Sam Storms, Michael Brown, Benny Hinn and Repentance

Benny Hinn’s Call to Repentance and the Question of True Repentance

Dr. Michael Brown finally says that Benny Hinn needs to repent. But is that enough? Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen. 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. So yes, Dr. Michael Brown, just a couple of days ago, did indeed come out and say, finally, that Benny Hinn needs to repent. And this made a lot of news, and I want to address it now.

I'm a little bit hamstrung because there's a lot in that video that I need to address and give a more full treatment to. But right now, I just don't have the time to do that because I'm getting ready to fly out to Missouri to preach at a conference.

So Lord willing, I will do that next week. But I wanted to do this video, at least a short one, to address at least one of the more pertinent parts of this. And the need for Benny Hinn to repent. So I want to talk about that a minute.

Now, Dr. Brown did this, did his video, because Mike Winger put a long video on his YouTube channel about Benny Hinn and dealt with a lot of stuff. And I've watched parts of it. I haven't had time to watch it all yet.

But I am very appreciative of the things that Mike Winger said. And Mike Winger absolutely called him a false teacher, which Michael Brown is not willing to do. But Mike Winger said that he is a false teacher and he is on his way to hell.

And he's right about that. He is absolutely right about that. I actually called Mike and expressed to him my appreciation for the video that he put up because the parts I've seen of it was very well done.

And I've addressed a lot of the same things with Benny Hinn on my own YouTube channel, my teaching for many, many years. And I've got some videos, in fact, I'll link some of them down in the description.

I've dealt with Benny Hinn before. Has Benny Hinn truly repented? And who he is and the damage that this man does and the reproach that he brings upon the name of Christ. So at any rate, I want to show you this is a short clip from Dr. Brown's video on Benny Hinn.

This is from the early part of the show, and then I'll show you a clip from the later part of the show. But here's a short clip from the beginning part of Dr. Michael Brown's program.

But just in case, this is all of the broadcast that you get and you're going to tune out. Yes, categorically, without question, Benny Hinn must repent. At the very least of carnal manipulative fundraising, which he himself has renounced, but has gone back to again and again.

And at the very least of false prophecies that were given without accountability or public repentance or change. At the very least, those two things.

So Michael Brown says that Benny Hinn needs to repent of his carnal fundraising tactics and his false prophecies. Indeed, he does. Benny Hinn does need to repent of these things. The question, though, is what does that repentance look like?

What do you mean when you say Benny Hinn needs to repent of these things? What does that look like? Well, Michael Brown is about to tell us, and this is where I will take issue.

And where you see Benny Hinn has sinned, where his own words condemn him, pray for his real repentance. What would it look like? It would mean sitting down with other leaders that he respects.

Biblical Qualifications for Ministry and Why Benny Hinn Fails Them

Okay, a couple of points here. Brown says that we need to pray for Benny Hinn's repentance. I do that. Not every day, but I do pray for Benny Hinn. I pray for Kenneth Copeland and Andrew Womack and Creflo Dollar and Jesse Duplantis and Paula White.

I've prayed for her before. I would love to see Todd White. I would love to see these people come to a place of genuine repentance. I genuinely would. I would love that. And many of you who watch my channel, you know I've made direct personal appeals to Benny Hinn, to Kenneth Copeland, to Sid Roth, to Todd White.

And given them the gospel. But then he says that Benny Hinn needs to sit down with people that he respects. Dear friends, Benny Hinn is a hireling. Benny Hinn is a wolf. Benny Hinn is a false teacher.

He is a false prophet. If Benny Hinn is not a false teacher, if he's not a false prophet, then those terms have no meaning. If Benny Hinn's not a false prophet, no one is. I mean, the term literally has no meaning.

He meets every single biblical criterion as to how to discern a false prophet, false teacher. So anybody that Benny Hinn would respect, anybody that Benny Hinn would be willing to sit down with, suffice it to say, that person is not going to be a respectable person.

