Benny Hinn's Legacy: Costi Hinn & Mike Winger | Cultish

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The following episode is dedicated to the victims of Benny Hinn. If you are a survivor or victim of spiritual abuse, please consider reaching out to our partners at BeEmboldened .com

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forward slash membership. At BeEmboldened, they exist as a nonprofit who is dedicated to finding freedom from spiritual abuse.

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KULTISH with a capital C 5 0 for 50 % off your first month subscription.

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Thank you. All right, welcome back to KULTISH, ladies and gentlemen.

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My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here. Very super excited for this episode. We have a meeting of the minds,

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I guess you would say. This is a mind hive of an episode. I'm really excited to see where this is going to go. As always, I am joined by Andrew, super sleuth of the show up in Utah.

00:51

How you doing, man? I'm doing well, man. I'm very excited for this episode. I mean, we have

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Kosti Hinn on and Mike Winger, right? I remember hearing about Kosti back in 2019 when I read his book,

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God, Greed and the Prosperity Gospel. Great book, phenomenal. So if anyone's out there and you want to get more familiar with him and his story, you can go ahead and read that.

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And I think the last time we had Mike on too was when we talked about Flat Earth. So I'm hoping that this story, everything we're going to talk about today will go all around the globe.

01:19

So I'm excited, man. Needless to say. Yeah. And Kosti, man, welcome. This is your first time being on the KULTISH.

01:24

I'm surprised it's taken this long, especially since you're local. So thanks for taking the time to be with us here today. I'm grateful for you guys and all that you do.

01:31

Awesome. So, Mike, we are here today because we did, you did a video not too long ago.

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It was an expose on Benny Hinn. If you all haven't seen it, go to Mike Winger's YouTube channel,

01:45

Bible Thinker, and check it out. Roughly a little over four hours long. Let me ask you this,

01:51

Mike, what, what prompted you to make this video? There's a lot of content that you cover. Why this and why now?

01:57

Right. The, I've been asked for years, since 2019, when Benny Hinn came out and did a more recent repentance that actually went kind of viral, a lot of people knew about it.

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I have been, people have been asking me, sending me all these messages, hey, Mike, do you think he really repented? And I had in the past said, you know, hey,

02:14

Benny Hinn is someone you want to stay away from. But I'd never done like just casually here and there.

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I never done like a video on it. And so four years went by and I did not answer people's questions about whether Benny Hinn really repented because I took a wait and see approach coupled with a,

02:30

I'm not really paying attention. So I just didn't talk about stuff I don't know about. Well, videos surfaced where he was very much manipulating people, lying to people in the name of God, asking them to give in specific ways that he had very much said grieved the heart of God, hurt people, caused people to be unbelievers and made him scared for his soul in 2019.

02:53

He's doing it later, more recently. So I thought I'll do a quick, you know, I do I do question and answer every

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Friday. I'll do a quick question on Benny Hinn. Did you repent? I'll show a little clip to let people know. Yeah. Watch out for this person.

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He's not a safe teacher. So but I want to do my diligence. So I look a little deeper. OK, let me just let me just make sure that I'm understand the context of this clip.

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Make sure that I'm really accurately representing what's going on here. And I kept finding really bad stuff.

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And when I say bad stuff, I don't just mean that it offends me personally. I mean, it's an it is an offense to God's offense to scripture.

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And what really grieved me probably the most, to be honest, was the victims. There's a lot of people that he's hurting.

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And it just kept getting worse from fake healings, putting people up as puppets and props where you cause them harm to bring yourself glory in the name of Christ, manipulating people into giving you money, telling targeting the poor with false giving claims like there were so many things where this is why

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I titled my video The Victims of Benny Hinn, because I thought most people I hear talk about Benny Hinn.

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And they talk about like he's just some sort of isolated phenomena they can examine from afar. But I wanted people to realize he's actually hurting real people.

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Yeah, it's like there's a real people whose lives are being damaged in the name of Christ as we prop up what is ultimately a false ministry.

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It's it's it was so shocking to me and so grieving that I did a big video on the topic hoping to help people.

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Yeah, I wasn't expecting it to get as much attention as it did, though. Yeah. And Kosti, if you could just tell everyone a lot of people know who you are, just tell everyone just a little bit about yourself and why this conversation is important to you.

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Because as much as Mike's in the research and excellent video, this is really on to you on a very personal level.

04:33

Talk about that if you could. Yeah. When you guys reached out, I was really excited because I sometimes and this is not like a poor me thing at all.

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And it's not even the full extent of it all as far as reality goes. But I would say sometimes I feel as though we're on a bit of an island where if you're in sort of the reform dish type of camp or in a tighter dark doctrinal circle, like the idea of going after false teaching and dealing with my uncle

05:01

Benny is very normal. And so, again, I know that many people in different traditions and different belief systems have dealt with him.

05:09

I know that across the board, even some of his own kind of Pentecostal counterparts have said, like I've talked to assembly of God guys that are like, yeah, your uncle's crazy.

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But in general, you know, it can feel like a bit of an island where one particular theological group goes after this stuff.

05:24

Everyone else just says, yeah, you know, we don't worry about, we don't focus on what's false. We just focus on what's true. Yada, yada, yada.

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For me on a personal level, maybe just kind of going one layer deeper. There are times where I think, man, the level of which

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I've seen the abuse, I wrote a book on it. I, I wanted to deal with it, but ultimately

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I'm a pastor. And so I want to shepherd the flock. I can't live my life, you know, as a, as an anti Benny Hinn apologist, uh, no one, no one can.

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But in dealing with the issues and seeing them up close, I at times wonder like, man, it would be great if more people would pay attention to the level.

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I don't think people fully understand the level of damage. And I would say that with respect to knowing that Justin Peters has done a good job and so many others have done a great job and cultish has done a phenomenal job.

06:17

Yes. And amen. But I don't think people fully feel the weight of it now. That's normal because I grew up in it.

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And anytime you're close to something, you feel the pain and you feel the weight of it. When Mike did what he did,

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I not, I would say not a hyperbolic way. It almost fell off my chair sort of thing. But I went, Oh baby,

06:35

Mike winger is it? Okay. And it felt like, um, I don't watch wrestling a lot now, but when

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I was a kid, I was super into wrestling. And when someone gets tagged in and the crowd goes absolutely out of their mind for the tag team partner,

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I felt as though like Mike winger got tagged in. And in my mind first,

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I was super proud of him and super, I know he's not looking for that, but I was so excited cause

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I thought, Oh, you are going to take some hits, my friend, you are going to get the whole crowd that doesn't like this sort of thing.

07:05

Oh, now Mike's a single issue crusader. And I seen some of the comments, people, you know, Mike, you know, it seems like you're just really on a kind of a bender here against Benny hand, or you're turning into one of those guys.

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And I thought, Oh, you people, you're not seeing it. He's actually doing the entire body of Christ, whatever your denomination or tradition, an incredible service of love and faithfulness.

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He's going to take haymaker after haymaker. And by the way, in about two years, three years, four years, one year,

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Mike will be onto something else and he'll just be keep going faithfully like he has, but he's going to spend a little season doing some work and he's actually serving people.

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So when people were doing that, I saw that. And then generally seeing the, the four hour kind of mini doc that he did and also being aware of how right after Mike, Steve Strang, charisma magazine, have him on Steve's an old family friend.

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And that I knew right away, I remember in 2019, uh, my book was coming out.

08:04

I got a phone call from David Diga Hernandez, who is quite large now on YouTube.

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If you, and you did a great job with all of this, Mike, but David's all over the internet now too. He's sort of an understudy to my uncle and sort of the next

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Benny Hinn I would refer to him as, um, David calls me and I was pastoring over here locally and he's like, man, your uncle's done nothing sinful.

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I don't know what you're doing with this book and all this coming out, but I'm telling you right now, like he has nothing to repent for. I don't know why you're attacking him.

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And I was like, David, come on, man. So we talked and we reasoned and all of that. That was leading into the book coming out in the summer of 2019 by,

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I believe, I don't know if it was September or whatever the month was in 2019 when my uncle publicly repents.

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He's in that video. David's behind him in the studio and clapping and getting so excited. And I remember just thinking like nothing to repent for a like brother, they, we just talked privately.

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So the book comes out, there's a big repentance thing and American gospels on the heels of that. There's a lot happening.

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He repents. That's a good PR move. And so people became aware and then it goes away.

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And then Mike comes out with what he does and there's strategic repentance. We're not conspiracy theorists.

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There's just clear patterns for the sake of PR. And when you guys were doing this and you asked me,

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I thought, what a great opportunity to link up with some brothers and I love Mike and appreciate what he's done.

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I love you guys. And so thankful that more voices are on this and there's a lot more awareness on even the next generation.

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Yeah. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to sit up here at manager. Do you have anything you want to say? Yeah. I was just wondering, like in terms of Benny Hinn's repentance, if there's people who aren't familiar with some of his doctrine,

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Mike, if you could just kind of describe like things that he taught about Jesus, like who was

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Jesus to him, who was a God, the father, like how are people saved according to Benny Hinn, what types of things did, should he ought to have repented for, you know,

09:53

I know the victimizing of individuals, but what, what exactly was false in Benny Hinn's doctrines just for people who may not be essentially aware of some of the doctrines he taught?

10:04

Well, I mean, in the past, Benny Hinn had much, you know, stronger false doctrines that he openly taught.

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And then the Christian community started rising up against that. And in response to that, he changed in some of those ways.

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So he was teaching like a nine member Trinity, that there's a nine member Godhead. He was leaning towards the little gods.

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Well, he was more than leaning. He was teaching little, like we're all little gods. Both of those things he pulled back from years ago.

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And it seems to me that he pulled back from them in a direct response to an outcry from individuals.

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He also, when he pulled back, he publicly lied about the specifics about what he had taught. And it was so it kind of proved to me that what he was doing was damage control.

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Let me, before I say this, there's going to be those watching who are thinking like, you guys are just being overly critical. You just don't love forgiveness and repentance.

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And I'd say, no, no, no, that's not the case at all. Let me give you guys an example, though, I was for years and years, I was a domestic violence counselor.

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So I would work with perpetrators, guys who've committed domestic violence and try to work through them.

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One of the issues with domestic violence is discerning the difference between genuine and false repentance.

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False repentance is something that in the DV camp we call the honeymoon phase.

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This is where a man reforms behavior to mirror what the woman wants from him.

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I will mirror what you wish I was and I'll do it for a season, but then I will go right back to the old behaviors and the old practices.

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The longer that the DV cycle goes on where there's a honeymoon phase and there's a tension building phase and there's outbursts of violence, the longer that then they break up, then there's a honeymoon phase again.

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Right. It just goes like this. The longer it goes on, usually the shorter it gets so that the honeymoon phase is shorter and shorter and shorter.

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It used to be a month. Maybe now it's maybe now it's just an afternoon. Sometimes it's really short.

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This is Benny Hinn's cycle in ministry. His repentance is a honeymoon phase to woo the body of Christ back into his grip.

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He then begins to do the same old thing again. So he's doing this once again, the Stephen Strang interview, the past stuff with repenting of preaching nine member

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Godhead or other things. They were coupled with certain sort of things that we look for as a DV counselor, as well as just as a

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Christian who's trying to assert trying to easily figure out if somebody's genuine or fake in their repentance is do they minimize their sin?

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Do they deny the things that they've done in the past? Do they blame others instead of taking accountability? And Benny was doing all those things.

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And then do they secretly go on to repeat those sins while trying to pretend that they're no longer doing them? Benny Hinn also does those things.

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So with his theology, I think Benny is happy to preach repentance and faith in Christ and the cross of Christ as it relates to not not relates to prosperity, but as it relates to other issues.

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He's happy to preach those things because just imagine for a second that he doesn't mind proclaiming and enjoys proclaiming the truths of Christ because they all feed into his general sense of power and authority in the body of Christ.

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But when it comes to preaching that you give money to God in order to get money from God and that you do certain spiritual offerings to God in order to get healings from God and things like that, and that these things are sort of guaranteed and that sort of stuff is false doctrine that wreaks unknown havoc in people's lives.

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It's it's crazy the amount of harm it causes the. The kind of effect he's having in Africa, the impact that actually, especially

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Africa, the impact that actually has in the body of Christ, as well as on the examples that Kosti talks about, like David Diga Hernandez and other guys who copy him, it's it's just it's it's hard to explain how far reaching the impact of these false things are.

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So I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not that he has blatant false doctrine on core issues.

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That wouldn't help him serve his cause of wooing the body of Christ. Instead, he has blatant false teaching on other issues that you might go, is that primary?

13:54

Not exactly. But the way you emphasize it, it becomes a primary concern. Yeah, I just want to say one thing, and I know

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I know and there's a lot going on there I'm just thinking of like a linear timeline.

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I'm thinking about when I was a young Christian. This is back in my 20s. And this is a long time ago.

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And I'm thinking there's a lot has changed, but there's also nothing new under the sun. So I remember being a brand new

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Christian and being my friend, one of my friends from church came over and I was kind of really excited about apologetics, kind of just caged agent on everything when it came to just trying to consume every piece of theological content that I could.

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Someone came to my house after church with a tape cassette of Christianity in crisis by Hank Hanegraaff.

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And that was the first time I was introduced to a lot of Benny Hinn's theology stuff that you critiqued in your video,

14:45

Mike, I heard for the very first time in 20 something years ago on tape cassette. Wow. And from a media standpoint back then, you know,

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Benny Hinn was was he was always on TBM, the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Everyone watch on everyone who just would.

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That's how he would communicate. Now, the majority of media is all we consume content here.

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And now what you're looking at, he has a massive social media following. How many subscribers do you say he has,

15:12

Mike? Like, what are his stats as far as the as far as influence goes when it comes to like, how many millions of YouTube followers, like seven million

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Facebook followers? Yeah. So Facebook, he's got a much larger following. And also,

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I think on Twitter, I don't know about Instagram. Yeah. His YouTube following is actually when

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I first made my video, I had just I just got more subscribers. Yeah. Whatever.

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Yeah. I can be petty and enjoy that. And I guess I will. I just got more subscribers than him.

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But but the thing is that we do we can measure it through like those those things. And that's true.

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That's one way of measuring his influence. But there are prominent teachers in pastors in Africa.

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OK, just like I know the American church. There's a whole world of the African church. And there are prominent teachers there who will say that every prosperity and no, excuse me, every healing in particular, because Benny has all these fake healing things he does that are very, very detrimental to the body of Christ and for the name of Christ.

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They'll say every healing ministry in Africa traces back to Benny. That kind of influence can't even be measured by subscribers and followers.

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No. Like that is that is a type of real world. And if you go and Google, I would challenge the people watching this, go and look up African healing crusades online.

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Yeah. And look at the shenanigans that are done in the name of Christ. That is partly because of Benny Hinn and his 30 plus years of influence that he has had.

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It's it's just it's nuts. They they know in Africa that a non national someone who's not even from their continent has radically influenced their culture of church.

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And the guy's name has been here. The other one's Kenneth Copeland, by the way. Openly say, yeah, he's he's the guy.

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These guys have a bigger influence in the African church than they do in the American church. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's shocking.

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Yeah. Did you want to add on to that? I statistically one point one million followers on Instagram for Uncle Benny, but that you're spot on,

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Mike, that it doesn't even measure or scale to the actual influence because the amount of people that mimic him, that copy him.

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Yeah, I think earlier to to Mike's point, the amount of abuse, the amount of people damaged by it all is monumental.

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The the global influence of it all. But yeah, I hearing him address this fires me up.

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And one of the main reasons would be a lot of people will brush this off as conspiracy theory, as heresy hunting, as all those things.

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But the main point that he just made that gets me the most excited is what most people overlook.

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So you got to understand that the average false teacher or the average like major, major influencer is not going to spew the exact heresy you need to pin them.

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They're too smart for that. They're well aware that if they were to be that blatantly obvious, we'd all be done with them.

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Their money stream is not coming primarily from people who love heresy or are

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Satanists that you can't blatantly be against Christ. You have to be very subtle. That all ties back to second

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Peter two, though, where Peter is explaining that they'll secretly introduce destructive heresies. The whole purpose of it all is to be more of an infiltrator.

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So many times over, you know, guys will get brushed off as as just being heresy hunters. That's one of the easiest ways to kind of mute everything.

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And you end up feeling like conspiracy theorist. And, you know, it's like you you're just one of those weirdos who thinks that this, that or the other.

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And the fact that it gets this much now attention and this much actual research is super helpful, because what

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Mike's saying, people need to remember. I remember one of the first times that I talked to Justin Peters after being converted.

