Without doubt, the charismatic movement is the fastest growing religious movement of our day. It's growing faster than Roman Catholicism, than Greek Orthodoxy, than any brand of Protestantism, or even Pentecostalism, Evangelicalism, and Fundamentalism as well. At the same time, the charismatic movement is also producing more theological confusion than any other system of theology in the world. The world today suffers under the weight of a great number of charismatic leaders who claim to be ministering under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, who say that they have several or even all of the spiritual gifts given to the apostles and to the early church. who appear on the stage or the platform that they're on to have the power to slay people in the spirit and send them into bursts of idiotic sounding laughter, who amaze people with their supposed revelations that they bring out in the exercise of their gifts of prophecy and wisdom and knowledge, They claim direct communication from God, from Jesus, from the Holy Spirit, and increasingly they insist that they have received this power and authority that is identical to or even greater than that which was given to the apostles and the prophets way back in the first century. Among all of these charismatic leaders, one man stands out above all the rest, Benny Hinn. He is known to casual television channel surfers as the telly evangelist with a thick Middle Eastern accent and wearing the white Nervu jackets. They also tend to comment on the hairstyle that he has, but I leave you to check out a photograph of him and draw your own conclusions on that. Suffice to say that his physical appearance and his showmanship has been distinct enough to be mimicked by Steve Martin back in the 1994 movie Leap of faith. Benny Hinn is coming to our country, to the Odyssey Arena, within the next couple of weeks, Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th of June. I assure you tonight that I take no delight in preaching this kind of message, but in the interest of truth, I feel I have little choice. When a wolf comes in to flay and slay the flock, it is the true shepherd's duty to send out a clear warning against him. And it is my firm persuasion that Benny Hinn is a wolf, after Jesus' description in Matthew 7, the verse 15 that we have read tonight, and after Paul's description in Acts 20 and the verse 29. When He was pointing out some of the features of the last days before His return and at the end of the world, our Lord began with a warning in Matthew 24, verses 4 and 5. Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. And as Jesus went on in that chapter, He proceeded to speak about wars and rumors of wars, national conflicts of famines and pestilences and earthquakes, and He emphasized above all other things the deception that would be characterized in that day. He talked about the false teaching coming from the mouths of false prophets. Verses 23 and 24 of Matthew 24 is another example of how He returned to this theme. Then, if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." Look around us today. We will quickly reveal that this is such a day of deception, a time when the counterfeit prevails, A time of false prophets who were spitting out their false messages. Apostasy is the trademark of the age. Erum is indicative of our erum. And as far as I can discern, Benny Hinn, this globally known, hyper-charismatic, signs and wonders healer, is one of these false prophets. Allow me to make my case. I've titled the message tonight, Benny Hinn, On the Heresy bandwagon. Now to keep with that theme and to develop it, consider with me first of all the blueprint for Benny's bandwagon. In other words, what's his background? How did he, now 52 years of age, become the latest and the most popular in a line of American faith healers? Benny Hinn was born 1953 in Israel to a Greek father and an Armenian mother. He was raised in the Greek Orthodox religion. He claims that while he was a young boy of 11 years of age in Israel, God first appeared to him, and that God has been appearing to him ever since. The family moved to Toronto in Canada when Benny was 14 or 15 years of age. When he was there as a high school senior, he abandoned that Greek Orthodox roots that he had for Pentecostalism, an act, he says, of family defiance that earned him a trip to the psychiatrist. He says that he received, while he was at high school, visions of himself preaching before huge crowds. Yet, in spite of these visions, and of God appearing to him for quite a number of years now, He marks the time when he was born again as being 1972, when he was about 20 years of age. So, in other words, nine years after God had begun to appear to him, he is finally born again. In 1973, he says he had a profound spiritual experience. He listened to the famous faith healer, Catherine Kuhlman, preach. Afterwards, he said, I had an eight-hour experience with the