That person cannot be trusted. Anybody that Benny Hinn respects and looks up to and would seek advice from, no, no. Benny Hinn just surrounds himself with yes men. There is no accountability with Benny Hinn at all.

And he's not going to submit himself to anyone who is actually biblically qualified to be in ministry. But back to Michael Brown as he tells us what repentance with Benny Hinn would look like. And saying, let's look at this.

You've said this was wrong. You knew it's wrong. You've gone on and done the same thing. There must be repentance. There must be accountability. If money's been raised wrong, where has the money gone?

How has it been used? Questions that need to be asked for sure. And then bearing fruit in repentance is doing the opposite and fixing things and demonstrating a sincerely changed heart.

So, dear friends, what Michael Brown said there in and of itself is right. Benny Hinn needs to demonstrate repentance in that he needs to demonstrate his heart has been changed. In fact, I know Michael Brown doesn't really understand the profundity of what that would entail of Benny Hinn's heart being changed and what that would look like.

If Benny Hinn was truly repentant, it wouldn't simply be that Benny Hinn would no longer do his manipulative fundraising techniques. If Benny Hinn stopped tomorrow, if he never asked anyone ever again for another dime, never did that again, would that be repentance on Benny Hinn's part?

You might be tempted to say, well, yeah, that would be repentance. That's what Michael Brown thinks. It's what Sam Storms thinks. I will show you that in just a minute. Not even close. Not even close.

Repentance for Benny Hinn would look like this. Him shutting down his ministry because he's not biblically qualified to be in ministry. The Bible has extraordinarily high standards for preachers, for elders, people in positions of spiritual authority in the local church, in ministry, those who preach the name of Christ.

Let not many of you desire to become teachers, my brethren, knowing that we will incur a stricter judgment, says the half-brother of Jesus, James, in chapter 3, verse 1 of the letter that he wrote and bears his name.

Preachers are held to an extraordinarily high standard. I want us to look at 1 Timothy chapter 3. These are the qualifications for being an elder. Pastor, elder, interchangeable terms there. And what is true for a man who would be an elder, that is also true for a man who would be in public ministry.

If you're going to be in public ministry, then you need to meet these qualifications of 1 Timothy chapter 3. Let's take a look at them. It is a trustworthy saying, if a man aspires to the office of overseer, again, pastor, elder, overseer, those are interchangeable words.

He desires a good work. An overseer then must be above reproach. Dear friends, Benny Hinn is a lot of things. He is not above reproach on any conceivable level. On the moral level, on the integrity level, character level, he's not above reproach.

The husband of one wife. Temperate, temperate. Temperate, Benny Hinn, no, he's not temperate. Sensible, no. Respectable. Let me put it that respectable. Anybody that would respect Benny Hinn is not respectable.

If you respect Benny Hinn and you know who he is, I have no respect for you. Hospitable, able to teach, able to teach. Benny Hinn has taught some of the looniest and zaniest things that I have ever heard come from.

I mean, it's chasing another rabbit here. Some of the stuff he has taught is Sid Roth kind of lunacy. And that's a whole other issue. But able to teach, I mean, he taught that Adam was able to fly through space.

He was a superman. And women were originally intended to give birth out of their sides. And when the Red Sea parted, the walls of the water actually froze. And the ice actually came down and crushed the Egyptians.

I mean, just loony tune stuff. So able to teach, no, he's not able to teach. Has he taught some right things? Yes, but every false teacher does. Every false teacher does. There is some truth mixed in with the error, with the poison.

Not addicted to wine or pugnacious. I don't know about Benny Hinn's alcoholic preferences, whatever. Considerate, considerate, considerate. I have been to 18 Benny Hinn crusades. Eighteen. I've been in the trenches.

I've seen the man up close. I've seen what he does. I have seen his unbelievable exploitation of the poor, of the sick, of the desperate, of the widows. I have video of him from a couple of months ago saying to poor people, What little you have left, give to the Lord.

In other words, give that to me. What little you have left.