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I just thanked him for some of his work. And he said with his Southern twang, you know, well, brother, I have heard your uncle preach a better gospel than some

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Baptist preachers. You know, it's not the fact that he doesn't preach the gospel at all. He said, it's all the stuff afterwards.

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That really is part of that approach. Yeah. He does a very good job doing that.

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I'm very, I'm really curious, too. And Mike, I'll let you, and you can let me talk to you, too, is that when you're talking about just the origins of Benny Hinn, was there do you think

19:28

I was curious about this when I was watching your video, Mike, too, is that what do you think it was when he first started?

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He started maybe with pure motives initially, and then maybe through the love of money, maybe he broke bad in a sense.

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And then he kind of went through like with his message or from day one, digital motives ultimately could read his heart.

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That's just something I was just generally curious about. If you go back to, you know, pre even if there's like a pre -TBN area,

19:55

I'm just curious about that, if you have any thoughts on that. So can I first, not to try to like order it for you, just if Mike, I don't know.

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So I have thoughts and I've got like personal ones and stories and a few things that don't always make it into books.

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But if Mike, do you want to chime in on some of what you saw as the Genesis and see without me saying anything?

20:17

Yeah. What your thoughts are? Okay, well, you would know, you probably know more about this than I would.

20:23

Because when you once this is why I said 30 years of spiritual deception, even though he's been doing ministry longer.

20:29

Yeah. It was because 93 was the point at which I go, look, I can prove it. Okay. Right. Yeah. From like the 90s until now,

20:36

I can prove it. Okay. You go back further. The data is a lot harder to gather. It's a lot more difficult to construct the situation.

20:42

And I'm trying to conserve. The thing is, I'm people don't even know how much stuff I think is true that I simply cannot demonstrate left on the cutting room floor.

20:50

Yeah. I have no idea how bad things are. Things are way worse than my video. Yes. It's seen his impact on people is so bad.

20:57

I even now I heard people who said Binihan used to be anointed. He was really, truly anointed back in and they said the 90s.

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In some cases, they were like, you don't understand. And I'm like, I went back and watched those events. That was not anointing.

21:11

That was showmanship. Yes. This was not the Holy Spirit. This is Hollywood. That was what was happening there.

21:19

And I don't mean that nobody got saved because people get saved in all kinds of circumstances. A Satanist could be screaming against Christ and lying about God all day long.

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And then someone walks by and that's the moment the Holy Spirit works in their heart. And they go, whoa, I need to get right with God. Like, yeah, people get saved.

21:36

But the showmanship was there. I know he talks a lot about Catherine Coleman.

21:42

I mean, a lot, a lot, a lot. He talks about her more than anybody else, maybe next to God. He talks about Catherine Coleman.

21:48

And so he'll speak about learning from her and involving himself in different events and stuff like that.

21:56

I don't know about the Genesis. He tells stories about his past and how he was a guy with a lisp.

22:02

And then there's this audio recording of a woman who grew up and knew him and was like or with a stutter, stutter. Yeah. Yeah. And she's like, yeah, he never had a stutter.

22:11

So is that true? I don't know. I didn't include that in my video. I can't validate that. It just makes you wonder. I don't know,

22:16

Kosti, you'd have to, you'd have to inform me on this stuff. So I'll share just from growing up kind of in it and in a, in a very honest and authentic way.

22:25

I don't wish this. I'm thankful for where God has brought me and where he's brought all of us and what we do. But life would be a lot easier if I would have just had a business.

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Cause I could be like, yeah, the guy I'm related to is absolutely crazy. I go to a great Bible church and I have a marketing company, you know, or something like I sell insurance.

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Then I don't have to think about it, but being in it all my life and then becoming a pastor and then studying and all that stuff.

22:47

And, and even watching videos like Mike's done and so many others, I think here's what I say. I would think

22:52

I've got a, a pretty good sort of biographical sketch because of all the stories.

22:58

And there were moments where these were some cool moments that the Lord would use. There were moments where I would read something or see something for the first time.

23:05

And to his credit, pre Eastern Orthodox departure, Hank Hanegraaff, um, you know, the

23:11

John McArthur's, the Mike Winger types, like everything you guys have been doing and Justin Peters and so many others, there's things that you guys would say.

23:17

And I'd go, oh man, that's what that was. And so there were clicking kind of moments on both sides.

23:24

So with that all in mind, I would say that the biographical elements, like where it really started was, this is my opinion.

23:34

Growing up, my uncle, middle Eastern family, eight kids, six boys, two girls.

23:40

He's the oldest son. My uncle has always been more on the feminine side, always more theatrical.

23:49

He was a thespian, George Vanier secondary school in Ontario, Canada. Like I can take you back there and give you a tour.

23:56

I went with my dad. Like I used to go, we used to go back to Toronto and see people. He was, you know, in the theater and in his school, part of that, always a little bit of an outsider within the family.

24:10

My father, my, my grandfather, rather his name was Kosti. That's what I'm named after. Kostandi.

24:16

Kosti is the short form. Him is a very, was a very strong. I mean, I have a lot of photos of him.

24:21

He was in government, local government, very strong, very manly, very tall. And so he, he looked and I, you can look up a photo of him and I'll text you one later.

24:30

I have them on my phone too, but I won't pull it out right now. Maybe when Mike talks, I'll pull it out and show you. It literally looks like Clark Gable. Just one of those guys, like a man's man.

24:37

He has a feminine oldest son who loves theater and is very, always wants to be in the kitchen with my grandmother.

24:43

My Tata, we call her Tata Monse. Her name was Clementine. And my, my grandfather used to say to him, this is true story.

24:51

My dad would verify it. All the brothers would hit my uncle's name. His real name is Tufik or Taufik.

24:59

Tufik Benedictus Hinn. And they would call him Tutu and people would make fun of him and all that. But in Israel, they grew up in Jaffa, Israel.

25:05

My grandfather would say out of all my sons, you're the one I'm most worried about. And he was harder on him.

25:11

It was, it's not great in middle Eastern culture to have your oldest son be, you know, of that sort of temperament.

25:19

The next son, my uncle Chris is, he worked with department of homeland security.

25:25

When they immigrated, he very, very strong. Like all the brothers are very like aggressive, strong, middle

25:31

Eastern type. My uncle has always been. So people tease him or make fun of him now for his purple shirts and his feminine kind of disposition and all of that.

25:39

He's kind of always been that guy. I know for a fact, because he, he constantly had this edge against my grandfather.

25:48

I'm going to show you that I'm going to become something. And if you do research, I did a lot of research for defining deception.

25:55

The first book that I wrote with my pastor at that time. And then for God greed and the prosperity gospel, I did a lot of research. Catherine Coleman was actually very similar.

26:03

She had this edge and a desire to prove herself to her father, who was an actual mayor, which by the way, when my grant, when my uncle has said repeatedly, and then they kind of walked it back when

26:13

Mike, you would have saw this, I'm sure in some of your research, he said that my grandfather was the mayor of Jaffa. He was never the mayor of Jaffa.

26:20

He was in a government type of role in some ways, but, you know, Catherine Coleman's father was a mayor. So you'll begin to see very weird, like someday someone's going to do an amazing documentary on this biographically.

26:30

And you're just going to have my uncle, Catherine Coleman, and another young guy on, you know, like triple side -by -sides. And you'll see so many themes as he borrowed really from her history and her biography.

26:39

Well, when he was in high school in Canada, he was an outcast. He was bullied.

26:44

He was mistreated. They immigrated to Canada. And I think part of the stutter wasn't so much him always saying like, like that.

26:53

I think it was part of being what we would grow up in Canada. We used to call being an

26:58

ESL. It's English second language. When you come from another country and you cannot speak the language when they immigrated, they immigrated right after the six day war in that 1967, 68 range.

27:09

They immigrate to Canada. They go from being in Jaffa with everything familiar to then all of a sudden being immigrants like so many immigrants, the boys determined to make something of their life.

27:20

My uncle was not quickly accepted. He had a lot of social challenges and he found his circle.

27:27

He found a niche of acceptance within a charismatic group in his high school. And if you look at some of the things that he says about what he went through, he was up in his room.

27:35

He says the Holy Spirit came to him. He said he got tongues and it was all in that same vein. If you run from like a, from that point, just a longer story, shorter in the timeline, you'll end up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

27:49

You'll end up in different places with him and a friend of his going to Catherine Coleman services.

27:56

He never met her, but he expresses, he talks about this one event. And I'm going to,

28:02

I hope I don't butcher the time. Somebody will fact check this. So do it. I believe, and I have it in a book.

28:08

I just, I didn't like spend, I was in a counseling meeting an hour ago for our church. And now I'm like trying to remember dates.

28:13

I believe December 21st, you'll have to check me though. Either December 21st, 1978 or 79.

28:19

He's at a service and Catherine Coleman is up there. They've waited outside. They get in the doors.

28:25

It's a cold winter day in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And Catherine Coleman, he says, she's whirling back and forth.

28:33

And he describes this all. And he says, basically that she looked at him and she says, don't grieve the

28:40

Holy spirit. The way that Catherine Coleman in her theatrical way with the long finger and the flowing dress.

28:46

And he said, in that moment, he knew like, that was it. He was going to do, he wanted to do that for the rest of his life.

28:53

Here's what I think I'm going to give my opinion. I'm saying, this is my opinion. My uncle grew up as an immigrant, like many immigrants do coming to a new country, different skin color, different socioeconomic status, different time and different era.

29:08

And wanted to make something of himself. He was of a more theatrical, thespian like disposition.

29:16

He had a father who was hard on him, who expected him to be the oldest son in the Middle Eastern family. I mean, even in, even in like my, that family,

29:24

I'm the firstborn Kosti. The reason why it was prophesied over me that I'm going to be next is because I'm the firstborn. There was a race to have the firstborn boy.

29:32

There's four Kostis. We're all named after our grandfather. Like we're talking about an egotistical, like you will have a son first.

29:39

It's like the five Kostis, the four Kostis of the apocalypse. And so that all like, imagine that's pressure.

29:46

Like I get that. So I'm, I'm, I'm want to be sensitive to him. I love him. He's my uncle, but within the family, just basic dynamics, pull me out that I'm a relative.

29:54

If you're looking at this from just a basic social behavioral, you know, approach, you have the setup for a young man who sees a way that he will become something.

30:05

And so he begins to forge that trail through the seventies and into the eighties. He was cutting his teeth, doing those same type of services, but in the assembly of God orbit, actually was just spending time with my parents in Franklin, Tennessee, a couple of weeks ago, sorry, months ago, um,

30:22

I was preaching over there for Johnny Artivanis, a buddy of mine, my parents live nearby and we have a better relationship than of course we used to, they've gotten away from all that.

30:29

So we're talking, and I was actually asking them for a bit of history and so much of what they're saying, um, actually aligns with this is they were, he was going around kind of doing all this in Canada and laying groundwork and beginning to develop a lot of,

30:45

I think the, the tricks and the shenanigans and the things that he does and learning human behavior. Did he set out to be some crazy deceiver?

30:53

I don't have the ability to say, absolutely. I think he found a niche, man.

30:58

I think he found a Catherine Coleman like path. I think he found what worked. Cause I remember asking my dad, like, why'd you do all this?

31:05

Why'd you, where'd you get all this? Like I went to school and I understand that you can choose different positions, but like, where did you, he said,

31:11

Kosti, we just, I watched Kenneth Hagan. I listened to Kenneth Copeland and you see all the people like it worked.

31:17

He wasn't making excuses or saying he's never done anything wrong. He's actually saying like, I'm sorry. I know I taught false things, Kost. And I'd be like, what, why?

31:24

He said, I, I would listen to them and I would repeat it. Oral Roberts said this, the crowd cheered.

31:30

Uncle Benny was doing this. The crowds are filling up. Well, I guess that's what we do. And so in a way they make disciples too, and they model something.

31:39

That's why people in Africa can mimic it. And immediately they say that works. My uncle, while massive on scale, no different than so many who were in kind of a lower rung socially and say,

31:51

I'm going to become something when he gets into the eighties and he kind of gets a breakthrough in a lot of these circles.

31:56

The reason I asked my parents about it as I said, Hey, tell me about the papers. When did you guys get your papers revoked from the assemblies of God that gets brought up?

32:03

People ask, tell me the truth. And my dad said, look, you're, you know, yeah, your uncle, we got to take papers taken away.

32:10

The assembly, the assembly said like, you can't be doing that stuff. I said, why'd you get your papers revoked? He said, look, I just,

32:16

I wanted to go preach wherever I wanted. And they said, you got to stay within our circles. And I, you know, me with authority and all that.

32:22

I said, Hey, he goes, I didn't do what I want. And so the hymn boys broke off and did what they wanted. My uncle starts the church in Orlando and is doing the healing services

32:29

Sunday nights, once a month. And in the nineties is when he sees the opportunity to go global more often.

32:38

He was already doing some crusades and services. He was quite a name, but he said, the Lord spoke to him and basically told him this is in within our family circles, you're going to move the ministry to California.

32:49

You're going to give the church away and you're going to, you're going to minister my healing gospel to the nations.

32:55

And so he goes global. All of that was just a business move. It's like when Joel Osteen started to do a night with Joel Osteen, it's like a

33:02

Furtick right now in elevation, have their elevation nights. They did people, the idea of filling a stadium every month and going from local church, do your thing to making almost a hundred million dollars a year is really appealing.

33:13

So I would say that maybe the motive was, uh, somewhat like I'm going to be a part of church.

33:21

Okay. But overall, I believe the reason why he's ended up where he's ended up is no, he didn't start anointed.

33:27

He didn't start out good. And then, oh man, he got around the wrong people. No, from day one, this has been about becoming something.

33:33

And I believe strongly, my opinion, people can disagree. I believe he's become exactly what that type of ambition leads to.

33:42

Selfish ambition leads to that. And because of that, Paul says, many men have pierced themselves with many pangs.

33:47

He has, and now he keeps trying to walk it back, but his best option is to just repent.

33:53

Wow. I got a quick question for you, Kosti. What about, so your grandpa, what, what did he believe?

33:58

What was his spirituality? And then how did your family kind of get, uh, involved in Benny Hinn's legacy?

34:03

It was like, he started getting popular and then it breaked your dad in like, how did that work? That's a great question. Um, so in the end, my family would believe that my grandpa and my grandmother made my, my

34:15

Cito, we would call him my Cito and my Tata got genuinely saved. They actually made professions of faith.

34:21

The story goes that my, and I don't know if this is true. And I, you never know.

34:27

It's like Mike said, you just, you gotta, gotta be careful. The story goes that my grandfather was coming home to, to like beat up or kill my uncle.

34:36

He was done. He said, we didn't come to Canada for religion. We came for peace and freedom, no war. And my uncle was starting to preach.

34:43

And he said, um, and the story is, he said to my grandfather, I'm going to preach the gospel.

34:49

You know, it really preaches and people are like, Oh, you know, and it's like great, great story. The Hallmark movie.

34:54

Yeah, it totally is. And, and it is done very well for my uncle, even to be this underdog.

35:00

And now look at how I'm anointed. I mean, you probably, that probably lit Mike's fire so many mornings when he wakes up because these people just idolize this guy.

35:07

Like, look at me as a victim. And my, my grandfather comes home to deal with them.

35:13

And, uh, in that regard, they, they end up getting real upset, says no more preaching. He goes to preach at a service and my grandfather finds out, and he's going to go pull him off the platform.

35:22

And he's gonna, he's gonna pull them out by the ear. And he walks in and my uncle has been set free and healed from the stutter in that night, which is like, so he was preaching with a starter before,

35:34

I don't know. What about the lady that says that? I mean, there's people that they've talked to in Jaffa who are like, I didn't know, but he had a stutter.

35:40

And then it's like, he didn't have a stutter. Who knows? My grandfather walks in and he's preaching without a stutter.

35:46

And he says, that can't be my son. This is, of course he died in 82. I was born in 84.

35:52

So the story just can become, it can go on to live in, in like the family's legacy. This is my son.

35:58

He, that can't be him. He has no stutter. And my uncle just right around that time after preaching a little while gives the invitation and my grandfather comes forward and he gives his life to Christ.

36:09

So of course you have this amazing story now that makes my uncle, not just the underdog, but now the big dog who even the man who was, you know, mistreating him is now saved and all.

36:20

So that's how the story goes. I would say this, my grandmother prayed every day, loved the Lord.

36:25

And to her credit, I say this because my mother always reminds me of this. Even now, when we've had good talks about the

36:31

Holy Spirit in tongues, she goes, Costi, let me remind you. And we agree on so much more than we ever did. She says, your grandmother

36:37

Tata did not speak in tongues. Don't ever forget that. And so we don't, we don't teach anymore that you have to speak in tongues.