Holy Spirit during a night that changed the direction of my life. It seemed, he says, that my room had been lifted into the hemisphere of heaven. And he writes that in his best-selling book, Good Morning, Holy Spirit. In 1983, Hinn founded and until 1999 pastored the Orlando Christian Center in Orlando, Florida. It began with a few hundred people only. The church then swelled over the years to become a 70,000-seater arena. And that's testimony to Benny Hinn's rapidly growing following as this charismatic preacher who could speak in tongues and deliver God's healing touch to the sick. It was here that his television ministry began, first on local broadcasts, and then on larger networks such as Trinity Broadcasting Network, or TBL, and I'll be referring to that, I'm sure, on a number of occasions through the message tonight. That's a network headed by Jan and Paul Crouch. In 1990 he began monthly healing crusades around the country and then that of course would have enhanced his national profile and he began to spread them out to international bases as well. We've said that in 1999 he resigned as pastor of that Orlando church to concentrate on his television ministry. He moved his headquarters to Dallas, 4th Wartherium. He now employs 170 people. From this broadcast center, this is your day show. It's one of the most watched Christian television programs in the world with apparently viewers in 190 countries. In America, it runs on purchased air time more than 200 times each week on 80 stations. The shows are translated into Spanish, Romanian, Norwegian, Italian, Hindu, and Tamil. He raises millions of dollars each year with the usual false promises of healing and prosperity in exchange for them giving to him seed-faith gifts. And these, of course, are held out to be a condition for miracles. Send us your money, and then, and only then, you will have the miracle. He says, give no less than $100, and then he promises if you lay hands on all the envelopes, and ask God for financial miracles for the givers. It shouldn't come as any surprise that, financially at least, he is the world's most successful faith healer. In the year 2002 he had received 89 million American dollars in donations. Now to give some sense of Perspective there, by comparison, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association that has been on the go, of course, for so many more years had revenues of $96 million in 2001. Benny Hinn is also a best-selling author. He has written a number of blockbusting bestsellers, Good Morning Holy Spirit already referred to, This Is Your Day for a Miracle, The Blood, a very famous book by him, Rise and Be Healed, Lord, I Need a Miracle, Welcome, Holy Spirit, and The Anointing. Authors like Charles Swindoll and James Dobson add them together, actually, their writings combined have been dwarfed by Benny Hinn's over one million copies. By Hinn's rise to the top of the charismatic ladder, He's the one person in the charismatic movement today who is consistently appearing on stage to possess the power before the public of healing in these miracle meetings that's second to none among his peers, and no doubt they'll be pretty envious of him. And it's often said that it's due to the high esteem in which Paul and Jan Crouch hold him and in the way that they promote his ministering on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, that TBN, that we have already referred to. Him has said that with that channel, Trinity Broadcasting Network, that it'll no longer be just a television network. It will be an extension, and I'm quoting him here, it will be an extension of heaven to earth. It's the link between heaven and earth, this television broadcast. And one of his chief supporters and the purveyors of his materials, Paul Crouch, responded when he had said that, My Jesus, have mercy! and us all very flippant and pretty much irreverent. Benny Hinn replied, The Lord just said to me these words. I'm hearing myself say them for the first time. TBN will not be only a Christian network. It will be an extension of heaven to the earth, and it will be like a tube from heaven that the earth can look and say, I'm looking at heaven. I'm partaking of heaven. I'm getting connected to heaven through this TV tube. and not say where the tube is. But he says, if I can say it, it will be heaven's signal to earth. It will be as though heaven is transmitting and earth is receiving through this set. So if you want to go to heaven, you want to see heaven, you want to taste heaven, tune on that channel, because you will. There's more than one problem with that statement. The only way to go to heaven is through the atoning death and the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. John 14 and 6, Acts 4, verse 12. If we are looking for a link between heaven and earth, then we look no further than Jesus, who was God's great mediator between God Himself and all of His holiness, and man in all