False Fundraising, Exploitation, and the Meaning of Repentance

All right. Thank you for being with me today. But now it's time to give to the Lord's work. God, if we give little, God gives us little. If we give much, God gives us much. If we give reluctantly, we receive reluctantly.

Okay? God literally responds to the way we give. With the same measure, it says you give, you'll receive. So do it today. Give with joy. God loves a cheerful giver.

You know who else loves a cheerful giver? Benny Hinn.

So are you facing a financial difficulty right now? There's only one way out of it. I wonder what that could be. It's not by complaining or borrowing money. Give to the Lord.

Oh, give to the Lord. I guess I should have seen that coming. But, you know, Benny, what if I don't have much money? What if I only have a little money left?

Even that little you have left, give it to God. Even that little you have left, give it to God. I see.

I need to give that too. So if you're down to your last nickel, give it to Benny Hinn. Consider it. I've seen what the television cameras won't show you. That at his crusades, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of sick people.

People in wheelchairs. I've seen people lying on the floor on a blanket. So sick they can't even sit up. They can't even sit up. They're lying on the floor. Dying. Desperate for a miracle. Consider it.

I've seen parents. I cannot even tell you how many parents I have talked to. I go to these things. I go to these crusades, and I talk to people. And I share the gospel with them, and I hear their stories.

I've... Consider it. You know how many parents I've talked to who have brought their sick children to Benny Hinn? Kids in wheelchairs. Kids on breathing machines. A woman that I can see her in my mind's eye right now.

At a Benny Hinn crusade I was at in Oklahoma. And she was sitting there on the floor. After the service was over. After she had already given her money to Benny Hinn. Because I actually watched her when the bags came around.

I saw her put money in. And then I saw her after the service. She was sitting down on the floor. Everybody was kind of filtering out. She was sitting down on the floor with her back to the wall. Holding her little boy who appeared to be maybe four or five years old.

With a grossly misshapen head. Hydrocephalus. Grossly misshapen. And she told me that her little boy probably is not even aware that he's alive. He just has... He doesn't even have all of his brain. His brain basically keeps his heart beating and his lungs breathing.

That's about it. Grossly misshapen. I can see it in my mind's eye right now. No skin off Benny Hinn's back. No biggie. He just took her money. And he goes home. At the time, I think, had his $10 million plus parsonage overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

California. Consider it. Do you have any idea of the devastation that this man has left in his wake? Do you have any idea how many hundreds of thousands of lives this man has ruined? How many people whose faith has been shipwrecked by this wolf, by this hireling?

Consider it. What a joke. Would you like to know about these folks? These are people that I met at a Benny Hinn crusade. This is a woman with her son. Her son was born able-bodied. Nothing wrong with him.

As a teenager, he was snow skiing. And he skied into a tree. And it left him in this state. And he will be in this state for the rest of his life. And his mother brought him, in desperation, to a Benny Hinn crusade.

Hoping beyond hope that her son would be healed. But they left in the same state in which they arrived. He left in the same wheelchair in which he arrived. Only thing that was different was her pocketbook was a little bit lighter.

Maybe a lot lighter. I don't know the amount. But I do know that she gave money to Benny Hinn. Consider it. The only thing that Benny Hinn considers about this woman is her money. That's what he considers.

Peaceable. Free from the love of money. Free from the love of money. What a joke. Are you kidding me? Free from the love of money? Do you see any of those biblical qualifications that Benny Hinn meets?

That man is no more qualified to be in ministry than I'm qualified to be a rock climbing instructor. He literally meets none of the biblical criterion that an elder should meet, that a man in the ministry should meet.

None of them. Given that, repentance for Benny Hinn would look like him shutting down his ministry. In fact, I want to show you a clip from the roundtable discussion. I'm going to show you. I take no joy in this at all.

It actually really grieves my heart. A discussion that Sam Storms and Michael Brown and Jim Osman and I had about Benny Hinn related to the nine-member Godhead. When you see this clip, in light of everything I've just said, when you see this clip, you'll understand why I say that neither Michael Brown nor Sam Storms understands what repentance is, what true biblical repentance is.