36:44

And I was like, well, good. I love that. I know we can get, we can, we can have a lot more that we agree on now. I know those stories.

36:50

So with all that, I don't, I don't, I wouldn't say that they weren't saved. I would say that my grandfather and my grandmother actually made professions of faith.

36:58

And I'll tell you this, my grandmother for years would warn my uncle in her broken Arabic accent.

37:04

And if my cousins or any family members see this, they'll tell you, they will know that I'm not lying. My grandmother would say to my, my uncle,

37:12

Benny, she would have talks with him. And she'd say, this man, no clean hands, this man, no clean hands.

37:18

She very broken English. They spoke fluent Arabic. And she would say, this man, no clean, this woman, no good.

37:25

No. And she would get so mad at him and tell him, stay away from Paula White. Stay away from Steve Muncy.

37:31

Stay like, I can go, I can just name names. The African, Chris Okoluyehome. My, my grandmother would go in fits yelling at my uncle,

37:39

Benny. Like you could picture crazy ethnic lady with the slipper. Like that's my family. Like I love, I, I miss her slipper with her slipper.

37:46

Like Teta was a fiery, passionate lady who read her Bible every day. And so I believe my grandmother was saved.

37:53

I believe my grandfather came to an understanding of the true gospel. I, I, how everyone got sucked in though is uncle

38:00

Benny started making it. And so he started hiring all the brothers. Everybody worked with him or for him at some point.

38:06

And then everybody branched off and did their thing. And so, um, yeah, in a way the family business for the immigrant family became wherever the money is, whatever he's making, everybody worked with him.

38:20

And even now to this day, and I say this with respect to my uncles, I'm not going to name certain ones. I love them with all my heart sleepovers, their houses.

38:28

And some of my best friends, my cousins growing up, they still go back to that ministry or being with uncle

38:35

Benny. You can go look at their Instagram to get the payday. They still get around him to suck in an audience.

38:42

And to Mike's point, he's pinned it so many times. The repentance, even guys who won't call him out.

38:47

Mike probably saw that a ton like certain. You're like, why wouldn't you say something? Why would Steve Strang get in there and admit it?

38:53

Because in the end it's a cash cow and everybody benefits. If everybody just shuts up with the gag order, everybody still wins, even though he's literally raiding the church.

39:03

So sorry for Mike should talk more. I just want, let me add that in. Yeah. Mike, is there anything you want to add with everything that with all of, uh, what

39:10

Kosti just commented on? Do you have any thoughts on that? What sticks out to you? Yeah. Kosti has tons of inside information to share things that I wouldn't, nobody would know if you hadn't talked about, but it, it marries so well with the stuff that at least

39:21

I observe that Benny Hinn has a, um, a tactic or ministry, you can call it, that is highly repeatable.

39:31

You don't need an anointing to do this. You need a strategy. Yes. You need a series of, of, uh, gimmicks and specific kinds of teachings.

39:40

And more than anything else, you need crowd control. You need careful crowd control.

39:46

And that's something he does that I noticed that Catherine Coleman did too, where they're, they're super attentive, like the opposite of ADHD.

39:54

They are like focused on every moment, controlling every moment of what happens on stage. Always ordering people around.

40:00

Yeah. Constantly ordering everybody around. Yeah. Turn around, order the audience. You guys need to speak in tongues.

40:06

You over here, you need to, you need to move those people over to that side of the stage and come over here. That's part of the gimmickry that establishes them as this authority you have to immediately and instantly respond to.

40:15

It creates a social environment. A hundred percent. Where, when they, yeah, or when they come up and they want to knock you down or push you over, whatever, there's an intense social pressure to do whatever they say.

40:25

Without question. Um, yeah, without question. Even, even to the point where if, if they, since people aren't doing it, they will be openly reviewed on the stage.

40:31

Yep. Um, because it's trying to reinforce this thing. What I'm saying is Benny's family could learn from Benny, just like Benny could learn from Catherine Coleman.

40:41

Yep. They're just like others are learning from Benny. And then you can, you can do,

40:47

I could do it too. Yep. I could, I could do that. I could, I could just, I'll just copy what they did.

40:53

I don't need an anointing. I just need a strategy. And the, the, the name of Christ gets struck through the mud through all this.

41:00

The apostles never. Um, pretended to heal people.

41:06

They never said somebody was healed and then sent them and then had everybody applaud and then sent them away, still sick and dying, confused.

41:13

Never. Being told things like you better keep believing to keep your healing or don't get around people who try to, you know, squelch your healing and try to push it, push it down through their unbelief.

41:24

And they were thinking, does that mean I, I can't listen to my doctor who says I'm still sick, you know? And no way, no way this, this is, it's, it's offensive to the name of Christ.

41:34

There, there are many, many people who are, who are like Kostya, you talked about her like, nah, just leave it alone. You just leave it alone.

41:39

Mike, move on, move on. I was like, I've only been talking about Benny since April Fool's day.

41:45

Yeah. It's not even that long. Can I say something? Yeah, go for it. Encourage both of you. So, and I want to say this lovingly, is this camera where people will watch?

41:53

Uh, yeah, yeah. All right. Let me just challenge people in love. So this is fun for me.

41:58

I feel like a spectator to the Holy Spirit's work and what he's doing. Mike, tell people if we ever talked on the phone or had a meeting before your four hour bender on my uncle.

42:09

No, we never did. I tried to get ahold of you, but I waited until the last minute. Literally he texted me, he texted me heading into Easter weekend.

42:16

And I'm like, in my mind, and I love you and I'm thankful for you. And you're such a warrior for doing this.

42:21

But I looked at your text and was like, no, like it's Thursday. I got Easter.

42:27

It's Holy Week. And so I'm going into Easter week and I'm like, no, I guess he'll, he'll be fine.

42:32

If it's good, it's good. Like he doesn't need me. We never talked, no strategy, period. You and I, it was like,

42:38

Hey man, we're going to do this thing over with Mike maybe talk a bit. You want to come over, pop over it. Great. None of this premeditated.

42:44

Everything that he's saying is literally like you, I did not prime him.

42:50

You didn't tell like cultist doesn't, didn't use their secret stash of footage to like, none of this is strategically done.

42:58

And I want every single person that is wondering whether or not to comment like these guys or these haters, or they're up to like, when

43:07

I say this is the Holy spirit ordaining perfectly by Providence, a moment where hopefully people will wake up.

43:14

Like this is Jesus loving his bride and pulling his people out. It's not a rail job that's strategically done.

43:22

It's not me and Mike in cahoots or cultish and Mike winger. And now Mike's somehow we infiltrated

43:28

Mike winger. It is 100 % God loving his bride and doing this.

43:35

So just so, just to encourage Mike, we hadn't even, we've never even talked until today. Face to face.

43:41

We're talking for the first time. And in a fun way, maybe the

43:47

Lord did keep, I mean, I'm 11 minutes away, man. And the Lord did not allow. And like, we love you.

43:52

I preached over at apology. Like we're all, we all love each other, but for whatever reason, he waited providentially not to allow this to happen until now.

44:01

So hopefully people will see like, this is, everyone's just trying to serve the body of Christ and God is ordaining things to rescue

44:10

John 10. Jesus said, I have more sheep. I'm going to bring them like he's going to save people. So anyway, just,

44:15

I'm excited. Maybe more of a spectator than anything to see. And God do this. I still can't believe like Mike winger got in the, in the ring.

44:22

Yeah. Yeah. Andrew, what's your thoughts, man? You have a question. I think that's great.

44:28

Mike saying that it's not an anointing and strategy. So if you guys could both just put your pastoral hats on real quick, what would you say to the individual?

44:36

Cause I was looking through a lot of the comments, there's over 10 ,000 comments on that four hour video. And there's so many comments from people who are saying, well,

44:43

I was at this crusade and I was healed. So if we're saying that there's not a, an act of the

44:48

Holy spirit there, then how were they healed? And what would you say to the individual in order for them to understand truth defined, right?

44:55

Because that person would go, well, I'm going to reinforce everything I believe about Benny Hinn, because I went to this experience and now my leg is healed, you know?

45:01

So how, how would you interact with this individual and help them see the error of Benny Hinn?

45:08

Yeah. This is, this is to me such a simple question, even though I understand for a lot of people, it's very difficult.

45:14

It's one thing to say Benny Hinn is not anointed from the Holy spirit and something else to say you were healed. These are different things.

45:23

Like God can heal you. You're in there and you're praying, Lord, heal me, Lord, heal me. I've come and praying for healing. I believe in Jesus.

45:29

I believe in you. If it's your will, please heal me. And then God heals you. How does that mean? Therefore, Benny Hinn is the man of God.

45:35

The things he teaches are true. The way that he raises money is true.

45:40

The, all the miracles that he does on stage are true. Even the ones that we can absolutely prove or not. All that, see, this is his manipulation.

45:48

Totally. He's going to get you to think that anything God does sort of brings the glory to him and he'll, he'll never say it.

45:55

He'll deny he's doing that, but that's what he's going to do. So give me an illustration of how this happens. People on stage and Kostas, he knows this better than I do, but people aren't allowed on stage until after they're healed.

46:06

This is an official Benny Hinn rule. You don't get on stage until you've already got your healing. They have to be healed.

46:12

You have to get your healing first. He will, I have video footage. I haven't shared all the footage I've seen, but I have video footage where Benny Hinn is like telling somebody get in there and clean up the healing line.

46:19

That's the phrase he uses, clean up the healing line. Only let the people who are healed, quote unquote healed, get to the front of the line.

46:27

Then they get on stage. So the policy is you have to get healed before you get on stage. So who's healing you and who's even involved in your healing?

46:34

Well, if it did happen, let's say that there's a real healing there. Then it was God, it was off stage.

46:40

It was, it was between you and the Lord. God just heals you. But when you get on stage, what happens? Benny Hinn sticks his fingers in your ears.

46:47

Benny Hinn touches you and he pushes you down and he says, healing, healing, healing. Wait a minute. Didn't he just say they were already healed?

46:53

But when they get on stage, he does this showmanship thing. And the visual image everybody goes away with is

46:59

Benny Hinn healed that person. Even though you can, it's very hard to find anybody on stage who looks like a real healing.

47:07

It's very, I haven't seen something where I go, yeah, that's definitely real. Let's pretend there is.

47:13

Guy comes, guy gets healed. Guy goes into the line. They go, how are you doing? He goes, I'm totally healed.

47:19

My back was broken. Now I'm dancing and singing and jumping around. Then they put him on stage. Benny Hinn sees him on stage and then

47:24

Benny Hinn's like, healed, knocks him over. Bring him up, knocks him over again. Bring him up, knocks him over again.

47:30

Show us what you couldn't do before. And everybody thinks, wow, Benny Hinn must be the man of God. He must be anointed. It must be him that God is using to heal.

47:38

No, God in this hypothetical scenario, I have not yet seen happen. God healed the man and then

47:44

Benny took the credit. That's the formula for that ministry. If there is real divine healing.

47:50

So, I would just acknowledge, you say you were healed, fine. Just don't give Benny credit. And then

47:55

I would play clips of Benny saying, I'm not the healer. Yeah. He's so spot on.

48:02

Let me add just color commentary to everything he's saying. And kind of pad the stats basically for what

48:07

Mike's saying. So, let's say someone gets healed at his whole scenario. They come up.

48:13

Let me add one more kind of line. If my uncle doesn't say, you know,

48:18

I didn't know what Mike's saying. Healed, healed. He'll say something. But let's say he doesn't say healed, healed. Let's say the guy is healed and had a broken back.

48:25

He's dancing. Everyone's verifying it. He's like waving his x -rays and it's all legit. Let's assume that for a second. When he gets up there, my uncle, and he already described this, knows how to orchestrate and become the maestro and the conductor of it all to prop himself up as the power figure for you to continue to think,

48:43

God, yeah, he's in there, but like, wow, Benny. Okay. And here's how. The guy's there.

48:49

And instead of even praying for the man to be healed and acting like he healed him, my uncle will just pause and create thick, thick drama and tension.

48:59

And then say, there's power on that man. There's power. Pray. Everybody pray in the

49:06

Holy Ghost. Lift it. Cheryl. That's right. Quiet. See, hallelujah. There's power on this man.

49:13

And he'll go into the hall. And you're just like, whoa, like this guy. I'm like seeing my mind's eye right now.

49:19

You've immediately left the moment where maybe, remember, we're assuming our friend got healed. Our buddy had the broken back.

49:25

We've immediately left any type of attention on him or the glory of God. And we're now swooned by the showman.

49:31

And then he'll say, Jesus, we give you praise. There's power.

49:37

And then I've been in some of this footage. Sorry, it's on YouTube, but he'll go, take it, gentlemen. Take it, take it, take it, take it, take it.

49:44

Pastors, if you want that anointing, get down here. And he'll shift gears immediately to the next phase of the show.

49:50

And before you could ever think what just happened, it's time for the next act.

49:55

So to Mike's point, let's say something even remotely was happening.

50:01

That's true. My uncle is a master showman who will take over that whole show.

50:07

Make it about whatever the next act is to keep you ever from really thinking. And in that regard,

50:12

I had a woman come up to me one time at our church. And she said, I want you to know that your uncle is a part of my testimony.

50:18

And he always will be. I said, all right, what happened? And I get people come up and they talk to me and I don't talk to anyone.

50:26

And she said, I had a curved spine as a young girl.

50:31

I was like teenage girl. And your uncle said, put your hands on the screen. And I did.

50:38

And I felt like the craziest heat go through my back. And I went then to the doctor and I don't have a curved spine anymore.

50:45

My spine is totally straight. And I said, okay, all right. First of all, I can't exegete your experience and I'm not going to deny your experience.

50:54

She said, yeah, I really did get healed. I said, okay, did you, would you say my uncle is like a great man of God?

51:00

She goes, no, goodness, no, he's a false teacher. I said, okay, so we're clear on that. I said, and you got saved and you follow Christ.

51:05

She goes, yeah, of course. I'm just saying like, you can't ever take him out of my testimony. Like God healed me.

51:11

And honestly, it was a crazy little girl putting her hands on the screen and like God healed me. And so she goes, what do you do with that?

51:17

And I said, well, first of all, praise God that he decided to reach down, you know, anthropomorphically and touch your spine and make it straight.

51:25

Like, praise God. If that's what happened, that's what happened. Number two, you wouldn't consider my uncle man of God. Well, did you believe the same gospel that he's preached sometime?

51:33

Well, yes, of course. And I got, what church were you at when you got saved? She said some church. I'm like, okay. And in the end I said,

51:38

God will do two things as a sovereign Lord over his precious flock.

51:44

He will save and he will heal and he will lead and guide and the Holy spirit will fill.

51:50

Like, so that's great. People have gotten saved before at, you know, my uncle's altar calls.

51:57

And I always ask them the same thing. Like, yeah. And did you, how long did you stay in it for? Like, you know, it was a few more months to kind of, but we started having questions and then we ended up, you know, visiting this church with our friends.

52:07

The guy taught the Bible and it was like, oh my goodness, that guy's a total false teacher. And everything just made sense, you know?

52:12

And it's always the same thing. What Mike was describing and what we were presenting to people is God is a healer. God is a savior.

52:19

And he will do that. Irregardless of the, the, the wolf and the heretic and the, he, and isn't that so encouraging that God's not actually muted or handcuffed by the heretic.

52:32

He'll still do what he's going to do and he'll move in power. So I would encourage people like that doesn't affirm the man.

52:41

That is such a good, wow. That's such a shift in perspective because a lot of things you would think that that's bound by the heretic.

52:49

So that's, that's a way, yeah, that's such a different way to think about it. Yeah. I would just encourage people to realize that this is, um, the, the teacher who gets up and uses the miraculous or the preaching of the gospel, even, and all these things to draw people after themselves to prop themselves up.

53:11

Like there are pastors out there. I believe there are pastors out there who have, who have prayed for someone who had an absolutely miraculous healing in that moment.

53:19

And they never went and made a show of it and put themselves up to be looked up, looked up to the way

53:26

Benny Hinn is. And so you, you just, this is why they'll go, well, well, Mike, where are the other people doing what

53:32

Benny Hinn does? If you're going to tell me someone else is anointed like him or like, well, nobody's anointed like that because he's not anointed like that.

53:38

This is a show. Yes. I'm just saying, show me someone else who puts on a show like he does. And then I'll believe that they're real.

53:44

And I, no, no, you're, you need to recalibrate what you think ministry looks like and what you think serving Christ looks like.

53:50

So Jesus himself says like, I'll read to you guys, Matthew 7, 22, many will say to me, could

53:56

Benny Hinn say this? Or could, if someone did these three things, would you think they were an authentic and good man of God?