of his fileness and guiltiness. Remember what Jesus said to Nathanael in John 1, verse 51, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." Jesus, there is the link between earth and heaven. And I am depending upon Him to get me to heaven, not by watching Him on some television station. And also, whenever Paul the Apostle was taken up into the third heaven, he writes about it in 2 Corinthians 12, verses 1-5, we discover that when he came back, whether in or out of the body, he could not tell, he was not permitted to speak about certain things that he had seen. But there's nothing that him can't speak about, and here he is in this big heavenly-to-earth channel, the TBN network. Now, if you were to ask Benny Hinn, what's the secret of your power? How can you do the things that you do? High chances he would point to his peculiar anointing, that he connects with Catherine Coolman and Amy Semple McPherson, who was the founder of the Four Square Gospel Church. These were leading charismatics decades before Benny Hinn bounced onto the scene. He claims that he had first felt in his life the full power of the Holy Spirit at a cool man healing service in 1973, and that her mantle has presumably fallen upon him. He conducts his meetings almost exactly the way she did, although it takes him much longer to get his audience stirred up into the expectant mood that allows them to have these wonderful miracles. In a sermon delivered on the 7th of April, 1991, Benny Hinn revealed that he periodically visited Coman's grave and that he is now one of few that has a key to have access to that grave. He also visits Eimear Macpherson's grave and he says, I felt a terrific anointing. I was shaking all over, trembling under the power of God. Dear God, I said, I feel the anointing. I believe the anointing has lingered over Eimear's body. Actually, this is his latest means of attracting people into his broadcasts. The claim that he is able to communicate with the dead. He has said, you may have a problem with this. I honestly don't really care. I have walked in that supernatural world. I have seen things you will never be able to understand unless you've been in it. I have had individuals appear to me in my room, not only angels, I have seen sights in Prahran, incredible sights. Again, speaking of Aimee MacPherson's burial place, Hindclare's, they are going to come with me, talk about some of his staff. You, you, you are going to feel the anointing at Aimee's tomb. It is incredible. And Catherine's, it is amazing. I have heard of people healed when they visit that tomb. They were totally healed by God's power. You say, what a crazy thing. Well, we don't really, because it's worse than merely being a crazy thing. It's something that we would more readily associate with Roman Catholicism or pagan religion. It's necromancy by the definition of the Bible. And the Holy Scriptures plainly declare that we are to avoid these things. Leviticus 19.31, Leviticus 20.6, Deuteronomy 18.11, Isaiah 19.3, and Isaiah 8.19. And that final text says, And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter. Should not a people seek unto their God for the living to the dead? But basically this is the background, how Benny Hinn has got onto the heresy bandwagon. So that's the blueprint for Benny's bandwagon. Consider secondly the behaviour on Benny's bandwagon. The trip with him will bring you into the highly dubious signs and wonders, districts of extreme charismaticism. There will be faith healing. There will be what he calls slayings in the spirit. There will be revelation occurrences. And it all amounts to something that's pretty scaring and something that is definitely not scriptural. Let's think of the sickness business. On the road, Benny Hinn's healing services They're sophisticated, carefully choreographed productions that can last more than four hours. They include a long warm-up that features robed choirs from local churches, hip videos, audience members shaking violently and speaking in tongues. All of this is captured in television that, well, Hinn brings the best equipment along to every one of his crusades, his own production crew is there, seven cameras, a staff of as many as one hundred, because all of these are later broadcasted on his channel. The pastor first appears during a rendition of How Great Thou Art and he steps triumphantly on stage. He asks anyone then to come forward who wants to believe in Jesus Christ. Hundreds, characteristically. Many in tears. They walk down the arena's aisles to the stage. They hear a prayer from him and their handwritten literature that includes a list of nearby churches. After more music, him starts reciting the healings that are taking place throughout the arena. He talks about the individuals with asthma and cancerous tumors and arthritis and leukemia and a score of other illnesses. He lists them all and he says in this auditorium tonight, all of these people