he told them they would. Yeah, and he didn't debate with them about it either.

58:32

Didn't debate with them. There was no... You know, Peter didn't say, like, hey, Ananias and Sapphira just kind of got this hunch.

58:38

Kind of on the edge. It's not really right. You know, is everything okay? No, he confronted them. That's how a real apostle operates.

58:45

And so let me... So God can speak to the apostle

58:51

Peter and give him prophetic insight, if you will, into their lying, and they drop dead.

59:00

Right. But today, you can literally be living a life decades long of sexual immorality, even with...

59:10

Openly. ...ignorance. Unrepentantly about it. It's not like... You know, it's bad enough when it's a secret thing, but those individuals, it's not a secret thing.

59:19

They're quite proud of it. They're not repentant about it. They're not... Yeah. And God doesn't give any of these charismatics a heads up.

59:26

Hey, there might be something going on with Mike Bickle, you know, behind the scenes. You might want to investigate.

59:32

Nope. Nope. Nope. Everything's fine. Nothing to see here. I think in a big way, it's judgment on contemporary cultural

59:43

Christianity. You can call it Christianity at all. That God is allowed to reveal how bankrupt morally and spiritually it actually is.

59:52

How gospel -less it is. Yeah. You know, how it is moving in the energy of the flesh at best, if it's not outright demonic.

01:00:02

So that the saints that are out there can be warned that, you know, just because something looks pretty and they talk about Jesus all the time doesn't mean anything.

01:00:09

It could be the seven sons of Sceva that we're talking about, you know, just usurping Christ's name for their own personal benefit or Simon Bar Jesus or, you know, all the show doesn't matter.

01:00:22

Yeah, that's right. That's right. It's a blessing that we can see it at all, honestly.

01:00:27

And if God didn't give us grace to expose these individuals, you know, the deception would be more than any person could on their own power figure out.

01:00:39

And I mentioned this to other people before and they talked about, you know, how do I discern a good teacher and a false teacher? I'm like, well, you have to do your due diligence, obviously, be a good

01:00:46

Berean about it. And at the same time, you have to, you can't go on your instinct of just what your heart feels like about this person as a person.

01:00:57

They might be friendly to you. They might buy you dinner. That doesn't mean that their theology is sound.

01:01:04

It doesn't mean that they're saved. The Pope might be friendly to people. That doesn't mean he's saved. That's right. What does he say?

01:01:10

What comes out of his mouth? Yeah. That's the fruit that he's bearing. Yeah, that's right. And if you get a person in the pulpit and they're committing an adulterous affair.

01:01:19

Yeah, exactly. Where's the Holy Spirit? Why are they being struck dead? That's right.

01:01:25

That's right. So, yeah, you know, I tell people, when you're looking for a church, it's helpful to go to the church's website and look at their doctrinal statement.

01:01:35

That can help. But what I have found, there's this doctrinal statement, apparently, that thousands of churches have simply copied and pasted because I found the exact same doctrinal statement, word for word, on the websites of Baptist churches,

01:01:50

Methodist churches, some Presbyterians, some Episcopals, if you can believe it. It's just copied and pasted.

01:01:57

So, you know, I hear people all the time say, oh, well, Joel Osteen, you know, he's got a good doctrinal statement. Well, I guarantee you, he didn't write it.

01:02:04

It's just, you know, look at the content of what a man actually teaches.

01:02:11

That's right. Look at the character of his life. Look at how he does church.

01:02:17

You know, doctrinal statements can be helpful, but. Sure, but it can be creedalism.

01:02:25

Yeah. Honestly, it could just be creedalism. We've adopted this, but is that, do you believe it?

01:02:32

Are they living it out? Are they applying it or not, is the question. Not just that they can put it on a website and say this is a doctrinal statement.

01:02:40

Back in jolly old England, there were the Church of England and the Baptist churches at the time, they had doctrinal statements that are pretty sound in a lot of ways, but they didn't follow it a lot of times.

01:02:51

Yeah, yeah. Sadly, there was a lot of Baptists who were really, really offended with people going out to foreign countries and sharing the gospel because they got so far into just trying to figure out if people were elect or not, that they had forgotten that there's a gospel they're supposed to share.