54:02

Lord, we've prophesied in your name. We cast out demons in your name and done many wonders in your name. Wouldn't that sound like that's an anointed man of God.

54:10

I can trust that guy. I can look up to that guy. They cast out demons. They prophesied and they did wonders in the name of Jesus.

54:16

And then Jesus goes, yeah, I never knew you. Come on. Whoa. So I have to have some other kind of standard than, than just looking at those things.

54:25

I need to test. And so one of the tests is like, Hey, how does, what does this guy teach about money?

54:30

That is actually a test we have in scripture. It's spot on. Benny Hinn's teachings. Yeah. About prosperity and money are not true.

54:36

They're manipulative. They distort. He, they draw the flock away after them, after himself. I just can't get out of my head.

54:43

The reality that there, there's, there's an old woman somewhere whose husband died and she's sick and she's poor and she doesn't have enough money anymore who watched a

54:53

Benny Hinn thing, telling her the, the only way you're going to get out of poverty is by giving. And he tells a story.

55:00

I was, I was hundreds of thousands in debt and I gave all the money the ministry had away.

55:06

All of it. I gave it all away. And within six months we were out of debt. Yeah. Nobody believed me. My own board members quit.

55:11

If this is even true, which I doubt it, but let's say it's true. He then tells that story. And the woman goes, this is my act of faith.

55:18

And she takes the $7 ,000 she has left in the bank and she gives it all to Benny Hinn. She's got another 40 ,000 in debt or she's about to lose her home or whatever.

55:26

She can't afford her medications. And then, and then her life goes downhill.

55:32

Maybe she dies because of the medication issue. Maybe she's homeless because of this issue. And this is Benny Hinn's fault.

55:37

Like he'll stand in judgment before God for lying in God's name and manipulating this woman to give her last penny there.

55:44

I think there are countless of these women of people like this in these kinds of situations who sincerely believed the wrong teachings of Benny Hinn.

55:50

There's somebody else who goes, yeah, but I think I got healed. So he's okay, right? No, that's not how it works, man.

55:57

This guy's, this guy's a wolf in sheep's clothing. I don't, I don't say that lightly.

56:03

I don't say that often. No, Benny Hinn is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The church has to be warned against him.

56:09

He, he cannot continue to cause the massive harm he's causing. Africa needs deliverance from Benny Hinn.

56:16

That's what the deliverance ministry needs to happen right now is delivered from Benny Hinn and his ilk. Amen. What's up, everybody?

56:23

It's the Super Sleuth here, letting you know that you can go to shopcultish .com and get all of our exclusive cultish merch.

56:30

There's the Bad Theology Hurts People shirt. Jerry wears it all the time. I wear it all the time. Sometimes we wear it at the same time without even trying to have that happen on the show.

56:38

And we're just like, whoa, you're wearing the shirt. I'm wearing the shirt. You could wear the shirt too. Go to shopcultish .com today and get your exclusive cultish merch.

56:46

Talk to you later, guys. In your, Kosti, I'm thinking back to your first appearance.

56:53

First time I ever even heard about you was in American Gospel. And so it was interesting when I was watching, like, your video and you're talking about, oh, example, that woman like that who was exploited and the countless other victims.

57:05

I was thinking about that, but I kept on thinking the contrast of you sort of talking about the life of luxury, of being very personal and close to Benny.

57:16

Talk about that, because on one hand, you hear about the grandma giving that check, the last minute check, in hopes that she'll be financially free and being coerced and give the money on the

57:28

TV screen. But then there's the other side of the looking glass, which is that money on the other end.

57:35

Totally. Talk about that. If you were to enter into the other side, you would see massive wealth, massive spending, lavish lifestyle, living it up.

57:43

I'm talking like it'd make you maybe more angry than righteous anger.

57:49

So you'd have to keep giving that to the Lord. And that's why I'm grateful that people get fired up. But you would see every teenager in his family, like with a

58:00

Benz, you'd see him with his Bentley. You'd see us shopping on Rodeo. You'd see his $8 million or whatever house it was in Ritz Cove.

58:09

And then, which the ministry sold now to liquidate. But then the property next to him that he bought just to have a lawn so that their black lab

58:18

Mercedes could go pee. Like that, $15 million in land assets.

58:24

And then driving the high life, flying in the Gulf Streams, staying in the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai in the

58:30

Royal Suite, $25 ,000 a night. That's just what his room was.

58:36

And by the way, really not funny story. I don't glorify the sin at all. I'm just saying how close we all were.

58:42

The suite was so massive that it was like, hey, a couple of you guys stay with me. And so the rest of the ministry team had suites, other suites in the hotel, including my dad and many others were on the trip.

58:53

But me and Michael Koulianos, his son -in -law now, Jessica's husband, me and Michael, we shared a room.

58:58

And I lived that life. We'd go to London and stay in one of the nicest hotels in the city, the

59:07

Lansborough Hotel. And we'd go to Greece and stay at the Grand Resort in Lagunisi in the

59:14

Prime Minister Suite. Everything was so maxed out. And then what would happen is his

59:20

CEO would call him and say, you're overspending, we got to clean this up.

59:26

Or you're burning through funds too fast. And what you would see then, and this is where it's the reason

59:33

I brought up earlier that me and Mike have never talked, is everything he's researched, I've got a story literally to corroborate.

59:40

And all of us have Bible passages to prove it all. And what would be happening on the other side of that is, okay, well, bring in Muncie.

59:48

So Steve Muncie, I don't know if people know who that guy is, but if you were a regular watching my uncle's programming, the blonde hair, the guy out of Chicago.

59:56

I mean, he is a master money man. I call them all the money men. Mike Murdoch, who is another one,

01:00:04

Steve Muncie. One time my dad was brought in, in Paris, France. He raised a million dollars in a service. Like they were guys who were brought in and they would go on the program.

01:00:15

So Muncie would come on, this is your day. So imagine the tandem, okay? CEO calls, y 'all are crazy.

01:00:21

You're spending too much money. This is nuts. Millions and millions of dollars just going out the door constantly. Then what do we need to do?

01:00:27

Okay, we need to go hard for the next couple of months. So my uncle would call, you got

01:00:32

Oral Roberts coming on the program. You'd have Steve Muncie, Mike Murdoch, whoever else. And the daily program globally is raising money.

01:00:40

And he's going, I want you to get you, some of you can give $7 ,000. Some of you can give $700. Some of you $700.

01:00:45

If you want God to bless you, if you, that breakthrough right now, go to the phone. And at the same time, he's going to do the telethon for TBN.

01:00:52

And all that's happening. Millions and millions of dollars would come flooding back in.

01:00:59

Now, here's the best part and not best in a good way for us, but best meaning for them. You're going to go pack out a stadium in India or Africa or some other country,

01:01:08

Brazil, wherever. What do you do? You tell all the Americans who watch your program, all that God's been doing and then all that he's going to do.

01:01:15

And then all the wealthy Americans say, wow, I can't go, but this will be on my account in heaven.

01:01:22

Not only that, I'll be blessed now. And I want to be debt free and free. And so you get all them to give to the crusade.

01:01:27

You've already raised, you already have more than enough money to pull it all off. But now you've even pre -raised a huge wave of millions coming in and all the expenses, all of these things to take the gospel around the world, the healing gospel of Jesus Christ around the world costs money.

01:01:43

Salvation is free, but there's a cost and we want to save the lost at any cost. And you have all these taglines and he's losing it right now.

01:01:50

I'm laughing because he's doing this right now. Bro, I'm telling you. Christy, I don't know if you, right now on his

01:01:55

YouTube channel. No, I haven't seen it. I probably should check. So here's what they're doing. They're saying, you know, salvation, the gospel is free, but it's spreading is not cheap.

01:02:04

Dude, I literally just made that up right now, like from the old days. And so that's what's happening right now. Yeah, I keep hearing it.

01:02:10

But let me give you guys a specific example. You're talking about fundraising that's disingenuous, right? Like, so yeah, you don't really need the funds for what you're saying.

01:02:18

Right now, and I haven't vetted all this because I'm not, honestly, I'm not spending much time on this at the moment. So I just am aware of it.

01:02:25

Right now they're saying we need money like never before. And now he goes on Stephen Strang. He goes,

01:02:30

I probably won't be needing to do much fundraising. I'm coming to the end of my race. Oh, bro. Literally within that same week on his

01:02:36

YouTube channel. He's sitting there with one of his sycophants, and they're on there.

01:02:42

And he's saying, we need money like never before. We need you to give like never before.

01:02:47

And then the reason is this. Because we're translating everything Benny Hinn says, all of his videos into,

01:02:53

I think it's 12 different languages. And they're going to use AI so that it looks like his mouth is moving. And it's

01:02:58

AI. So his voice is literally speaking in a foreign language. Oh, dude. Here's what's weird.

01:03:04

You can do that for free with AI. Yeah. You can do that for free.

01:03:11

And he's saying they need money like never before. At the same time on Stephen Strang, he's like, I don't need to do much fundraising anymore.

01:03:17

Because that's part of the fake repentance. You see, like, oh, this isn't even a big thing. Don't worry about it. Um, when you describe this,

01:03:25

I'm like that, that sounds like exactly what's happening now. Is there's just a continual desire to take the proper good intentions of his followers.

01:03:34

I want to see the gospel go out. I want to see people get saved. I want to see miracles and wonderful things happening in people's lives.

01:03:40

I'll donate to that. And then it's like they're doing something where they could probably hire one intern. Yep. To do it for the cost of just the one person's paycheck.

01:03:49

And that's it. Yeah. It you're a hundred percent. So the just getting,

01:03:56

I'm like getting a, a sanctified kick out of when I keep looking at the screen and then Mike's losing it over there.

01:04:02

I'm like, oh, oh, we're spot on. He's got another one guys. His research proves this. I have no clue.

01:04:08

I I'm blocked on a lot of things too, from my uncle Benny's ministry. So I don't get to see as much, but one of the concerns

01:04:14

I would want to share is. David Diga Hernandez knows all of this.

01:04:22

We've talked Michael and Jessica. Cool. Are aware of all of this.

01:04:29

I can keep naming more names for you, but like the, the, the

01:04:34

Bethel crew, they know like everyone's aware of what we're saying. Or at least

01:04:40

I'm going to say, I know that they know because I've talked to them or people who work for them,

01:04:47

Todd White's whole circle. They know this. My sister was his worship pastor for a bit.

01:04:53

And my brother -in -law was his executive pastor in Fort worth for a bit. I mean, this is known, but no one will say anything.

01:05:02

So here's what we'll watch for. You're going to watch for people to quietly disassociate, which is what some will do.

01:05:10

Some will not be as crazy. So you'll see like, even Michael, his son -in -law doesn't do a lot of outlandish stuff.

01:05:18

He, one of his clips ended up on a Charlie Kirk posted recently from TPUSA, a clip of, of Michael, whose brother's married to my sister.

01:05:26

So it's all kind of like brother -in -laws doing this clip where he was like, some of you think you're saved and you're not.

01:05:32

And you're kind of like, bro, like, amen, like this. And he was like, you think, cause you prayed a prayer that you're saved.

01:05:37

You need to get serious about following Christ. And I'm just like, dude, he's like, literally like, and Charlie Kirk posts that.

01:05:44

So they've all, a lot of them, I think in general will say true things. But one of the great tests,

01:05:50

I believe of whether a ministry is worthy of our loyalty, support, and trust. First of all, Christ gets all of those, but he does use these mere men, us to serve and we're under shepherds.

01:06:00

Where you look at the currency of trust for a ministry is, will they quietly just avoid?

01:06:07

Will they invite, but not outlandishly participate? Or will they call it out?

01:06:12

And that whole circle of people say, well, David's different. And I think Isaiah Saldivar has a good heart and just wants to set people free from demon possession.

01:06:20

And, you know, Vladimir Savchuk, you know, he, and, you know, Michael, he's got a good heart and Jessica is so genuine.

01:06:27

She cries and they're, they're, they're sharing the gospel, Costi. How can you say these things? I would just say, because they keep having a man who is verified false prophet, false teacher, heretic, and charlatan, who is lying and stealing from people on their platforms.

01:06:43

And they'll say nothing at the very least. They won't, they'll say things privately, but not publicly.

01:06:49

And that's where the sad part to watch is going to be people, you know, hammering Mike or going after and being like, oh, you guys.

01:06:56

And that's, that's fine. You take the hits as they come. But in the end, the saddest part is that they're stuck in a blindness.

01:07:02

And one of the things I think motivates us is the grace of God. Yes, I, we want to see him change.

01:07:08

Yes, everybody, you do want to believe that people can change. If he genuinely repents, I'll be the first one at his door.

01:07:14

In fact, in 2019, I texted him because he wouldn't pick up my call. And I said, if you're genuine about this,

01:07:20

I want you to know that I love you and I will be twice as loud about your true repentance as I ever was against your false teaching.

01:07:27

I love you. Just say the word. And I'm there. I wrote that and sent it to my uncle. And I remember calling my dad and I said, you know, what do you make of all this?

01:07:35

Like, should I come over? What, like, I don't want to, I'm, this was never about like personal assault on uncle Benny. And my dad said to me in Arabic, which is basically like, take it easy.

01:07:44

He says, and I said, what? He's like, look, if, if it's going to be repentance, you know, it's got to be all of it.

01:07:53

And I was like, yes. And that's because the lifestyle, even my own family would say he can repent of, of putting numbers to an offering for people to be blessed, but you've got a lifestyle of licentiousness.

01:08:02

You have deception, false prophecy. You have the greedy tactics, but you have so many things that people, and you know, cause you're getting some of the messages already and like, we can't go too far or they'll get sued.

01:08:14

But all the people who had to have, who have had to sign NDAs, why in the world as a ministry, have you signed

01:08:19

NDAs? Because there are things that you do not want to disclose. All of the accusations. I got it. Kosti, let me, sorry.

01:08:25

We know it's you. Fire away. For those who don't, for those who don't know this, um, I've had people reach out to me and tell me some of their stories, work, having worked for Benny Hinn.

01:08:34

And I can't tell anybody details. Cause they're like, I signed an NDA. I just wanted to tell you about it. Keep it off the record. It sounds like you're saying you, you are aware of the same thing.

01:08:42

Cause again, we haven't talked about this. All of them. I was just like, he made you sign an NDA? All of them. People coming quietly to the church coming up after going,

01:08:49

Hey, I'm like, what are you doing here? Hey, I just, they're crying. Say it. Look, I don't want to make a spectacle of it.

01:08:55

I, have you told your fit? I can't say anything NDA, but, and so people are scared to death, but that's why my dad says

01:09:01

Shway Shway in Arabic going easy. Listen, he can fool the world with the $7 ,000. I'm never going to do that again.

01:09:07

The Holy spirit sick of it. You've got to repent when Zacchaeus repents, he repents of what his whole lifestyle.

01:09:13

He's, he's over it. Uncle Benny will have to repent of all of it. When he goes on Steve string and says, Steve, it's time to tell it all.

01:09:20

And it's really all that's when, and he's weeping and he's saying, I'm done the lifestyle, the decisions, this, this, this, and the people who signed

01:09:28

NDAs are weeping on their NDAs and the papers soaked through. That's when you go, okay, wow.

01:09:34

This looks like second Corinthians chapter seven. And to anyone who say, oh, you're graceless. Mike is graceless, cultish, typical, no second

01:09:41

Corinthians chapter seven, Paul, just start in verse four and go read the words that he uses to describe true repentance from the

01:09:48

Corinthians. What zeal, what indignation, what vindication, what sorrow you he's never been broken over the sin.

01:09:56

Yeah. And also speaking, I've never talked before. I told Andrew just a couple of days ago, Hey, by the way, on Monday, we're talking to Costi and Mike, so it works out perfectly as well.

01:10:05

Surprise Andrew. So Andrew, I want to bring it back in here with all that they were just talking about just now, what, what, what comes to mind?

01:10:11

What, what questions would you have? Our Costi and Mike. Yeah. I was thinking like, what would it cost him in his repentance?

01:10:18

Right. Like what does it, what does it a profit a man to gain the world, but forfeit his soul? Like in terms of Benny Hinn's repentance, would there be some form of prison time or something?

01:10:28

Like if he comes out and he says, these things were fake, right. And people have put their money into it and all of this stuff.

01:10:33

People have been damaged. What would happen to him? Like, so I'm wondering like, what goes on in his mind? Is it, is it the giving up of everything you've ever had?

01:10:41

Like the rich young ruler and choosing that instead of wanting to follow Christ.

01:10:46

Of course, number one is the grace of God that saves any individual, but I'm just trying to think like Benny Hinn's repentance is more than just mere words on a screen.