here and there and right across, they're being healed. Many faithful pastors allege that Hymns Miracle Crusades only give false hope to the sick and handicapped. On the subject of sickness, Benny Hinn is on record as saying, there will be no sickness for the saint of God. Again, God's greatest desire for the church is that we be in total and perfect health. Again, if your body belongs to God, it does not and cannot belong to sickness. Once more, and these quotes are all out of his book, Rise and Be Healed, released in 1991, he promises to heal all, everyone, any, any whatsoever, everything, all our diseases. That means not even a headache, sinus problem, not even a toothache. I'm tempted to comment, nothing. No sickness should come your way. Then again, I'll praise the Lord in this TBM television network, in July the 8th, 1996, he says, the day is coming, I tell you this, I know it like I know my name, the day is coming that there will not be one sick saint in the body of Christ. Nobody will be. Nobody's going to be. No one will be raptured up out of a wheelchair. No one will be raptured out of a hospital bed. You're all going to be healed before the rapture." He then claims that approximately 1,000 people are healed at each of his miracle services. So, on the 24th and 25th of June, Ulster, brace yourself. However, despite all the thousands of miracles that he claims, his church seems very hard-pressed to come up with any. that would convince a serious skeptic. When pressed, and they have been pressed, for truly convincing miracles, on one occasion Susan Smith, one of him's spokespersons, cited a woman in Orlando who was cured of blindness that had been caused by her diabetes. But she wouldn't give the woman's name. She later admitted that the woman's vision may still be clouding. She still has diabetes, strangely she says, and she has just been re-hospitalized. What is not difficult is to discover people who were convinced Benny Hinn's healings are nothing more than crippled hoaxes. Eleven-year-old William Van Der Kolk of Las Vegas Sits, we're told, cross-legged in front of a big television screen, squinting through cup-bottle glasses at a Miracle Crusade video made more than two years beforehand when he starred in the video as a boy who miraculously recovered from blindness. I liked it at first, he said, because I thought I was being healed. On the screen, he is shown as bending down to William. He puts his hands on the child's face. Look at those tears, says he, peering into the child's eyes. William, baby, can you see me? Before more than 15,000 people on that occasion in that last Vegas arena, William nods, and in a small voice the wee boy says, as soon as God healed me, I could see better. He unwraps his arm around William and he tells the audience that God has told him to pay the child's medical expenses and education, and the people weep. Today William is still legally blind. and says his sight never improved and that the on-stage comments that he made were just wishful thinking. It's pretty sad when you mess with a little boy's mind, said William's uncle and guardian, Randy Melfrater. Melfrater says it took two years a series of phone calls, a reporter's inquiry as well, before his family was told where the $10,000 funds had been set up in William's name, and family members say they still have not received any paperwork on how to access the money. Brian Darby, who has worked for 21 years with severely handicapped people in Northern Carolina, says that he witnessed first-hand the disappointment that was left in the wake of a hymn-myrtle crusade. Over the years, he says, many of my clients have attended these events and they have been swept up in a wave of excitement and they were thinking, we're going to walk for the first time or have our limbs straightened. You can't, he says, minimise the impact of not being healed on the person, the family, the extended family. They have a sense of euphorium at the crusade and then crash down. Him is not around to pick up the pieces. Justin Peters, a Southern Baptist minister from Mississippi, remembers going to a faith-healing service as a teenager, wanting God to heal his cerebral palsy. Next to him, an elderly man in a wheelchair emptied his wallet into the offering bucket. It was a move that caught the eye of the preacher, and Peters recalls that Benny Hinn came down, pointed at the man, and said, Brother, before this night's over, you're going to walk out of here. Justin Peters, now 29, says he remembers looking over at that elderly man still sitting in the wheelchair and seeing the anguish in his eyes at the end of the service. It was something you see, he says, and never forget. Peters decided to become a pastor and through his ministry expose faith healers who give false hope. He wrote his master's thesis at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, on the subject of Benny Hinn. He says, he is a false prophet in