We're going to talk about the nine-member Godhead. You'll hear, particularly Sam Storms, press me. Hasn't Benny Hinn stopped teaching that? He's not teaching that anymore. Watch this. Listen very carefully.

Then I'll flesh it out more on the other end.

The Nine-Member Godhead, False Retracting, and Public Sin

I've never met him. I've met his wife, but I've never met him. I haven't either. I think his ministry style is very bad, manipulative. It can deceive people. Some of the claims that he makes, obviously, you know better than I do, may not have been proven to be true.

So Sam Storms admits that Benny Hinn's ministry style is very bad and manipulative and deceives people. Okay, well, if that's true, then tell me, how does he meet the biblical requirements in 1 Timothy 3?

So those things are not evidence enough for you to say, I reject his profession of faith? No. Sam Storms and Michael Brown both affirm Benny Hinn as a brother. Now, do they recognize that there are some problems with Benny Hinn?

Yes, they do. But do they think he is a brother? Yes, they do. Now we're about to get into the nine-member Godhead thing, and this is going to be very telling and, by God's grace, instructive for us.

Just to follow up, the nine-God thing, I remember when that came up. That was like 30 years ago, wasn't it? It was in the early 90s. If Benny Hinn were sitting here and I pressed him, do you believe there are nine persons in the Godhead?

And if he said yes, I would say, I seriously doubt that you're a born-again man. I don't know that he would sit here and profess that today. I hope and pray he would not.

No, he wouldn't, but not because of any conviction. He wouldn't because he took such universal criticism for it. I mean, just comically heretical. But he did not retract it in the sense that you may be thinking.

What happened was he gave this statement at the Orlando Christian Center, Orlando, obviously, that he was pastoring at the time. I have the video. He taught on the nine-member Godhead, said each member of the Godhead is in and of itself, of himself, a triune member.

Triune member by himself. He said, if I can shock you, and maybe I should, there's nine of them. So he took a lot of criticism for this, and then he went on the Pat Robertson program, and he retracted it in that he said, oh, yeah, I just made that comment.

It was a brief comment, and it was just a funny statement. Everybody thought it was funny. They laughed, and I moved on, and I didn't even think about it. So in other words, he passed it off as like this off-the-hand comment that he made that nobody thought anything of, just kind of laughed it off.

He went on and never gave it a second thought until he got started to get criticism for it. That's a lie. That's a lie. I have the video. He taught on the nine-member Godhead for a solid 12 minutes. It was not an off-the-hand comment.

Not only did he teach the nine-member Godhead, he claimed as his source for this heresy God himself. He said he got this through divine revelation knowledge. God told him this.

Don't think for a moment that we would approve of that. I mean, that is outrageous.

So that's not repentance. He lied in his retraction. So, friends, don't miss that. Benny Hinn lied in his retraction. Not only is the nine-member Godhead heretical and just comically stupid, but he lied in his retraction.

So what is lying? That's sin. So he just added sin upon sin. And it's not just the heretical sin. He claimed that he got that information from God. So he is putting words in God's mouth that he did not say, and he's lying in his retraction.

It was pure damage control. That's all it was, and he lied in his retraction. So keep that in mind, that in his retraction he lied. Keep that in mind as we continue to watch this.

But in the 25 years that have followed, do you know the man's heart to the degree that you can say he was never sincere in his repentance and retraction? Yes, because he didn't repent. He didn't repent.

And you know that how? Storms asked me, do you know the man's heart so that you know that he didn't truly repent? After I just got through explaining that Benny Hinn lied in his retraction, and then Storms asked me, well, do I know the man's heart?

Well, yeah, I know the man's heart because he lied. It's not registering at all with Sam Storms. Because he lied in his retraction. When he was challenged, when he was asked about it, he tried to explain in a way he lied in his supposed repentance.

Was this like, what, 25 years ago, 30 years ago?

Yeah, yeah, like late 90s I think is when he explained it away.