01:10:53

Like there's literally like gotta be civil type of ramifications for breaking of laws.

01:10:58

That's been done. Is there, or am I thinking weird? I don't know, Mike, you got thoughts?

01:11:03

I think that there have been laws broken. My personal opinion here. I think that there have been laws, various laws, broken financial ones in particular.

01:11:11

But, uh, but yeah, his repentance, if it was genuine, he would be telling you things that you would not walk away going, wow, what a great guy.

01:11:19

How humble you would, you would walk away going, Lord, help me forgive this man. I can't believe he was so predatory for so many years and so manipulative in the name of Jesus Christ.

01:11:33

He would be openly repenting of fake healings of injuring people on stage who have grave serious physical illnesses and he, and he messes with them in their time of adrenaline rush to try to prop himself up.

01:11:47

He would be, um, he would be admitting to things that we've never even known about.

01:11:53

And, and we would, we would all be like, um, we would be mad rightly so.

01:11:59

And then we'd be like, Lord, help us to extend the grace you've given us to him. But nobody would trust him in ministry. He would completely lose any reputation for trust he's ever had.

01:12:07

He would not be on a speaking tour. He would not be like, let me just tweak a couple things and keep going as, as I always have the cost to his reputation, which

01:12:15

I think is something he, he cares about deeply and his, his power and control would be, would be total. Um, it's, it's devastating to think about it.

01:12:23

You know, like if I came out and said, Hey guys, um, my ministry has been a lie. I've never really studied any of the stuff

01:12:30

I've talked about. There's this other pastor. I've been stealing all of his stuff. He just, he just doesn't do it, do it online.

01:12:36

I just steal it and copy it. Everything's been fake. Um, I've been, I've been enriching myself with donations from the church.

01:12:42

I'm secretly making a million dollars a year. I'm not, not the stuff that's on our books, you know, from our ministry.

01:12:48

That's not my real salary. If, if I came out and said all that and then said, um, oh, and the, and the questions that come in and the testimonies

01:12:55

I share with like say supporters, once a year, we give out a little, little letter. I made that up. Uh, that stuff wasn't true.

01:13:01

I was doing that to manipulate you to give to me. Nobody would trust me in the future. Yeah. Um, Benny Hinn's story would be, would be worse.

01:13:11

The, the stuff he's done is, is you, you can't do what he's done. You know, he's never repented for fake healings.

01:13:17

To my knowledge, he's never, ever admitted it or repented. Yeah. No, he said,

01:13:23

I will make sure to not announce healings until we verify it medically. He's never verified it medically.

01:13:29

He gets a doctor to be like they're present in the room. Who's obviously just, just a yes man for the ministry who just looks at people and goes, yeah, you look like you're healed.

01:13:37

He's not doing any sort of medical exam. He's just technically a doctor. That's like being technically a scientist, but I just,

01:13:47

I just eyeball your experiment from a distance. I'm like, I don't know what chemicals are using, but it looks okay to me. And I'm just, just go for it.

01:13:53

Yeah. And it doesn't, it doesn't mean, yeah. And can I just briefly say, just to affirm the doctor thing.

01:13:58

Um, so one of the most well -known and maybe not everyone knows this, but if you're watching this and you hear this name, you're like, wait, what

01:14:04

I'm going to mess some people up, but like Dr. Don Colbert, who's a pretty well -known, pretty like go -to doctor for my uncle, oral

01:14:12

Roberts university graduate was my uncle. Benny's family doctor. I grew up with his son.

01:14:18

We know their kids. We grew up together. That doctor is not ever going to say the healings weren't real.

01:14:25

They're on the payroll. So, um, when they have them on the show and they do the little book, like the doctor who, I forget if what her book was called or one of the books, but, or maybe it was

01:14:33

Colbert's, but it's like foods that heal. Like my uncle was the OG, like health food guy.

01:14:39

He'd have, you could go look at all the programs and they're all, but like those doctors are all paid. You don't bite the hand that feeds you.

01:14:46

So to your point, again, Mike, the doctors aren't like, Hey, we'd like to bring in an unbelieving atheist doctor to verify this healing.

01:14:52

Here are the x -rays. Here are the reports. Our God is a healing God. It's a true gospel. And we are apostles silver and gold.

01:14:58

Not which I gave it, you know, then they get healed. The doctor's going, wow. Remember the Pharisees never denied the genuineness of Jesus's healings.

01:15:05

They were just mad. He did it on the wrong day. You shouldn't have healed on the Sabbath, but no one ever said that's fake.

01:15:13

He wasn't really cripple. No, he's still limping. Right? Never. No, when you're talking about the doctor,

01:15:20

I'm just visualizing one of those like true detective things where you've got all the newspaper clippings with the strings added together. Like, see, he's part of a

01:15:25

Robert's conspiracy. Conspiracy theories. You probably believe in chemtrails, you know, or whatever else.

01:15:31

And don't get me started on all that. But, um, are you a flat Mike? Are you a flat earther? I forgot to ask.

01:15:39

I've put my neck on the line with cultish explaining how the Bible does not support the flatter.

01:15:45

So you lost all your credibility. Yes. Basically. I'm a Nash. I'm a NASA show. God, you believe in the moon landing too.

01:15:53

I, I don't even care. We can't trust him. I just care that the Bible doesn't teach the flat earth and people need to stop twisting it to say that.

01:16:00

And then people are going to call you a Democrat now and it's over. Yep. Right. This is the online world we're in.

01:16:05

No, I, I bring all that up to say like that, that's the level of ridicule at which you'll get for saying,

01:16:13

Hey, by the way, everybody's in on it. It's a scam. It's a show. Not everyone knows it is or thinks it is.

01:16:20

But remember second Timothy three 13 in the last days, evil men and imposters are coming bad to worse deceiving and being deceived.

01:16:27

They are both deceivers, but they're also self deceived. If you tell yourself a lie long enough, you'll believe it.

01:16:33

And that's the biggest challenge for my uncle is breaking through. You want to use the break, the word breakthrough properly.

01:16:40

He needs a breakthrough mentally so that his mind can actually see spiritually. But you know what

01:16:46

I mean? His mind has to actually have this moment where there's an epiphany, the light bulb goes off and he goes, all right.

01:16:52

Yep. I'm a liar. Completely. Some of it though. Did you ever? No, no. Literally.

01:16:57

I lied to myself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's got to be standing on stage and he's got to look around and go, this isn't

01:17:05

God. This is me. Yep. And unless he does that, it's not going to be real.

01:17:10

No more PR interviews. Steve's trying and mitigation. Let me, let me ask. Go ahead. Go ahead,

01:17:15

Mike. Well, I was going to say as much as he is self deceived, because I think that I believe very strongly in the power of people to deceive themselves incredibly.

01:17:23

So, so that doesn't mean that they're innocent or that they're excusable. It just means that that's their psychological state.

01:17:29

But at the same time, Benny Hinn is on video clearly faking healings and doing weird stuff.

01:17:35

Like if he's, he's, is he slaying someone in the spirit? How come, um, if he has a child who's, who's young, he never even tries to slay them in the spirit unless they exhibit really obvious susceptibility.

01:17:47

Emotions, the weeping. Yep. Totally. Because he looks at them and he knows, oh, they're not going to, but man, their mom is fully on board.

01:17:53

I'll, I'll do her and then leave the kid, even though the kid's the one that's here for help. I'll just leave them standing. That sort of behavior, um, saying that somebody's healed, you know, when he's asking, are you healed?

01:18:04

And if they look like they're susceptible and they're, they're, they're going to say nice things, he'll put the mic up. Yes. But if he's not sure about that, he holds the mic way back.

01:18:12

Why, wait, why is that? This is whether it's conscious or subconscious. Like if it's conscious, he's deliberately deceiving people.

01:18:19

If it's subconscious, it's almost scarier because he's like, are you this self -deceived that you don't even know your own actions?

01:18:26

You know, there's like such a darkness on you that you don't know what you're doing. Kosti, there was a video. I'd love to ask you about this.

01:18:31

Speaking of this, there's a video I reviewed in my four hour thing on Benny, um, where there was a woman who was saying she was not healed, but all the stagecraft they did was to make it look like she was healed when she verbally says that she's not healed yet.

01:18:47

Not with those words, but she verbally explains or reveals that she's not healed. Suddenly there's this sound of a man speaking in tongues, talking over her.

01:18:56

It made it very hard to hear what she said. I had to play the footage over and over again. I had to really sit there and listen to it super loud in that two hour service.

01:19:05

That man does not appear once in the audio of the entire video. He only pops in, in the, in the, in the two moments where she declares to Benny that she's not healed.

01:19:15

And then he is just saying, um, she goes, she was like, she was like, I'm in pain.

01:19:21

And he goes, you were in pain, right? He's trying to sort of reframe what she says to make it look like she's healed.

01:19:27

And I am convinced that somebody in the editing room dubbed the sound of some random guy speaking in tongues.

01:19:35

They had a track somewhere of it over this woman. So you couldn't hear what she said, which could be nothing other than intentional.

01:19:44

Systemic, deliberate deception. Um, do you, you haven't, maybe you have, have, or haven't seen that clip.

01:19:50

I haven't. Does that sound plausible to you from what you have seen? It sounds plausible. Will you first after, or during or after, will you text me that clip?

01:19:56

I'd love to see it. Um, and, and look at it. I haven't seen it, but I would say more than plausible because here's the deal.

01:20:02

The, uh, TV department at Benny and ministries. Well, although by the way, my comment on Andrew's question really quick.

01:20:11

And this all ties into this is I, I know that potentially there would be, cause there could be jail time.

01:20:17

Somebody could argue that, but I do know that my uncle in his wisdom.

01:20:23

Sorry. Some people won't like that. I said he, that he's worldly wisdom was very strategic and generous in who he hired and how he hired them.

01:20:32

The right people are in the right spots for legal purposes, corporate purposes. So why

01:20:37

I bring that up as I said, the TV department at Benny and ministries. And then my brain was like, Oh, hold on. It's world healing center church. Yes, it is.

01:20:43

And they have chapel at the offices, which technically is a church meeting. And so you can do what you want. You don't have to give it pump, pump out a nine 90 and all, all that stuff that, you know, you, that whole thing, the people they hire in these departments are paid to do a job and they're very talented at it.

01:20:59

You didn't have to be a Christian per se to be in the TV department. You just had to do what you were told. So it is 100%.

01:21:06

When I say that there were times where my dad back in the day, cause he worked with my uncle. That's why

01:21:12

I want to see the footage too. I'm like wondering, is my dad potentially the one who was that, or was it, you know, Steve Brock, who was another one?

01:21:18

This is very recent. Okay. So it'd be a different guy. Okay. Yeah. My dad's not in all that. So, um, but what, even those guys had specific training and specific ways that they would do things, but sometimes my dad would get really upset and he would call the vice president of the

01:21:33

TV department and get annoyed with them and say like, why didn't you, I'm watching the program.

01:21:38

You didn't cut the clip. You, you put the thing and then you cut that one out. Like, what are you guys doing? He would call my uncle and say, these guys,

01:21:44

Benny, they, they left the clip out of the one that you got to put that one on. And so when I say like, these guys were heavily involved with the way things are edited, they are not detached.

01:21:54

It's the same way that like when cultish goes to put this on, or you do, or we do, and we collab and stuff, we're well aware of what's going on out there.

01:22:00

Why? Because we care about what people hear and see in the right way, not in a snaky way. They are very involved in how things are cut and clipped.

01:22:07

So it is incredibly plausible and very likely that if a woman said the wrong thing and that got videoed, that they could dub it.

01:22:14

They could add in sound. Um, they could do different things. They're like the guy who was vice president of the

01:22:19

TV department when I worked there. And when I was growing up in it old enough to know what's what had also gotten job offers from like ESPN true story.

01:22:28

So, um, that just tells you the level of production capable leadership that if my uncle says, well, or if they're like, oops, we need to fix that.

01:22:38

They can fix anything. Hence the wide crowd shot with the star filter. I'm sure you've seen that ad nauseum in your research.

01:22:45

They go wide shot star filter. It's like, wow. And then they'll come back to anything.

01:22:50

All those are strategic edits while they move through the material to deceive people. Hmm. Wow. That's a question.

01:22:58

Okay. Follow up question. How would I get ahold of like unedited full one full night of a healing miracle event unedited without it being edited?

01:23:09

Yeah. Can I get ahold of that? That's like black market status. So the people who have that or could, I hope if you're watching this, uh, have signed and signed

01:23:17

NDAs guaranteed have had, had been given the choice of here's a severance.

01:23:24

If you want your severance, then sign the NDA. So you'd have to have like, we're talking bootleg contraband, black,

01:23:35

Benny Hinn, black market material. Um, if anybody out there has that and the

01:23:41

Holy spirit's filled you baptized you in the body of Christ and worked in your heart. Um, you don't need to be named, but that footage could end up in Mike's inbox or mine or cultish.

01:23:50

But, um, I think that would be, yeah, my website's biblethinker .org. Just unrelated.

01:23:55

I'll just mention my website's biblethinker .org. You know, maybe we can reach out to me for unrelated reasons.

01:24:01

A hundred percent. Maybe we can collaborate with James O 'Keefe and get someone there like undercover as well. Hey, there's a documentary called miracles for sale.

01:24:09

I'm sure you guys all saw that back when they did, but they train that guy to do this very thing. And he was able to deceive people.

01:24:16

And he was a very, very, um, poor faith healer. Like he did not do that great of a job.

01:24:21

And I thought, man, I, you take somebody who's got a little bit of more acting skill and even a little experience in this world.

01:24:27

And you can really mimic these guys really well. One thing I wanted to ask you both about is

01:24:34

Mike, you talk extensively and you had footage like we were just talking about of people up on stage and what happens.

01:24:41

There is however, a big, uh, state phase of preconditioning assistant that Benny Hinn has perfected of what happens and what takes place even hours before someone would get up on stage.

01:24:54

There's a lot of variables in play that would even almost, you can almost equate with a group think or undue influence, or even a form of hypnosis, everything from what happens as far as the choices of the music, where people are positioned, uh, talk about what, what's the preconditioning that happens in the

01:25:11

Benny Hinn crusade? Cause you've been there in the lion's den and seen this happen as far as giving one in that emotional state of mind to be prepared if they end up being part of the lucky chosen per se to go up on stage with Benny.

01:25:23

Talk about that. Yeah. First of all, I would say it goes back years and years and years and years, events, events, events, events.

01:25:29

So to put this in maybe perspective for people, um, I'm a, I've got, I'm in the doctoral program at master seminary.

01:25:37

And, uh, Steve, Dr. Steve Lawson said recently, uh, somebody always asks him, there's inevitably young guys always say like, how long did it take you to prep that sermon?

01:25:44

How long did it take you to prep that sermon? And he always says my whole life. And he says it, it, it takes a whole Bible and a whole life, whole

01:25:50

Bible to make a Christian whole life to make a preacher. And so everything that comes out of them is the result of years of study and deposit.

01:25:57

I use that illustration because I want people to understand this. This didn't happen overnight. This is years of conditioning.

01:26:03

This is, you go back to the seventies and eighties, but let's just use Mike's timeline of early nineties. He has been conditioning people with each event, every

01:26:13

TV program, every video it builds on itself. It's the, it's like compound interest.

01:26:19

Like the, the, the picture of that is so vivid for people that he just keeps making deposits and it builds.

01:26:26

So what do I mean by that? I mean that they watched the TV program and they saw how people act and they saw the results.

01:26:32

And then they think, wow, I need that. I need a healing. I need to go. They're already conditioned to be desperate for whatever that thing is.

01:26:39

Sure. There'll be some skeptics, but overall they've got people constantly being conditioned by the content and the material leading up to it, the

01:26:45

TV, but then go there to the meeting. There's an anticipation. There's a line of people they, they, they love.

01:26:52

I used to be around if I was driving with my uncle or flying in, we'd have the entourage of like suburbans coming out of the hotel.

01:26:58

Basically, like if you were, you know, the Rolling Stones going to the concert and getting going to the, we'd literally call it the venue and we're coming down and, and he would get reports and they'd be like, they call him doc.

01:27:09

And they'd be like, doc, the they're, they're saying the lines just down the street. I mean, there's literally, you know, 10 ,000 people waiting and he'd be like, oh, but it's going to be a good night.

01:27:19

You know, like the, the hype and the anticipation outside was prepped. The volunteers were prepped.

01:27:24

The choir was prepped. The whole thing is built like a production. When you get in the building, even that, the experience, the video, the announcements.