01:03:07

Yeah, that's true. And so it's, creedalism is not the gospel. And church is not just an academic exercise where we come together to learn some theory and some creeds and be able to memorize scripture.

01:03:23

That's just, it's a means of grace God has given us obviously the scriptures, but is it real?

01:03:29

I mean, that's what Edwards was talking about. This Christ you're talking about, is he there?

01:03:35

Yeah, that's right. Has he changed your life? Are your desires different? Have your affections been changed? Or are you living like a demon?

01:03:42

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's right. Watch your doctrine in your life closely. Yeah. So, yeah.

01:03:49

And you and I are both five -point Calvinists. And yeah,

01:03:55

I mean, you and I have been all over the world. We've preached, we've open air preached the gospel in some slums and some

01:04:02

Islamic areas. But Calvinists, we don't believe in evangelism.

01:04:08

No, and we know what's funny about that is the way, when I first, when I was a baby Christian, and they asked me, of course, and this is common in Southern Baptist churches, not to pick on the denomination by itself, but this is what happens, is they wanted me to teach a class.

01:04:23

And I was not qualified, by a stretch of the imagination, at Zeal, and didn't know what to talk about.

01:04:29

And I said, well, I had had a burden to go and share what I did know, which was just the core of the gospel.

01:04:34

And so I said, well, I'm going to share the gospel. Because you had all these people coming here to get free hot dogs and all this stuff, blankets, but you're not sharing the gospel with them.

01:04:41

I want to burn the gospel on the side of a hot dog and give it to them. And the pastor there goes,

01:04:47

Mike, he goes, you've been strongly influenced by Calvinism. I had no idea what he was talking about. I had no idea what that meant.

01:04:53

I had to go look it up. Oh, funny. Wow. So I was five, I was five point, before I even knew what the terminology meant.

01:05:03

Yeah, yeah. Because the doctrine is organically in the scripture. Yeah. And then later, of course, it was refined.

01:05:10

But there was a weird statement because he accused me of being hyper -Calvin. And later I found out hyper -Calvinists don't share the gospel.

01:05:17

Right. They would excommunicate you potentially out of your church if you were evangelistic.

01:05:23

But in his mind somehow, and he was a disciple of Andy Stanley, just so you know.

01:05:29

Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense. It didn't work out well. Yeah. So people bring that up a lot.

01:05:37

Yeah. Okay. And what I tell them is that, look, sovereign grace, yes.

01:05:45

Is it technically the five points? Yes, that's what I believe the scriptures teach. But I wouldn't call myself a

01:05:51

Calvinist because I'm not an amillennial in my eschatology, and I don't believe in infant baptism.

01:05:57

Right. I'm a Baptist. Yeah. Okay. And a Christian, these doctrines are

01:06:02

Christian doctrines. Okay. And we can talk about that all day if we want to, but Satan labels the theology, and he does so in a way that creates a straw man.

01:06:19

Yeah, that's right. That happens a lot. Yeah, that's right. I know. People ask me, well, are you a Calvinist? I'm like, well, define the term for me.

01:06:25

Define the term, yeah. We can never define it. Uh -uh. We have no idea what that means. The soteriological arguments that the only thing that they understand, they don't understand those very well.

01:06:34

Yeah. And so that's what I would encourage Christians to do, understand the terms at least before you fight over it.

01:06:42

No, it's a convenient term, Calvinism or Calvinistic or whatever. But am

01:06:47

I a Calvinist? Well, yeah, exactly. Define it. What do you mean by that? And it's become such a misinterpreted, misused word.

01:06:58

John Calvin would not have even called himself a Calvinist. No, I was going to say, he's not a

01:07:04

Calvinist either. So it's, yeah. But at any rate. Well, Mike, thank you very much, brother, for your time.

01:07:13

I appreciate it so much. And tell us a little bit about yourself here at the end.

01:07:18

So you're an accountant. That's your tent making job. Right. I make account of tents.