every sense of the word. His theology is wretched, and he's also a huckster. It is more than a little interesting to note that Benny Hinn has himself a heart condition that God has not cured, and that his parents had suffered serious medical problems, too. That's a very difficult thing for me, he says, because I told my daddy to believe, but he died through cancer. Now, I don't know why. When we come to the Word of God, we find the Apostle Paul had a sickness that he never did receive healing for, 2 Corinthians chapter 12. And we have other sick people in the Bible. Try Timothy, for example, in 1 Timothy 5, verse 23. Try Trophimus as well, 2 Timothy 2 and 20. Epaphroditus, who was left behind because he was sick in Philippians 2, verse 25. Or think of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who suffered all of his life with Gouter. David Breenard, the missionary again, a sufferer. Or Robert Murray McShean, who died at 29. And it shows just how far off track Benny Hinn and his sickness business really is. But then it is crusade and you will find these spirit slayings going on. It's the highlight of the Miracle Crusades, comes whenever people in the crowd who believe that they have felt God's healing touch, they make their way to the stage, they get their way past the ministry's screeners, and the screeners are there to try and weed out any pretenders, and they stand now, face to face with Benny Hinn on the stage. Ushers come in and they take away the wheelchairs that have been abandoned, and they place them on stage as evidence of a merciful God, and then, what Benny Hinn is most famous for, happens. Him touches these devotees, and they all fall over, arms and legs shaking, eyes rolling up into their heads, and they are scattered like bowling pins across the stage. More casualties there than you would ever have at a Rambo movie. They are said to be slain in the Spirit, overcome by God's presence. Sometimes it only takes a wave of Benny Hinn's hand and the entire section in that arena might just fall back in their seats and he moves it around. It's like your Mexican wave at a football or other sporting occasion. Now occasionally some fail to go down and he quickly moves away from them. But so strong is his power that most people fall to the floor even when he blows or waves his jacket at them. Like this. Benny Hinn sports a new flair. We've mentioned other charismatic heaters, like his mentor, Catherine Kuhlman. He, like her, touches people on the forehead or on the neck to make them fall over, but unlike her, he also can blow or throw the anointing and slay people from a distance. Mike Thomas reported in Florida Magazine, 24th of November 1991, winded catchers Try to keep up with the toppling bodies. He rears back and with a pitching motion slays the entire choir with one toss. That's power, yells Benny, power! Hinn takes off his custom teetered jacket and rubs it briskly on his body. He's rubbing the power into the jacket. Then he starts swinging it wildly like the biblical David swinging his sling. He decks his followers left and right. Bam! Bam! Bam! The stage vibrates with their landing. Then he throws it, the anointed jacket, another bath. As a catcher moves to pick up a woman, Hinn slays him. Then he slays the catcher who caught the catcher. When Benny Hinn is moved, nobody is safe from the power. He blows loudly into the microphone. Hundreds fall backwards. A woman collapses in the aisle, begins to babble. And then suddenly Benny is gone, the power vanishes from the room and the people stare in stunned silence. What is going on? It has been argued that this is a case of mass hysteria. entered into by people who were predisposed to fall for several reasons. Number one, they want the power of God no matter what. Number two, they'd be embarrassed not to fall when everybody else around was falling. Number three, many have testified that the person imparting the Holy Spirit pushed them down. Number four, God made a lie and might even grant such a phenomenon to entrench error in people's minds who don't care about the truth as much as they crave some supernatural experience. Another reason number five, Satan and demons may duplicate such a phenomenon to validate as truth the error of someone's teachings. Whatever the reason, the power transmitted by Benny Hinn in this slain-by-the-spirit phenomenon If there is power at all, it is not of God. This single aspect of Benny Hinn's meetings is enough to condemn him. He rather capriciously throws the Holy Spirit around in a most irreverent fashion, using the third person of the Trinity as his servant to bring attention to himself. He acts as though the anointing is some kind of a metaphysical power that is at his disposal and can be rubbed off onto objects and thrown onto people. It looks impressive. It works largely by the power of suggestion. And what it does, it makes people there stand in awe of him. It's scary, says Bill James, a former church member. The people are mesmerised. When he comes out, he's like God. Now that surely puts Benny Hinn into the bracket of the false prophet our Lord Jesus warned about in Matthew 7, 21-23. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity. You see, supernatural power, or at least the appearance of it, does not equal heaven's approval. The blueprint. for Benny's bandwagon, the behaviour on Benny's bandwagon. Thirdly, I'm struggling between two words, I think I'll use both, the beliefs, stroke blasphemies from Benny's bandwagon. God's book warns us by the use of three strategically positioned sentinels, one towards its commencement in Deuteronomy 4 and 2, one right in the centre of the word, Proverbs 35 and 6, and one again stationed at the conclusion of the book in Revelation 22, verse 18. We are warned there on those occasions and on others that we should not add anything to or take anything away from what this word is that God has given. When I turn to 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, I am taught there that the book of God that we have is sufficient, sufficient to fulfill God's complete purpose for man upon the earth. Nothing more is needed. Nothing more God will give. However, to Benny Hinn, in common with all of these false teachers in this age, in common with these charismatic preachers, the Bible is not enough revelation. He wants to be fresh. He wants to give out new revelation. He wants to be able to stand up and say, I'm going to tell you a thing you've never heard before, maybe I haven't even heard before, I don't know what I'm going to say, but listen. And he brings out something he says is new. He claims God communicates to him by direct revelation, apart from and in addition to the Bible. He attempts to justify some of his most bizarre deeds and words by false claims such as, God told me to do it, or God revealed this new teaching to me. He told his audience at the Anaheim Miracle Crusade in 1998 that you are about to receive a revelation of him, for I believe the body of Christ is ready now for a fresh manifestation of Christ. Now those kind of comments assault the word of God and its sufficiency. And they also gain him a greater audience because he's gaining followers here as he sets himself up as being the conduit, the channel, for these fresh manifestations. Come to me! I'm the guy that tells things new. But I think you can detect some of the fear that's in him in one statement that he made in 1919. 9th of December, on the TBN channel, please, please, please, he says, don't think we're here to repeat something you have heard for the last 50 years. If we quit giving out new revelations, we are dead. And I guess the ministry would be. If he didn't have something fresh, something new, to give the bottom line for Benny Hinn and for his followers is, you know, it's never enough. No matter what they have, it's never enough. They always have to be going after something fresh, something never heard of before, something more powerful, something that the next guy on the other bandwagon doesn't have. And all of the claims are spurious and unscriptural and obviously used in an effort to prop up and validate his leadership. And saying, God told me, is also trying to silence anybody who comes along and exposes the hypocrisy and the duplicity that accompanies the supposed extra-biblical revelation. Why, Benny Hinn and other charismatic leaders preach some truth. They sometimes preach the gospel and urge people to come to Christ. They often refer to the return of the Lord and the need to be ready for His coming. Mind you, it should be pointed out this is not Benny Hinn's first visit to these shores. He appeared in August 1996 at Earl's Court in London, and he made claims there he was going to bring a greater revival to England than England had ever seen. One in which the House, the Parliament, and Buckingham Palace would be shaken. Did you notice that happening almost ten years ago? I didn't, but if you did, tell me. He also, at that crusade, relieved the very willing audience of a vast amount of cash in buckets, assuring them as they poured the money in that they would receive a great financial reward, that they would get physical healing, that they would have the anointing of the Holy Ghost, they would have deliverance from the devil, and so on, a whole list of things. One person at the crusade said, What characterizes Benny Hinn's crusades is not the gospel, but greed. And he quoted 1 Timothy 6 and 5 perverse, disputings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, supposing that ye in his godliness from such withdraw thyself. And again significantly, at the Earl's Court Crusade in London 1996, the Lord Jesus Christ, His cross, sin, repentance and faith were not mentioned. There was no prayer. The Bible wasn't read except a few random verses plucked out to back up the monetary extortion Most of the talk was at the devil