01:27:33

I mean, I don't know. Did any, either one of you ever go to a crusade? No, no,

01:27:38

I've never seen a crusade. No, I've just seen on TV. You guys from start to finish. It is, it is an event like the hype, the it's full, it's packed.

01:27:47

It's not like they had to block off some sections, like some of those concerts or different things where they can't fill a stadium.

01:27:53

American airlines arena, uh, United center in Chicago, air Canada center. Now, Scotiabank arena in Toronto, like just name a

01:28:01

Joe Louis arena, uh, where the red wings used to play in Detroit. Like all of these places, just name every hockey or basketball arena in the nation.

01:28:09

He packed the entire thing all the way around and the choir is in there and that thing starts and there is just a buzz.

01:28:16

Now what happens is very specific and very timed and very scheduled and orchestrated leading up to the moment where, and I mean, if you want to B roll this, you totally can.

01:28:28

But they sing how great thou art after a string of just performances, singing the choir guest singers, which by the way, he got that from Catherine Coleman, Catherine Coleman used to have, you can look at her last crusade in the seventies in Vegas.

01:28:44

She has this famous singer sing. She has the Catholic priest come up. There's, there's sort of this whole like song and dance event kind of vibe.

01:28:51

And then we start singing how great thou art. And why

01:28:56

I say conditioning started a long time before is because people all know he comes out to how great thou art.

01:29:05

Now they sing it normally first, but he's been the back and he's got the white suit, the jackets on the whole deal.

01:29:14

And they lift up a key. They go up a key. The lighting changes.

01:29:19

This is why I wish you guys could have been to one of these days. The lighting changes. It gets bright on that spot.

01:29:24

And Jim scenario, who's his choir director, Jim turns to the whole audience.

01:29:30

He's been conducting the choir this entire time on a giant riser deal. He turns to the crowd with his handheld mic and he says, and you can use it.

01:29:37

Then sings my soul, then sings my soul. He does this whole thing. Everyone's standing.

01:29:44

That's what he would do. Everyone's standing. Sing with us. How great that does this whole thing. And everybody stands the whole band, the whole

01:29:51

Cheryl Palmquist, who's the piano player. And Bruce, sorry,

01:29:56

Cheryl, the organ player. Bruce is the piano player. Like, I know all these people that that's why you'll hear my uncle say, lift it,

01:30:03

Cheryl, lift it. Whoever someone's like, who in the world is Cheryl, the organ player who Bruce on the keys.

01:30:09

That's Bruce Hughes on the keys. And they're all doing Jim scenario. Tells everyone to stand. The spotlight hits and it goes up.

01:30:17

The key goes up and you've got how great thou art at the next highest key. And uncle Benny comes out and then sings my soul.

01:30:26

And he comes out and everyone starts freaking out and clapping. And he comes out and he stands and he goes,

01:30:32

Jesus. And he's, his microphone's not on. Okay. But I want you to picture, and I know people are going to laugh and think what it is how wrestlers come out and they go up on the turnbuckles.

01:30:41

You know, like the rock, or you remember like Stone Cold Steve Austin or whatever. And they come out and they're yelling and saying stuff, but you can't hear them.

01:30:47

And they're like, you know, on each one, my uncle comes out and he stands at the pulpit and he there, the whole place is ripping now.

01:30:54

And everyone's singing their loudest and Benny's here. And he's saying, Jesus, we give you praise. Ah, he's doing all these big prayers he's doing.

01:31:01

And then the whole thing sort of lands. And he says, and now it's the, um, on the, on the organ, they're playing the bells, you know, and Mike, you've heard all this and the strings.

01:31:10

And he says, Jesus, we vow to give you all the honor, all the glory and all the praise.

01:31:18

And yeah, sorry. You're getting the irony, the irony of that. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And that,

01:31:23

I mean, that's theatrical. Like I just took you there and then he has them sit. He preaches for a while.

01:31:30

He goes gospel. They go. And then once the whole thing shifts after the altar call, and he begins to say, even now healings are beginning to happen.

01:31:45

And like, and they start playing this specific song and it gets very serious and like minor keys and the whole bit.

01:31:53

And he says, and I just want to praise you.

01:31:58

And he'll sing some song. You're like, what? And like, he's singing. And then he sings for a while. And then there, and you, and he goes, he's here.

01:32:07

He's here. He's going to touch you. Shh. Hallelujah.

01:32:13

Sing it choir. And then the bells hit. He's a healer.

01:32:19

He's here to heal you tonight. Whatever your problem, Jesus. And you're just like, wow.

01:32:24

And he begins to just like, I mean, he's taking you there and he's like, hallelujah.

01:32:31

And you're all this stuff. And he's like, Jesus, we give you praise. Just put your hand on the place where you have pain.

01:32:42

Jesus heal your pain. And you're just like, what? So he's priming them. And then he's already told them, you're everyone, you're going to feel fire.

01:32:50

And you're, so then people are being told, this is hypnotists do this. Showman do this. He's telling them it's the power of suggestion.

01:32:56

What's going to happen to them, what they're going to feel. And you've got people in that moment, primed and desperate crying.

01:33:03

Sitting is where Mike gets upset. They're holding the child in their arms or by the hand and they're weeping.

01:33:10

Just please, please heal my baby, please. Like this is my last chance.

01:33:16

A mother is there saying, I just want a baby. I'm barren. I can't have a child. We've given everything.

01:33:21

We gave him the offering. We have believed. Now we're here. We waited for four hours in line. Like this is their moment.

01:33:27

And the singing is powerful. The music sounds amazing. The guy is saying all the right things and you're ready.

01:33:33

And so all of that leads to the moment where he says. And you're waiting for this because you just want to get up there is.

01:33:40

If you are sick in body, if you, if the Lord has healed you. Begin lining up on my right and my left.

01:33:48

And now we're in the next phase of the show. My dad ran one of the healing lines. And then a woman named

01:33:53

Joan Geeson. She led a healing line or Steve Brock, different guys, but like key people. And they're going to vet everyone who comes.

01:33:59

So you have lines starting to form. And now we're in the next phase of the show where we're sort of out of the like emotional hyper, like preparation.

01:34:06

And now we're into, I don't know what you would call it, but it's the ultimate manipulation. It's the quote unquote celebration of all that God's doing with that showmanship.

01:34:14

We talked about a little touch here, a little adjustment here. If somebody doesn't quite look like they have it, or we got a child on stage who won't respond.

01:34:22

Well, we look very noble when we say, oh, it's beautiful, beautiful view. And he hasn't forgot about you, mom.

01:34:30

And he'll touch the mom and pray for the mother. And she cries. She goes, the prayers of a mother has healed the child.

01:34:38

The Lord hears her. Henry, what's happening over here? And he just moves right to the next guy in the healing line.

01:34:44

And so all of this orchestrated to create an amazing experience, a sinful evil one, but an amazing one for people.

01:34:52

And I just took you from outside waiting in line all the way through.

01:34:58

If you weren't there for a healing, you're definitely saying, wow, I just feel so good.

01:35:04

Every time I just love Pastor Benny Hinn. If you were there for a healing and you got sucked into the euphoria of it all, or you felt like God touched you, you're kind of still like on for the ride.

01:35:15

And then if you went through some sort of psychosomatic thing where the adrenaline rush hit you and you actually feel better, you're like really in it.

01:35:23

And then if you go away disappointed, you're told keep on believing. Now, here's what I want to say. And then turn it over to you guys.

01:35:29

There are people at the doors and there are people in the healing lines, specifically with lines that they say to people.

01:35:35

Like if you didn't get healed, go keep on believing. You know, we serve a healing

01:35:40

Jesus. Keep on believing. And my uncle will say, sometimes some of you tonight, if the

01:35:46

Lord didn't hear you tonight, I believe he's going to heal you tomorrow night. And so you have the ability to get people to come back.

01:35:52

It's a Thursday night, Friday morning, Friday night. That's the crusades. So you have people continuing to come back.

01:35:58

So you can keep on the hook. And you have other people that you say, if you didn't get healed, stay away from negative people.

01:36:04

The Lord is going to heal some of you next week. He spoke to me and told me some of you, your healing is going to be to come.

01:36:12

And the seeds you sow tonight are going to reap a harvest of healing in one week, maybe two weeks, maybe three weeks.

01:36:18

You keep believing. So what I've done right now is set you up for whatever category you're in. I got you.

01:36:23

And I've got you on the hook. And I've got you scared to speak against anything. If that kind of makes sense of how that whole thing is just, you're disgusted right now.

01:36:33

Well, yeah, I mean, he's implanted a siege mentality where any sort of criticism or concern relative is going to be, that's a negative person.

01:36:40

I can't talk to them because I need my healing. Totally. That's cult control. It's the Scientologist, a suppressive person.

01:36:46

It's Steve Hassan's bite model. You have a behavior control, information control, thought control, emotion control.

01:36:53

That's the bite model right there. Mike, Andrew, what are your guys' thoughts on this? Or commentary with everything that Kostya said?

01:37:00

I mean, this is like an expanded version of everything you're talking about in your video. Yeah, I think it's brilliant.

01:37:12

It's so clever. Imagine if you could just be a psychopath for a moment and not care about people or God or truth.

01:37:23

You would design the Benny Hinn Healing Service. Yes. If that was your agenda was to create a fake that you would, you'd be like, yeah, this is and what will we do with this?

01:37:30

Let me just come up. Now, if I just don't care about people, what can I tell them? What can I say to them that will help us accomplish our goals?

01:37:37

The healing lines to me function, there's the front of the line in the back of the line.

01:37:42

And as it's described, it functions for two purposes. The front of the line is to make sure that whoever goes on stage has something they can do or say to make it look as though there's a real healing that's taking place.

01:37:56

And then not that it is real. It doesn't matter if it's real or not. They have to have something they can do or say. So that's why he'll tell people, come in line and show this the thing you couldn't do before that you can do now.

01:38:05

Those don't go, hey, you couldn't move your arm. Maybe they can move their arm this far. And now they can move their arm this far.

01:38:11

OK, they can get on stage. Yes, they can get on stage. Now, adrenaline can explain that as well. And so can someone who's just usually when you're in pain, you nurse things, but you could do more if you wanted to.

01:38:21

Yeah, you just don't because it hurts, you know, so you're in a wheelchair. You get out of the wheelchair. You can walk for a couple of minutes, but it's going to take a toll.

01:38:28

But you're excited. You think maybe God's healing you. They go, God may be healing you. Stand up. Let's get him on stage.

01:38:34

He can stand up. OK, it doesn't matter if he's healed or not. You don't ask him, were you able to do that before? So the healing line in the front is to is to filter people who will be favorable for the stage in the back of the healing line.

01:38:49

It's for making sure that actually sick and injured and messed up people don't get on stage.

01:38:54

Yeah, right. You go to the back. You go to the back. No, no, you can't go to the front. We're here. The healing line functions to keep sick people from getting to Binny Hinn.

01:39:04

Totally. I mean, think about this deeply for a second. Imagine Jesus going out to do miracles in Capernaum, and he sends six disciples on each side to control who can come to him.

01:39:17

And he informs them with instructions that amount to anybody who's still sick. Don't let him get to me.

01:39:27

Just just sit with that. It's a mockery of the healing of God.

01:39:33

Yeah. Andrew, as someone who we've we've done this together now for five years and someone for you, who's a newly ordained pastor who has a flock and a congregation to look after, but also someone who pastors in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is just an epicenter for those who have been spit out the other end of spirit, all sorts of systems of spiritual abuse and manipulation.

01:39:56

Now being a pastor that shepherds heart, like what really comes to mind with everything that Kosti and Mike have been saying here?

01:40:02

What resonates with you? What I'm thinking about is like, what does this really say about the state of the

01:40:07

American church, right? Like our biggest exports in terms of our country are like fast food, you know, like this mockery to the world.

01:40:14

Like when we think about theology coming from the Americas, we think about the biggest export being this prosperity gospel that's influencing to Africa.

01:40:21

Like what are we known for? Like one of the thoughts I've heard Pastor Jeff Durbin say this a lot.

01:40:27

I forget who it's quoted from, but we might as well say on the front of every Planned Parenthood, there should be a placard that says here by permission of the church, right?

01:40:35

Like when thinking about our church, we should have the river of God that outstreams from it with the power of the gospel.

01:40:42

Like we have a demographic of individuals that are suffering, right? Massively so much so that they're going to this crusade, hoping that God will save them or make this massive change in their life.

01:40:55

Where are we failing as the church in not taking these people in, in a sense, or at least even educating individuals on what

01:41:04

Christian suffering means, right? Like, I don't know. It kind of makes me think of that.

01:41:10

Like Benny can hear or the prosperity gospel here by the permission of the American church.

01:41:15

Really? So it's like, what better could we do to help the situation?

01:41:22

Does that make sense? Like what are some of your guys' thoughts? Totally. Let me jump in here first because Mike won't say this about himself.

01:41:28

Um, but people need to do it. Mike is doing like influential people.

01:41:34

And why do I say that? I say it needs to start quote unquote at the top. Now in, in our church, we talk about this.

01:41:39

We, the, the elders we serve, we want to say we serve from the bottom up. Jesus said, I didn't come to be served. I came to serve.

01:41:45

So we want to, we serve from the bottom up, but you know what I mean? When I say that it starts at the top, meaning it starts with leadership, influential people and leaders need to be willing to take the hits.

01:41:55

And what I think we have a lot in the American church is we have the ability to kind of stay in a lane and be known for a niche and generally not get in much trouble.

01:42:06

We don't have to worry much. We can make a great paycheck. We could have lots of influence. We could kind of do our thing, talk about happy stuff and never have a

01:42:13

Jude moment when he says, beloved, I wish about, or I, I, I want to write to you, uh, about our common faith, but I felt it necessary to urge you to contend for the faith.

01:42:22

So it's like, I wanted to talk to you about the gospel and about good things and happy things. But in the end, I also have to tell you, you need to fight the fight.

01:42:30

I think it starts with that. Leaders need to model what it means to be all in on Christ, preach all of the gospel, all of the truth, and be willing to do the two things that pastors are to do.

01:42:42

Preach the truth and refute error. We don't like to do the refute error thing because it invites frustrated people, false accusations.

01:42:52

Oh, here might go. Oh, you, you know, the reason I always listen to you, Mike, is you always talk about good things and truth.

01:42:59

You're always so helpful. This seems like now you have an ax to grind. And so we get worried. It's pragmatism.

01:43:05

Now people will be upset. Now it might affect my donor base. Now I might have to take an extra couple hours and counsel somebody in my church who's upset because I said something in the pulpit that rubbed them the wrong way.

01:43:15

So what you have is the ability in our country to play the game and do fine and have your 403B, your little retirement package, and chill, and then go play more golf.

01:43:25

That is appealing. And what we sell to the world is the American dream. That's what we're exporting, the quote unquote

01:43:30

American dream attached to and given by the prosperity gospel. In a way, we model prosperity gospel light.

01:43:37

It's like the diet version. Don't be Benny Hinn. Don't be Joel Osteen. But if you kind of tell people generally good, nice, true things, and you stay in the lane and don't cause too much trouble and get in the fight, well, you can really enjoy your life.

01:43:51

And so I think leaders need to be willing to remember suffering is normal. Being slandered is normal.

01:43:58

Paul told Timothy, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. If people aren't saying stuff about you, if you're not inviting some sort of conflict management, because you said something that caused resistance from someone, maybe you're not as bold as you think.

01:44:14

Maybe you're not doing your job. And maybe your flock is actually in danger of being in sort of a lukewarm, lazy river than burning red hot on fire for God.

01:44:24

So I would say leaders, we have to step up and be willing to take the hits. Speaking of taking the hits,

01:44:31

Mike, when it comes to this video, I mean, you didn't really expect to see the impact that it had.

01:44:37

And you just felt really led to release this. What was some of the feedback? What was some of the pushback that you had gotten?

01:44:44

Can you give us some examples of that? And how you've dealt with that? Absolutely. I think there's well -meaning, very honest, and I mean this sincerely, very well -meaning people who push back and just thought this, they just don't feel comfortable with this.

01:44:55

This feels kind of mean or attacky or personal. Like, Mike, you have a personal vendetta against Benny Hinn.

01:45:03

And I think that my response to those who push back that way would be, you're probably not affected personally by Benny Hinn's ministry or those who copy his tactics.

01:45:13

And so to you, it feels like this distant problem where it's just me and Benny Hinn. And yet I look at the issue and all

01:45:19

I see is all the people who are being hurt. You know, like imagine when America goes into World War II and someone just says,

01:45:26

America, you just have like this thing with Germany. Like, why are you so mad at Germany? And you're like, do you not see the other people that we're trying to help?