01:07:25

That is correct. And we have a little church here that I pastor that we planted back in 2011, mostly out of desperation because we were, it's a long story, but we were going to a church which was theologically sound, but had an open theist within the congregation that the pastor was tolerating.

01:07:44

And then there was a rapist, which that didn't turn out very well. So a friend of mine suggested that we plant.

01:07:52

I'm like, we can't. I said, we're not qualified to plant. There's no way that could happen. And I said, listen, the only way that we're going to plant is if they do 40 days of purpose or something.

01:08:00

Okay. And the next week in the mail from the church, 40 days of purpose, they decided to do 40 days of purpose.

01:08:09

Really? We started considering it. And so eventually we did, we planted and God has always kept it very small.

01:08:18

And I think that's good because it's good in that.

01:08:24

Well, other people like during COVID, I mean, there were so many churches and there were a lot of genuine Christians, they stopped meeting.

01:08:31

They were worried about their budget. They were worried about the payroll. They were worried about the electric bill. They were worried about the government shutting them down.

01:08:38

We didn't have any of those issues. We had none of them. And what I found is if you just, by God's grace, preach the gospel, goats will not stay.

01:08:48

That's right. They're not interested. I mean, the terrors will come and they'll leave quickly. And we've had some and they won't stay.

01:08:56

There's nothing for them there. There's no, and we've kept it. We don't have church camp.

01:09:04

Go camping on your own. Bring your Bible with you if you want to, but don't drag the church into your camp. Okay. Just go camping.

01:09:10

Enjoy the nice weather. Thank God for the nice weather. Read your Bible at the campsite, but don't make it into the church's thing.

01:09:19

Yeah. Just go camping. Okay. Right. And it's been a blessing.

01:09:25

Yeah. It's not always been easy, but it has been a blessing. So there's a little bit of church out here, and we have a few members, and they come, and we go to the gospel.

01:09:33

We do some evangelism when we can do so. And I'm thankful for that.

01:09:40

Yeah. You're the pastor. Yeah. And it's Grace Family Bible Church in Sand Springs, Oklahoma.

01:09:50

In the middle of nowhere. Okay. In the middle of nowhere. What we did is initially when we got started, me and a couple other brothers, and we would take turns.

01:10:02

Okay. And then they ultimately moved. They went to Jenks, and then they ended up at Pryor, and so they left. And then there was other people that came, and we were meeting in a house for a long time.

01:10:13

And then we basically said, well, we need a space. We need a sequestered space.

01:10:18

You know, that can handle people. Sure. The hymnals. So I bought the biggest shed that you can legally buy without getting the flashing of trucks with the flags on them.

01:10:32

Got this giant shed. Okay. Yeah. And they hauled it into my front yard. Well, we have five acres.

01:10:39

That's on the north side of it. And we built it out. You know, I'm not a good carpenter. I'm a better accountant than a carpenter.

01:10:45

And it's a little spark. Yeah. It has a heater, and it has an air conditioner, and we're happy with that.

01:10:53

There you go. There you go. And you've still got a little bit of room, right? We do have a little bit of room.

01:10:59

Yeah. We do have a little bit of room. So, dear friends, if you're watching, and you happen to be in the

01:11:05

Sand Springs area, and you are looking for a good church, or if you're willing to drive a little bit, I can tell you

01:11:11

Mike Miller is a great guy. He's the real deal. He and I have been on many trips together.

01:11:17

He's on my board of directors. And so, yeah, I appreciate him very much. So, if you're looking for a good church,

01:11:25

I'll put the link down below to the website in the description. All right. All right.

01:11:31

That's great. I appreciate that. God bless you, too. Yeah. Appreciate you, Mike. God bless you. Todd, I want to close this video by making the same appeal to you that I've made to other false teachers.

01:11:47

Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Sid Roth, Todd White, Jesse Duplantis, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen, others.

01:11:56

I want to make the same appeal to you. Todd, I do not hate you. I do not hate you.

01:12:02

I hate what you're doing because you have brought untold reproach upon the name of Christ.

01:12:09

You have exploited people for your own personal gain. You have lied, faked signs and wonders, and brought untold reproach upon the name of Jesus.