So, no, that's not repentance. Maybe on that occasion it wasn't, but has it subsequently?

So Sam Storms, this is what, the third time that he thinks just because it happened a long time ago, just because Benny Hinn hasn't repeated the nine-member Godhead, then that means he's repentant of it.

And no matter how many times I explain, no, it's not, he hasn't repented just because he hasn't repeated the nine-member Godhead, because he sinned in his retraction. No matter how many times I explain that to Dr. Storms and Dr. Brown, it's not registering with them.

And so in this clip, I'm about to show them, I'm about to tell them what real repentance would look like. Has he retracted it repeatedly? No, he has never owned up to the lie that he said that he got this from God.

God was his source. God told him there were nine members of the Godhead. He has never, if he was truly repentant, this is what it would look like. Benny Hinn would come out and say, you know that nine-member Godhead thing that I taught?

I lied about that. I claim that God told me that was the truth. God didn't tell me that. I lied to you. I lied in my retraction of it, saying that it was an off-the-hand comment that everybody laughed about.

That was a lie. I have lied about, I have given thousands of false prophecies over the course of my ministry. I've exploited the poor, the sick, the desperate, and the widow for personal financial gain.

I've done this the entire course of my ministry. I have claimed false miracles, manufactured false signs and wonders. I have done this the entire span of my almost half-a-century ministry. I continue to do it up to this very day.

You would be hard-pressed to watch a single episode of Benny Hinn's program and not see him tell people, sow a seed, reap a harvest. Give me money, God will bless you. Give me money, God will heal you.

Give me money, God will heal you of cancer.

He's doing that to this very day. That's not repentance.

I don't mean to get worked up, but this is such a belittling of the biblical doctrine of repentance. If he was truly repentant, he would come out and he would say all of that. Public sin requires public repentance.

He would say, I now realize, because of almost 50 years of false prophecies, of lying to you, of exploiting the poor, the sick, and the desperate, and the widow for personal financial gain, for bringing untold reproach upon the name of Christ, I now realize that I am unqualified, disqualified to be in ministry.

I'm shutting my ministry down, selling everything the ministry has, giving every cent, every light bulb, every chair, everything the ministry has. Selling it, giving it to doctrinally sound ministries, doctrinally sound churches, and I'm going to find a doctrinally sound church, led by a biblical plurality of men, elders, and I'm no longer going to be behind the pulpit.

I'm going to be in the front of the pulpit, sitting in the pew and learning. That would be repentance. That, dear friends, is what real repentance would look like. And anything short of that makes a mockery of repentance.

And that whole interaction with Sam Storms and Michael Brown, honestly, was not just one of the most frustrating parts of that entire roundtable discussion, but it was also one of the most disheartening parts of it because I saw then that neither of these men really understand what repentance is.

And you heard Storms, he kept saying, Well, has he repeated it? Has he repeated it? That was 30 years ago, 20 some odd years ago. Has he taught it since? In his mind, in Brown's mind, just because Benny Hinn hasn't repeated the nine-member Godhead heresy is proof that he's repentant of it.

And no matter how many times I explained it, like, no, this is not repentance. He lied in his retraction. All he did was dig his hole deeper. He just added sin upon sin. He hasn't repented of anything.

And no matter how many times I described this to them, it's like they didn't get it. They didn't understand. And friends, the cessation of certain sins in and of itself is not repentance. Please don't think that just because you've stopped a certain sin necessarily, necessarily means that you've repented of it.

It could mean that, but it doesn't necessarily mean that. So let me give you an example. Let's take a hypothetical husband and wife, and the wife catches her husband looking at porn on the computer. And she confronts him.

He says, Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it. And, well, he does it again. And he does it again. He does it again. Finally, the wife goes to the elders of the church, and she tells them what's going on.

And so the elders get involved. And then the elders and the wife together, they decide, Okay, you're ruining your marriage. This has got to stop. You're not stopping on your own. So we're going to take away your computer, and we're going to take away your smartphone.