01:45:35

The millions and millions of people who are being killed? Like, do they not matter? There are people that need to be rescued.

01:45:41

And so there are sincere individuals who feel this is a personal thing. It's not at all. If it was personal, I wouldn't have ever made a video.

01:45:48

But there's also other things. You know, I've been told, oh, well, you're just being a heresy hunter. Or when

01:45:53

Benny Hinn did his interview with Stephen Strang, Charisma Magazine put out an article heavily implying that I and others are making a career out of criticizing 30 -year -old videos of Benny Hinn.

01:46:10

I thought, so personal attacks like that. You're doing this for money. So my ministry, the way it's set up, and my

01:46:17

YouTube channel is part of a ministry. It's not just a personal YouTube channel. If a million dollars came in through YouTube, through ads or whatever, it wouldn't change my paycheck at all.

01:46:30

That's the way my ministry is set up. It doesn't go to my bank account. And it doesn't affect my bank account. If more money comes in, I usually just donate more money to other ministries.

01:46:38

And so there's personal attacks like that. And I don't usually talk about that. But I do just to clear the way. So people go, okay, now will you consider the harm this guy's causing and the harm these practices cause in the body of Christ?

01:46:48

There's been that sort of thing. Michael Koulianos did a message on Sunday morning after my video came out.

01:46:55

He did a Sunday message at his church, which was probably affected by the video. And in the video or in the message, he excoriates

01:47:02

YouTube critics. And he talks about them having too much head knowledge and not enough love and heart knowledge and things like that.

01:47:09

The vaguest of sort of general condemnations in the name of tolerance, he's condemning things he hasn't looked at and doesn't know about.

01:47:18

So there's that kind of thing to categorize people as, well, we don't have to think about what that critic said because they're a bad guy.

01:47:28

They're a pharisee, the PH word. So I've had those kinds of things.

01:47:37

Part of me doesn't care. But I mean, I'm sure my flesh cares, but I have more reach than I ever expected to have or hope to have.

01:47:48

I want to honor the Lord with it and seek to serve and honor the kingdom with it. But in a sense, it's just like, whenever you're in the public eye, the way

01:47:56

I am now, you have two classes. You have people who think way too highly of you and people who think way too lowly of you and not all that many people in the middle where you really are.

01:48:04

Yeah, that's such a great point. So I just kind of, they sort of balance each other out, you know? Yeah, well,

01:48:10

I think it's interesting. I mean, sometimes you put something out there and it doesn't really, you don't expect it to have this effect, but it ends up having an effect as well too.

01:48:18

And maybe one of the things, honestly, is that, hey, here's someone that maybe I'm going to get clout and stature with being in the same room with.

01:48:25

So for some pastors like Pastor Greg Locke, like having an appearance where he's with Benny Hinn and kind of like having a back and forth talk.

01:48:33

Now all of a sudden that's clout, but now all of a sudden he's in the same video that you just did, the four hour expose.

01:48:40

And I know that you had a brief, you had some interactions on Twitter. Can you talk about that? I mean, I'm curious about that.

01:48:47

Yeah, so Stephen String is, in my opinion, Stephen String, who's the founder, CEO, I think for Charisma Media.

01:48:54

So that's Charisma Magazine. A lot of people are like, I'm not familiar with them, but the things Benny Hinn's followers are very familiar largely with this magazine and the videos and stuff they do.

01:49:02

He's helping Benny Hinn do damage control. So he did his repentance in 2019.

01:49:09

He did the video then, he did it again just now when Benny Hinn actually responded to my video. And he wouldn't mention me in the interview, but the article that they publish say that this is a response to my video.

01:49:19

So then this is them, the inside people admitting this is a response to my video. Well, after that,

01:49:25

Stephen String then interviewed Greg Locke. And Greg Locke is, I don't know all that much about Greg Locke.

01:49:32

Um, I don't, yeah, I don't know all that much about him. I don't, I can't speak to too much to it.

01:49:37

I, I, I have my gut reactions to his stuff, which are not positive, but at any rate, he goes on there and he comes against all those who would, who would say not be accepting of Benny Hinn's current repentance video.

01:49:52

So they're, they probably have sin in their own lives. They're, they're, they're these people who don't really have big followings and they don't have big ministries.

01:50:00

It seems important to Greg Locke that you have big ministries. He seems kind of out of touch with normal Christians. It's big ministries.

01:50:08

I, it's just so ironic to me to be like, your numbers dictate your, uh, your authority in Christ to, to call out issues, um, uh, at any rate, which, which rules out most critics right there because they're all just little people.

01:50:21

Who are you? A little person. There was, there was a number of things he said there. Um, and I replied on Twitter.

01:50:27

I didn't, I could make a whole video about it. It would probably get a lot of attention. I just didn't want to, um, but I replied on Twitter and was like, you know,

01:50:33

Greg, shame on you. You're from what you're, what you're saying. And you're implying all these things about me and others. And then he said, well,

01:50:39

I, Mike, I separated you from that. And he didn't really, he honestly, the guy just talked out of both sides of his mouth.

01:50:45

So if you play a clip here, it sounds like he's going, well, Mike's not like these guys go forward 30 seconds. And he's like, basically saying

01:50:51

I'm a Pharisee who's jealous of Benny Hinn. So he's, he's doing damage control.

01:50:56

And in my view, this doesn't, it's not that it hurts me. It hurts the people who respect his wisdom, right?

01:51:02

They're more likely to be susceptible to the manipulative, controlling and damaging behaviors of Benny Hinn or others who are the same way.

01:51:11

And so I responded to it. And then he just argued with people on my Twitter for a while.

01:51:17

And I haven't read otherwise. I don't know, do you have something more specific on that? He, he's just, he's like, he's like, if Donald Trump had gone into ministry.

01:51:25

Yeah, that's what, like, I don't even know who he, I know who he is now, but like when he first came on the scene,

01:51:31

I was like, who's the crazy guy? Everyone's always yelling about it. And then he wears these really weird shirts and stuff. We're just like, what is this dude?

01:51:37

Like he's trapped. He's, he's like, it looks like he not, not being rude, but like one of those guys are like, he shops at Ed Hardy and like wears really weird shirts and is like super intense.

01:51:47

And he's intense all the time. He's like in literal, literal tense. Like he'd do intent meetings. And then he sort of hit the, um, like, are you a biker?

01:51:55

Like, what are, do you lead a rock band? Like he, he looks super like that and, and that's fine.

01:52:01

But then he, he was yelling in like, um, is he, does he do casting out demons and stuff too?

01:52:06

Whatever he was doing. He's, he's connected with that. But I think he is came to his, his, uh, big, uh, what do you call it?

01:52:13

Big, uh, path of prominence was, I think he was shooting just small videos outside of his truck when

01:52:18

Obama was present, just talking about political stuff. That's what you see. He's like, if Trump went into ministry, you're just like, like Trump, Trump will go down any, he could go down any road and sort of like make a,

01:52:31

I mean, that's the, in a sense, like the, the beauty or the draw of Trump is like, he could be a golf announcer.

01:52:38

And you're like, this guy's crazy. Like he, he draws to Greg lock has that vibe, but I never understand.

01:52:45

I'm like, what, how did he get in the, was he a Baptist or was he like an, was he a fundamental? Like Baptist guy?

01:52:52

Cause he used to not like my uncle or something. I heard, didn't he? Right. He says he wrote a book. So he wrote a book about Benny Hinn.

01:52:59

That's what I heard. And I never looked at the book. And then later he repented of that. He was like this, he was his cessationist.

01:53:05

And then he became charismatic. And now he focuses on casting out demons. God, that's the M O now like that. That's the

01:53:10

M O. So then he kind of partnered with Benny Hinn, like, Hey, we're on the same team. He was just installed as an apostle recently.

01:53:16

I don't know the story. I don't even, I saw a video. That makes a bunch of people on stage. I don't recognize. So it's not, it's not a circle

01:53:21

I'm familiar with. Yeah. Well, the one thing that stuck out to me and where I'm bringing with the, just bring this up is that in your interaction, we're saying

01:53:28

Twitter it's X and I still call it Twitter. Sometimes I call it X. But all that being said is that he, what happens a lot when someone is critiquing something, they'll just say very passively,

01:53:40

Oh, well that's taken out of context. Well, we'll show me where it reminds me in 2020, where I got this notification from Facebook that said,

01:53:47

Jeremiah, you clicked on a link that had false information about COVID -19. Well, I'm like, well, what link, what link is it?

01:53:53

And they wouldn't show me the link, you know, and I basically, and I was given two links of like correct information.

01:53:59

I'm like, what on what in 1984 is this, right? Please read these links and believe what's in them.

01:54:05

Believe me, like, just trust me, bro. And that's one of those things. However, when it's sometimes in this online discernment realm, well, someone will just sort of passively say,

01:54:14

Oh, that's taken out of context. That's a sweeping generalizations, but they won't give specific examples. And so in a situation like this, to be fair, like if you don't think, if you think that,

01:54:24

Hey, if you're an error, if you didn't do something correctly, well, let's show me the, explain to me the context, right?

01:54:30

You reach out, you reached out to Benny Hinn's ministry prior to doing this video for commentary, for clarification, the silence back.

01:54:39

And so I think it's one of those. I reached out to Benny Hinn before it was like, Hey, you usually when, if I put an email to somebody and say,

01:54:47

Hey, this is, you know, this is me. I have this channel with 700 ,000 something subscribers. I'm going to make a video related to your stuff.

01:54:54

Can we talk? Usually I get a reaction of some kind because people are like, okay, this is going to affect me.

01:54:59

I should probably think about it. No response from Benny Hinn's ministry. Greg Locke, when he did his like, you know, saying about railing against people who are, he says there, he's not defending

01:55:12

Benny, he's defending repentance. I was like, I'll just have to watch Benny Hinn's repentance video. It's not real. But, but I asked him like, did you actually watch my video?

01:55:20

Cause you brought me up in your interview and you talked about me and you talked about how, you know, I'm not,

01:55:26

I'm not responding to Benny Hinn's repentance. I was like, but you don't even know what he's been accused of. Do you like, did you watch the video? He wouldn't answer.

01:55:32

I'm pretty sure he hasn't watched my video even. So like, that's fine. You don't have to watch it. Well then don't, don't talk about it.

01:55:37

If you're not going to, I don't talk about stuff I've never seen with, um, uh, same thing with Michael Koulianos, Jessica Koulianos with their church.

01:55:47

I reached out to Jesus Image Church when they tried to copyright claim my video. And I was like, I gave my cell number. I never give anybody my cell number randomly.

01:55:54

I left it with their staff voicemail. I was like, this is, this is me guys. Give me a call. Let's talk.

01:56:00

No call. Just a public warning about not watching videos on social media related to Benny Hinn, you know, that he gave on Sunday morning.

01:56:08

So it's all just very insulating and controlling. And nobody ever actually deals with the information or apologizes in full or like repents in full.

01:56:18

There's all, it, it kind of gets old. That's why I don't know who Greg Locke is. I, I will say this.

01:56:24

It didn't, uh, did Dr. Michael Brown do a more, uh, did he call for, somebody said he called for my uncle's repentance now after your video and that, that was encouraging because he and I have talked a number of times offline, um, here and there, and I will get like the odd, somebody will send me a clip and it'll be like, yeah, you know, you're getting called a disgruntled family member again or something else.

01:56:53

And I'm always like, golly, like my uncle did not mistreat me, paid me well, loved me well. My family, I love my family.

01:56:59

Like I, it literally was, I got saved and about the gospel and I'm like, you like similar, you just, you filled with a zeal.

01:57:06

You're like, and now again, if I owned a business, it'd be easy to be like, yeah, my uncle's the wacko guy, but I'm in business. I'm a pastor.

01:57:11

So we're mandated to do our job. And so in that regard, but they'll, they'll say like, yeah, they're just saying you're a family member or they know more about him than you.

01:57:19

And I always, I always wish I could talk to like a Greg Locke or one of those guys and like, Hey man, do you know about this?

01:57:25

Do you know about this? Do you know what this, you know what this, maybe if he repents of those that that would be good too.

01:57:30

And then, you know, they're all guys will be like, well, you don't know him. And I think I have a very specific list of things verifiably that I'll just wait.

01:57:38

And what, what may happen, what I hope doesn't happen, but what may happen is you'll have him die at some point.

01:57:45

And I think similar to Paul Crouch and some of these other big figures after they die.

01:57:51

And I don't pray that he dies without repentance. I pray that genuinely he gets saved. What you'll have,

01:57:57

I think are the real horror stories that come out and that that's where you know, the, the real stuff, the licentiousness that like, yeah,

01:58:08

I never signed an NDA, but it doesn't always edify to talk about it. It turns into salacious stuff, but that is what

01:58:16

I would wish like a Greg Locke or a Michael Brown or whoever, like the defenders, you almost go, what if we all stopped mitigating?

01:58:24

We got super honest and we remember what James says about humility and God's exaltation and pride like that.

01:58:31

God will actually exalt you if you humble yourself. And if you're proud, he will oppose you.

01:58:38

What if we all just got super honest? And so when they say like, yeah, we're all sinners, you know, these guys like, yeah, amen.

01:58:43

I want to come poor in spirit. You should too. We should be mourning our sin. My hope would be that they would take seriously salvation.

01:58:51

Like there actually is a coming judgment and God won't grate on a curve and be like, well, Benny, you meant well,

01:58:56

Matthew 7 22 will happen. And if they don't repent now, so yeah, people will say like, well, they got a lot to lose.

01:59:06

Okay, great. Like stick me in prison, but I have Christ. I take away all the money, put me in, like have

01:59:12

Mike Winger and John Piper and John MacArthur be on the board and set his salary. You guys will put them in a little shack and he can at least have food.

01:59:20

I'm just kidding. Like, but let the man, I would lay, you would lay your life down. Why? Because you get to die soon and you have

01:59:27

Christ. You actually will enter heaven. Now, you know, a lot of people will be mad at you.

01:59:33

Okay, fine. But if you generally get saved, you have Christ. Like there's no coming back. So I, I wish that most of them would see that.

01:59:40

But unfortunately I think that they are the blind leading the blind and you've got a lot of the Greg locks and maybe not the

01:59:46

Michael Brown's now with him acknowledging this. But my question would be like, how, what does it take?

01:59:52

What do people need to hear? Do they need to, some will need to watch the Mike Winger video, but they'll still say you're a

01:59:57

Pharisee. Some will need the IRS raid to turn into prison time and they'll go, okay.

02:00:02

But other people will do what they do with all their anointed leaders. They love, they'll say, oh, it's just persecution. It's a conspiracy.

02:00:08

They're lying. Other people, it's like, well, that's a family member saying that he must know something.

02:00:13

So they'll listen to me, whatever. And then other people will say, ah, he's just disgruntled trading on the family name to build his ministry.

02:00:20

All these things get said. I just always wonder like, what, what will it take for some people?

02:00:26

And the truth is for all of them, it'll take a sovereign act of God to just open their eyes and that they would truly listen, but we can never stop doing what we're doing.

02:00:34

And I think the fear tactic is that you're going to get slandered or that you're just, you'll get called the

02:00:39

Pharisee. Truth is you got nothing to lose. Just serve Christ and let the chips fall where he wants them to.

02:00:45

Yeah. Yeah. I, I, that's such good stuff. We, um, we did see, uh,

02:00:51

Michael Brown say, um, that Benny had needed to repent and he named some specific things and he was like false prophecy and going back to the same things that he said he wouldn't do in 2019.

02:01:02

And then he said at least that much. Um, and, and a lot of the guys are just very cautious. They're like,

02:01:07

I'd rather be gracious. I'd rather give benefit of the doubt. And, and I, I understand that because I, I have attended,

02:01:15

I do want to do that too when possible. And I've been under fire for doing that. Like just there's times where I've made a video to show somebody's problematic teaching, but I just wasn't harsh enough.

02:01:27

And then the whole topic that I just keep getting slammed for is you aren't strong enough, even though I'm bringing all kinds of people out from underneath their teaching.

02:01:34

And so it's just, you, you've, you've got it on both sides. You've got the people who are like, let's, let's destroy everyone who's not fully in line with our ways.

02:01:45

Yes. And you have those who are, who are like, let's overlook every sin and compromise.

02:01:51

Just as long as you have what, what visibly looks like a thriving ministry. Yeah. As long as you have a lot of people and a lot of attention, we'll overlook everything, you know, we'll overlook your adultery.

02:02:02

We'll overlook your, your financial abuses. We'll overlook you bullying your staff and, and being disqualified for leadership.

02:02:10

Anybody who comes against you, we're just gonna be like, ah, you're kind of icky. You're kind of an icky guy now because you've come against these people.