01:12:19

I hate what you're doing, but I do not hate you. Todd, if you were to die right now, you would go straight to hell.

01:12:28

You are not a Christian. You cannot be indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God and do the things that you have done.

01:12:35

You cannot be indwelt by the Holy Spirit and live the life of unbroken immorality that you have lived for so many years.

01:12:47

If you were to die right now, Todd, you would spend eternity in the lake of fire, and I don't want that for you.

01:12:53

I want you to be found amongst the group of 2 Timothy 2, 24 through 26, those false teachers that God, in His merciful, sovereign grace, would extend to them true repentance, grant them repentance.

01:13:11

Todd, the bad news is that you're headed to hell. The good news,

01:13:17

Todd, is that God has made a way for you to escape His wrath. God sent

01:13:22

His Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth. Jesus was one person with two distinct natures, truly

01:13:29

God, truly man. And this God -man, Jesus Christ, lived a life of perfect pleasure and satisfaction to God the

01:13:38

Father. Jesus never broke any of God's laws. And then Jesus willingly laid down His life on the cross.

01:13:46

His life was not taken. He gave it. And on the cross, this perfect person offered

01:13:52

His perfect life as a perfect sacrifice to perfectly satisfy the perfect wrath of God.

01:14:00

Died on the cross 3 days later, bodily raised from the dead, proving Himself to be who

01:14:06

He said He was, God in human flesh. And Todd, if you will repent of your sin, turn from sin, and place your trust in what

01:14:16

Jesus did on the cross, His atoning sacrifice, once -for -all sacrifice.

01:14:22

If you will trust Him and Him alone and turn from your sin, He will save you. He will.

01:14:29

Jesus says, The one who comes to me I will in no wise cast out. If you come to Christ empty -handed,

01:14:36

Todd, if you come to Christ in what the Bible describes as a godly sorrow over your sin, in which you seek a

01:14:45

Savior not only from hell, which you should, but also a Savior from sin.

01:14:50

If you grieve over your sin because your sin has grieved God, if you grieve over your sin because you feel the weight of the incalculable reproach that you have brought upon the name of Jesus, He will save you.

01:15:08

And if God grants to you the gifts of faith and repentance, Todd, if God grants these things to you, there will be fruit in keeping with that repentance.

01:15:20

Your fruit will be evidenced by you coming out and publicly confessing your life of immorality, publicly confessing to people that you have lied to them, that you have faked miracles, faked signs and wonders, you've lived a life of immorality, that you've brought untold reproach upon the name of Christ.

01:15:43

I'm not saying you have to do these things to earn your salvation, Todd, but this is what you will want to do if God truly saves you.

01:15:51

Public teaching, public false teaching, requires public repentance.

01:15:59

And if God grants to you that repentance, one of the fruits that it will bear, one of the evidences that that repentance has been wrought by the

01:16:08

Holy Spirit in your life, is that you will realize you're not qualified to be behind the pulpit.

01:16:15

You will shut your ministry down. Everything that your ministry owns, you will liquidate, you will sell, and give every dime of that to doctrinally sound ministries, doctrinally sound churches.

01:16:29

And you'll find a good, doctrinally sound church that is led by biblically qualified men.

01:16:36

And Todd, you will never again be behind the pulpit. You'll be in front of the pulpit, sitting in a pew, learning.

01:16:46

And Todd, I want that for you. I don't want you to go where you're headed right now.

01:16:53

I would love to be able to call you my brother in Christ, Todd. I would love that.

01:16:59

And I'm not saying you have to do all these things to earn your salvation. No, no, no. That would be a work salvation.

01:17:05

Not at all. But if God truly saves you, you'll have a new heart, new desires, new affections.

01:17:13

And one of the things that you will desire to do is to make this right. Sell everything your ministry has.

01:17:21

Never again step behind the pulpit. Join a good, doctrinally sound church. Learn.

01:17:27

And then and only then will you begin to grow. And I truly do want that for you, Todd. Come to Christ empty -handed.

01:17:34

Jesus says, the one who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. All right, dear ones, thank you very much for watching.

01:17:43

Until our next time together, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all.