We're going to give you a dumb phone. We're going to give you a little flip phone from year 2000 or whatever. So they take away his access to pornography. Guess what? He stops looking at porn. Does it mean he's repented?

No, no, a thousand times no. Why? Because his heart has not been changed. Just because the access to that sin has been removed doesn't mean the heart has been changed. And you heard Sam Storms. He asked me, Well, how do you know his heart hasn't changed?

Because he keeps lying about it. And I know his heart hasn't been changed because he's still in ministry when he's not qualified to be in ministry. That's how I know his heart hasn't changed. He literally meets none of the biblical qualifications for a man to be in ministry, and yet he's in ministry.

So no, he hasn't repented. And he's never owned up to lying. He's never owned up to putting words in God's mouth that he didn't say. He lied about, in his retraction, he lied about it. It's like I don't know how to describe this any more clearly so you can understand, and yet they did not understand.

In fact, just a couple of days ago, Brown, if you watched his program about does Benny Hinn need to repent, if you watched that, you might have caught that he said that he and I had been in an email exchange right before the program, and that is true.

And I want to show you, I'm going to read just one sentence in one of his emails that he sent to me. He said, and I quote, I also don't believe it's right to raise the nine gods issue which came up at the round table in which you still raised.

How disheartening. I mean, why is it wrong to raise that? It goes directly to who Benny Hinn is. They don't understand what repentance is. They don't understand repentance. And that for me was very, very telling and very, very disheartening.

And there's more that I want to say about this, but I think that will suffice for now. All right, dear ones. I don't hate Michael Brown at all. I don't hate Sam Storms at all, but I have grave concerns, particularly dealing with their seemingly just lack of ability to understand what real repentance is.

And even from a couple of days ago, Brown to say that it wasn't right for me to bring that up. I want to close with this. Sadly, neither Sam Storms nor Michael Brown seem to understand what true biblical repentance is.

In fact, the underlying sin that led to Benny Hinn's nine-member Godhead teaching is him claiming that he got that information from God, that God gave him that information. God spoke to him and gave him that information.

Benny Hinn has had an unbroken pattern of claiming that God is speaking to him about a great many things, completely unbroken. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to watch a single episode of Benny Hinn's program on his YouTube channel and not hear him say, The Lord told me.

I mean, that's just standard fare for him and pretty much all charismatics. So given that, and Sam Storms and Michael Brown both think that Benny Hinn is a Christian. They both think he is their brother in Christ.

And Sam Storms, to his credit, has been harder on Benny Hinn than has Michael Brown. But they both think that he's a Christian. So I guess that is what it is. But my question for Michael Brown would be this.

Michael, you say that Benny Hinn needs to repent of his manipulative fundraising tactics and false prophecies, and you think that just looks like him not doing it anymore and sitting down with people he respects.

I say it looks like him shutting down his ministry because he is not qualified for ministry. I don't even know how that can be argued. I mean, he clearly does not meet the biblical requirements to be in ministry from 1 Timothy 3 at all on any level.

So my question is this. Dr. Brown, do you believe that Benny Hinn should be in ministry at all? Do you believe he should get out of ministry? That is my question. And it's going to be hard for you to say yes, because if you say yes, that Benny Hinn should not be in ministry, then the dominoes start falling.

Because Benny Hinn has very close ties with Jesus Image, Michael Koulianos, Bethel Church, Bill Johnson. If Benny Hinn should not be in ministry, then Jesus Image and Bethel Church, other issues notwithstanding, have no business having Benny Hinn come and preach for them as they do, partnering with them as they do, particularly Jesus Image.

And what about Vlad Savchuk? What about David Diga Hernandez? These are close friends with Benny Hinn. They endorsed Benny Hinn, partnered with Benny Hinn, and you're about to speak at a conference with these men.

The dominoes start falling really quickly on a great many things, and I want to address some of those other things, Lord willing, in a video next week. So that is my question. Do you think Benny Hinn should be in ministry, or do you think he should step down immediately from his ministry?

All right, dear ones, thank you very much for joining me. 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.