02:02:16

So there's, the truth is somewhere in the middle there where we do call things out. And for pastors who are watching this, who you're worried about, like, should

02:02:24

I call, am I supposed to call out Benny Hinn? Here's the question you just asked yourself is, is this person influencing people under my care?

02:02:31

If he is, you should call him out. If he's not, you don't need to worry about it. If none of your, none of your congregation knows of or watches

02:02:37

Benny Hinn or anyone who does things like him, don't worry about it. But if you know that you've got a contingent of people that are being pulled into that stuff, then, then you should, you should address it and call them out.

02:02:48

Because the local church, a Bible teaching church, which is a rare thing, sadly, I know because me and my wife were looking for a new church a couple of years ago.

02:02:56

We're looking all over the place and finding one that really taught the Bible, didn't just use it, but taught it, was actually way harder than I thought.

02:03:02

I was really like bummed out because I had more, I had better expectations than the reality was, even though many churches were great in many ways, the

02:03:10

Bible teaching was, was usually lacking. But, but a Bible teaching church that, that is then going to say,

02:03:17

I'll, I'll look around and I won't just teach the Bible and teach principles. I'll also ask, there's a world of social media and internet and TV and all that invading the lives of my congregants.

02:03:30

It's entirely appropriate for me to address openly the things that are invading their lives. Yes. And that's, that's not heresy hunting.

02:03:38

That is caring for the sheep. Yep. So if, if Bethel church is influencing your church, it's okay to talk about Bill Johnson and whoever else in a thoughtful and balanced and right way.

02:03:47

If Benny Hinn is, or those who were like him, if you have youth in your church who are getting all interested in this like demon slaying stuff, then you should probably look into it and you should probably try to find biblical balance and share it with your congregation.

02:04:02

And that, that would be kind of a grassroots way of dealing with these types of issues. Yeah. I think

02:04:07

I would, I would add in a support statement to that, be careful, be thoughtful.

02:04:13

If something's impacting your congregation, if it's not, you don't need to run down every rabbit trail.

02:04:18

But then at the same time, be wary. Like if you're a church member, you're a person looking for a church or you're like Mike and his wife, where you're looking around for a church, be wary of a man who will call nothing out.

02:04:30

So you have those two extremes of the heresy hunter and then the, the conflict avoider. And I think to your point,

02:04:36

Mike, you're, you're laying it out so balanced that you as a pastor, as a ministry leader, you always have something that's affecting your congregation.

02:04:45

And so to say, well, we don't really get into all that. Well, then you're punting on something. Maybe in your area, it's

02:04:50

Mormonism. Maybe in your area, it's new age. Maybe in your area, it's a Bethel type. It doesn't need to be like,

02:04:57

I have a special podcast series I'm doing now on Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, and the charismatic movement.

02:05:02

Like maybe that's not the area you're in. Maybe it's this. So, but it's the idea that, you know,

02:05:08

I'll, you go to your pastor or you have concerns and he'll say nothing. I think to back to Andrew's original question way back about, you know, what do we do?

02:05:15

I think when, when leaders will say nothing, they do the Joel Osteen. Well, that's not really my lane, you know, on Larry King when he's like,

02:05:22

I just, I just try to, I don't try to decide who's in, who's out. I just kind of, you know, once you decide that your lane is your lane, well, you've abandoned the job description

02:05:34

God's given. So there's something that a pastor should be saying about something always in the midst of protecting the flock.

02:05:41

So great point, Mike. And, uh, one thing I just want to add to, um, as we are,

02:05:46

I think we're kind of graduating Shirley's play towards the end of our conversation. This has been fantastic. It's just flown by.

02:05:51

We don't do long form this long and I'm like, is it almost over? I know we've gone full Jerry in this conversation, but, uh, you know, you are, your, uh, title of your video was about the victims of Benny Hinn.

02:06:05

And we have, we had, we sort of, this is, has become some of our slogan at cultish is bad theology hurts people.

02:06:13

So my question would be, um, with all your experience costing you in this conversation and knowing uncle

02:06:18

Benny, uh, how would you encapsulate that, that phrase? What does that phrase mean to you?

02:06:24

Bad theology hurts people. I think of two things.

02:06:29

I think of the temporal and I think of the eternal, the temporal being that people lose out on the joy of true salvation, the joy of true gospel living, the joy of hope, the joy of enduring the joy of great friendships and fellowship like we've had, uh, the joy of walking in the truth and waking up each day, not insecure, but entirely secure.

02:06:51

Even if what you're going through makes your heart rate increase and you're a little nervous about the future, you can walk in the truth.

02:06:58

And I want that for people. I have five children and the idea that one of my children would wake up every day being led astray, wandering in life.

02:07:09

When God has such a better way would wake me up each day with a zeal to rescue them and care for them and pull them in.

02:07:20

So in that regard, that theology hurts people means I will never stop doing what

02:07:27

I'm doing until I'm dead. Until Christ returns, whatever the timeline of, of those events,

02:07:34

I'll never stop. Don't care what people say. Don't care what they accuse me of. Don't care what they say. My motives are.

02:07:40

I'll never stop because I love Jesus. Therefore I love what he loves. That's his bride on the eternal side.

02:07:47

It is a nightmarish thing to think about eternity for people who don't have the

02:07:55

Lord. There's no coming back. There's no purgatory. There's no holding tank. There's no waiting room.

02:08:01

There's no kind of Dave Ramsey debt pay down that for a thousand years, you can figure this out.

02:08:08

The end is the end. I think about my uncle. I think about all those who follow him.

02:08:14

I think about the mitigators, the excusers and the fellow deceivers. And then I think about the people damaged by it and it all leads one place.

02:08:22

This isn't like we're going to sing Kumbaya and we had some differences. You know, you were all mill. I was post mill and you were pre mill.

02:08:29

You know, I was oppressed. Be you were a Baptist and you were an AG Pentecostal who liked to babble sometimes in tongues.

02:08:35

This is like the gospel and damnation. Those who are saved and believed and those who do not and end up in hell.

02:08:45

There is no kind of middle of the road. And so temporal and eternal bad theology hurts people both now and in eternity.

02:08:53

And so I think that's how we want to be living our lives. Wake up every day. It doesn't matter if you're a lawyer, a doctor, apologist, pastor.

02:09:00

Doesn't matter if you own a business or you're a server at a restaurant. You get after it every day because your plan a

02:09:05

God left us here with a purpose and a mission. So get on it and quit living cruise control

02:09:12

Christianity. If that's you, Mike, anything you want to add up to add to that? Um, yeah, just just the, you know, our eyes on the ball and the ball is not dealing with false teaching, false theology, bad ministries.

02:09:28

The ball is to faithfully be stewards of the gospel. To faithfully minister to others in the name of Christ.

02:09:37

And part of that is to is to deal with those other issues in service of the kingdom of Christ.

02:09:43

When it comes to, um, I don't know. My dream would be that that people have enough awareness that they don't need a video to see that something's wrong with Benny.

02:09:54

They don't need a video to go and give an explanation or a book for that matter.

02:09:59

Like you don't need Kosti's book, hopefully to say. You know, that prosperity thing kind of makes me allergic to suffering instead of being able to handle it the way

02:10:09

Jesus taught me to. Amen. Yeah, I don't need a book for that. I mean, I've got a book for that. Amen. And so to teach people, you know, when when when all those people gather at Benny Hinniven and at least the vast majority, even if you believe some of them received healing, which

02:10:24

I'm open to, but I'm skeptical of in most cases. Um. The majority of them didn't need a healing service.

02:10:31

They needed they needed to be taught about suffering. Amen. And how to think about that biblically. You know, they need to walk away knowing how to deal with hardship and pain that we will face.

02:10:39

You know, I'm going to one day get old, have body aches and pains that nobody else seems to care about that I'm going through.

02:10:47

I'm going to have cognitive decline. I'm going to eventually be laying there in the same place. I saw my mother when she was dying or my grandparents when they were passing.

02:10:55

And I'll be going through the valley of the shadow of death. And I need confidence in the grace of Christ and the truth of God and the showmanship and the weird stuff that we see from.

02:11:09

You know, the thing is, that is not only weird, it's replacing something else that is gold and necessary and wonderful and good.

02:11:17

And that's my thought is like expose bad theology, expose false teaching as a way of making space for true.

02:11:25

You know, for the gospel, for the truth of Christ, not just as a hobby or like I know this.

02:11:32

I'm just rambling on here, but I know that like kids, for some reason, I've learned this over time. Young people love videos

02:11:37

I've done where I've exposed somebody like I deal with this. I do it rarely, but I've done it where I deal with someone's false teaching and I confront play video clips and show where they're wrong on something.

02:11:46

And the kids love that. There's an impulse where we can get wrapped up in exposing these false things, but not for the sake of making way for the good and truth.

02:11:58

Yes. And that's that would be my final word on that. It's like, yeah, focus on on the gold, not not the fool's gold.

02:12:06

You know? Yeah. Andrew, is there anything that you want to add to that? No, man, that's perfect, guys.

02:12:13

That's great. OK, one last question. And this all set for both of you is this is the final, I guess you call the final crescendo as we walk off stage on this.

02:12:23

And I hope you all have really enjoyed this extended conversation. And like I said, we didn't plan for any of this aside from just calling each other.

02:12:29

So we didn't set even an end time. We didn't really have a start time. It was like, no, it just never here. It ended, it started and ended precisely when it was meant to.

02:12:39

But my question is, is that we entitled this episode Benny Hinn's Legacy. So my question would be to the both of you, and I'll let you decide who wants to answer first.

02:12:50

What do you what do you think, Ben, you'd say Uncle Benny or Benny Hinn's Legacy is going to be as a final chapter been written or where where does it really go from here?

02:13:00

Because like we said, we're we're going to we're putting this out here. We're probably going to move on and tackle other topics.

02:13:07

Mike, you've got maybe a couple more. I know you're eventually you're going to move on to the next thing as well, too.

02:13:12

And this is going to have the impact that it has. What does it look like? What does it look like as far as his legacy goes?

02:13:18

And where do you think it's going to be? Where do you think it's going to go from here? I'll chime in real quick. I say this with respect to God knowing the end from the beginning being the

02:13:29

Alpha and the Omega. It feels like Judas. I hope it ends like Peter.

02:13:37

Judas was remorseful. He throws the blood money back at the feet of his conspirators and his payoff guys who put him up to it.

02:13:51

He knows and then he goes and hangs himself. I'm not saying that I think my uncle's suicidal.

02:13:57

I just mean that it feels like a Judas. Just he's constantly trying to pay it back and mitigate.

02:14:04

I'm sorry for a little bit of this. I'm sorry for, he's got remorse. I hope it ends like a

02:14:10

Peter. John 21, he's on the beach. He's getting restored. He's made a mess, but the

02:14:16

Lord calls him, saves him, restores him, deploys him. Uncle Benny doesn't have a lot of time left.

02:14:23

His birthday is December 3rd. Every single year on December 3rd, at the very least. I pray for him more often than that, but every year on December 3rd,

02:14:29

I'm like another year closer to the end for you. And I pray for his salvation. I hope he'll repent of all of it and it would end a little ugly on our side,

02:14:43

Mike and I, and you guys will spend more time telling people, yes, I understand, but also let's forgive.

02:14:51

The man got in at the end. He wept his eyes out. You may have never believed it, but I mean, it was all there.

02:14:58

It looked like 2 Corinthians 7. I hope that's what we spend our time doing on this side. On the other side, it'd be glory.

02:15:05

It's grace upon grace. Looks like Judas, feels like Judas. I hope it ends like Peter.

02:15:15

Mike, any last, any, what are your thoughts, man? I guess in my mind, what I focus on the most is the extending influence he has on others.

02:15:23

And I think that if he was to die tomorrow, Benny Hinn, what

02:15:28

I've called the Benny Hinn -fluence would continue. It would continue in other countries and other ministries, both big and small and causing continual harm and damage to others so that there are people who are being raised in churches and communities where they know nothing of the authentic work of the

02:15:50

Holy Spirit, of the actual preaching of the Word of God. They just know these manipulative, egotistical leaders who fake things and who prop up others around them for the sake of their loyalty to them personally and not to Christ ultimately.

02:16:09

They know the whitewashed sepulchres as though those are the real servants of Jesus.

02:16:15

And I think that this is happening in so many churches. And if Benny Hinn repented and came out and was honest, even just for the sake of the impact,

02:16:24

I would so announce it, like you said, I would so announce it because I go, he's a guy they look up to as a model.

02:16:31

If he came out and said, guys, this was so wrong. I didn't just make some mistakes. Right now he's modeling how to do damage control.

02:16:37

But if he modeled how to actually repent, to call it out for what it was and admit it, that would be transformative.

02:16:43

That would be better than any video I ever made. And so I think that his legacy right now in the church is waves and waves and waves of it's as though you, you know, you take a starfish, they say, cut off its arms and it turns into like four starfish or something like that.

02:17:00

Yes. Right now that's Benny Hinn. Benny Hinn's ministry is going to, is just going down to the next generation.

02:17:07

Some of them will be bigger. Some of them will be smaller. But his same tactics of manipulation deception are just propagating all over the place.

02:17:13

That is what concerns me. That is my main worry. People tend to, in these conversations, we tend to focus on Benny Hinn and like our thoughts and concerns about him.

02:17:21

And he's like fifth on the list of things I'm worried about when it comes to this stuff. It's like the victims, number one, the other church leaders who are following in his footsteps because they have a lot more years of ministry left and a lot more impact they'll have consequentially.

02:17:34

And at the moment, he's only modeling for them how to go long term in this manipulative kind of ministry.

02:17:41

And that's, that breaks my heart. That breaks my heart. He said in a recent video, or a recent video

02:17:48

I recently saw, I don't know how recent it was. He was talking about how to handle critics. And his step one thing was to ignore them.

02:17:54

He says he was telling another guy in Africa, how do you handle critics of your ministry? He goes, step one, you ignore them. Step two, you give the people what they want.

02:18:02

So refocus when you have a lot of criticism, refocus on preaching the gospel, refocus on the things that the Christians really want to hear.

02:18:09

That's a honeymoon phase I talked about earlier. He's doing that in his ministry right now on YouTube after the Stephen Strang video.

02:18:15

And that received a lot of negative criticism, even from people in his own camp, I think. He's now shifted to just doing like, he's just preaching the gospel.

02:18:22

He's like, here's a video on how much God loves you. Here's a video on, on how important the gospel is, like just stuff that's like bread and butter for Christians.

02:18:29

And he'll, he'll then swing back over to his normal stuff eventually. I think that he's modeling how to do long term destructive ministry for people and how to handle controversy with fake damage control.

02:18:41

And that's going to be his legacy. And so the starfish is going to have his arms chopped off when he passes.

02:18:47

It's just going to multiply in other places unless something changes. Now that could come from the outside in a video like mine or a book like Costi's where people go, wow, and they make the hard choices and they repent of the things that they're doing or so much greater if Benny actually repented, called it out for what it was and just said, look, here's my, here's my bag of tricks.

02:19:07

Here's what I did to manipulate you guys. It would just be so powerful for changing other ministries.

02:19:14

That's a perfect way to wrap it up. Thank you both for coming on here, Mike. So your home, your hub for you is

02:19:22

Bible Thinker. I'll tell everyone where they can find you. And just in just in case somehow they missed the four hour video and they've heard of you for the first time, where can they find you at?

02:19:32

So BibleThinker .org, that's my website that has a bunch of content there that you can access and you can search and find and you can find the video there too.

02:19:40

But you can also just find it on YouTube under the YouTube channel, Mike Winger, just my name.

02:19:46

Awesome. And Kosti, I know you're local here, but just in case someone isn't local and they're finding out about you for the first time, where can they find you?

02:19:53

Where's your hub at? Yeah, our resource ministry is called For the Gospel. We're about what's true for the gospel.

02:20:01

Forthegospel .org is our website. We have a YouTube channel and then we're on social media and we put out regular videos each and every day, different resources in different formats to edify people, strengthen people all for free.

02:20:14

And so For the Gospel is the ministry online. And then our church is Shepherd's House Bible Church.

02:20:19

Everyone just calls it Shepherd's House. And we're here in the Phoenix area with you guys. So that's

02:20:24

For the Gospel and then Shepherd's House. Great. Well, this is a great first way to kind of break in if you come to Coltish for the first time.

02:20:30

I'm loving it. All right. All that being said, thank you all for listening in and we'll talk to you all next time on Coltish.

02:20:36

Talk to you all soon. Hey everyone. We hope this conversation has been a blessing and has given a voice to those who have been victims of Benny Hinn in the last 30 years.

02:20:44

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02:20:50

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02:20:55

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