and not about God. But intertwined with the little truth that they present, there's a very deceptive presentation of serious doctrinal error. Benny Henwall said, never, ever, ever go to the Lord and say, if it be thy will. I wonder how he gets around James 4, verses 13-15. He says, we Christians possess power in our mouths to heal or to kill just as witches possessed it. He said that Job was tapping into the negative side of the faith by making this negative confession in Job 1 and 21, the Lord taketh away and Benny Hinn has come along and he has written again the words of Job 1 and 21 and he said the Lord never taketh away. That's the way it should read. Let me tell you what he says about the Godhead, about the Trinity, the three persons in the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, equal in substance, power and glory. Man, he says, I feel revelation, knowledge already coming on me here. Lift your hands. Something new is going to happen here today. I feel it just as I walk down here. Holy Spirit, take over in the name of Jesus. God the Father, ladies and gentlemen, He is a person and He is a triune being by Himself, separate from the Son. And that's not what our Lord Jesus Christ said. In His highest priestly prayer in John 17, 22, He declares that the Father and the Son, they are not separate the one from the other, they are one. Benny Hinn goes on to say, see, God the Father is a person, God the Son is a person, God the Holy Spirit is a person, but each one of them is a triune being by himself. If I can shock you, and maybe I should, there's nine of them. Huh? What do you say? Let me explain, he says. God the Father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person with his own personal spirit, with his own personal soul, and with his own personal spirit body. You say, I've never heard that. Well, you think you're in this church to hear things you've heard for the last 50 years? You can't argue with the Word, can you? It's all in the Word. However, it's not in the Word. Such heretical nonsense is most patently not in the Word. And it's not new heresy either, even though he claims it to be. He told his congregation this by revelation knowledge. There's nine of them. But he most likely looked up Dake's annotated reference Bible, where this ancient heresy was revived and now appears on page 55. Then about Jesus Christ, he alleges some outrageous, damnable heresies about our Lord Jesus Christ. For one, he says, Jesus was capable of sin. And let me add this, he says, had the Holy Spirit not been with Jesus, he would have sinned. That's right. It was the Holy Spirit that was the power that kept him pure. He was not only sent from heaven, but he was called the Son of Man, and as such, he was capable of sinning. Without the Holy Ghost, Jesus would never have made it. Can you imagine, he questions, Christ headed for the grave, knowing He would remain there forever if the Holy Ghost would not change His mind about raising Him from the dead? The Bible tells us our Lord Jesus was Not only able not to sin, but that he was not able to sin. But then he insists Jesus was capable of sin. He says Jesus took on Satan's nature. Jesus knew the only way he would stop Satan is by becoming one in nature with him. 15th of December, 1990. He says Jesus died spiritually. Before he died, I should say, on that cross, something happened to him which began the wheels of the new creation moving that was this. He died spiritually. And then he said, Jesus Christ understood that spiritual death is union with the satanic nature. Jesus, capable of sin, took on the devil's nature, died spiritually. Do you know what he then said? Jesus had to be born again. My, you know, whoosh, he says. The Holy Ghost is just showing me some stuff. I'm getting dizzy. I'm telling you the truth. It's just heavy right on me now. And then referring to Jesus, he said, he's in the underworld now. God isn't there. The Holy Ghost isn't there. And the Bible says he was begotten. Do you know what the word begotten means? It means reborn. Do you want another shocker? Have you been begotten? So was he. Don't let anyone deceive you. Jesus was reborn. You say, what are you talking about? He was reborn. He had to be reborn. If he was not reborn, I could not be reborn. I would never be reborn. How can I face Jesus and say, Jesus, you went through everything I've gone through except the new birth. And so in that message, our position in Christ in 1991, He claims Jesus had to be born again. This is all a first-rate heresy, and it is so typical of the charismatic word-faith teachers out of the stable that he came from. This heresy is running that Jesus' shed blood was not enough for the redemption of man. He had to suffer at the devil's hands in hell and be born again as the first man to conquer death. I invite God's people. Then he then teaches that Christians are little gods. When you say, I am a Christian, you were saying, I am Maskiah in Hebrew. I am a little Messiah walking on earth, in other words. That is a shocking revelation. May I say it like this? You are a little God on earth, running around. You'll recall, I trust, that we were preaching on Psalms 83, 18 this morning, the name Jehovah. And at a spiritual warfare seminar on the 2nd of May 1990, Benny Hinn says, so I'm Benny Jehovah. Then again, same year, 6th of December 1990, he says, say after me, within me is a God-man. Say it again, within me is a God-man. And the congregation does. Now, let's say it even better than that. Let's say, I am a God-man. This spirit-man within me is a God-man. Say, I'm a born-of-heaven God-man. I'm a God-man. I'm a sultan of Jesus. I'm a super-being. It's outrageous. On the subject of creation, he, surprise, surprise, sides with the evolutionists, popularizes the millions-of-years myth. He states billions of years ago, not millions, billions of years ago, God created the heavens and the earth. His opinion of Adam is more than a little off-theme. Adam, he says, was a super-being when God created him. I don't know whether people know this, but he was the first super-man that really ever lived. First of all, the scriptures declare clearly that he had dominion over the foils of the air, the fish of the sea, which means he used to fly. Of course, how can he have dominion over the birds and not be able to do what they do? Talk about imposing your own bizarre notions. on the Bible record. And then he warms to his theme and he said, the word dominion in the Hebrew clearly declares that if you have dominion over a subject, that you do everything that subject does. In other words, that subject, if it does something you cannot do, you don't have dominion over it. I'll prove it further, he says, Adam not only flew, he flew to space. He was with one thought, and he'd be on the moon. Stand aside, Christopher Reeve. Adam did it all before you. And he was much better at it, too, because he could fly so much further. He made it to the moon. Now, to most minds, the crazed nature of Benny Hinn's teaching on this point will be self-evident. The reproduction of man, he tells us the Holy Spirit says God's original plan is that the woman was to bring forth her children out of her side. Our position in Christ 1990. An audio tape, if you're really interested, it's on side two. What he needs to do is read Psalm 127 verse 3. Now since I preached a sermon last week on Isaiah 28 verse 20, short beds and narrow blankets, and by the sermon I was trying to expose man's foolish attempts to gain his own salvation, I was very interested to come across Benny Hinn's Salvation by the Bedsheets. At Oral Roberts University broadcast on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, TVN again, 4th of August, 1987, Benny Hinn said, and I prophesy it in the Holy Ghost. I prophesy it in the spirit. God Almighty is about to sweep into the evangelical movement of America with the mighty revival of the Holy Ghost. He goes on, get ready ladies. You who've been married to an ungodly husband who comes home and mocks your faith and God curses you, calls you names, he tells you you're crazy to go and listen to some preacher named Benny Hinn, a bit of discernment even though he might have been unsaved, who tells you you're crazy to go to church. Get ready for the day to come when God will tell you, lie on his side of the bed and you'll say, why Lord? He'll say, lie on his side of the bed because the anointing on you is about to rub the sheets and the pillow and he's going to walk home. One day he'll come home and when he lies in bed, the power of God will take hold of him and he'll look at you and say, honey, I want Jesus. Where is God's instrument in salvation that we read of in Romans chapter 10? The preaching of the Word of God. In 1 Corinthians 7, 13-16, Paul deals with the matter of an unsaved husband and a saved wife in the home. And he emphasizes a point that through the witness and the testimony and the behavior of the godly saved wife in the home, the husband may be saved. Hymns is definitely the short bed and narrow blanket approach. Now with all that I've said about what he believes in, would it surprise you when I come to the subject of Roman Catholicism to say that His errors are compounded. He has continually extolled the virtues of the Pope and Roman Catholicism. In 1989, Hinn was a participant in the move to grant to the Pope John Paul II the Prince of Peace Award. But he got so much flak from being a mover on that that he becanted and withdrew his participation. But then he began to describe a Roman Catholic communion, the Mass. that he took part in. And he said, on praise of the Lord, 27th of December 1994, I reached out and touched a robe which had a silky feeling, a beautiful softness to the robe. The next thing I was feeling was actually the form of a body, the shape of a body, and my body went totally numb. And God really gave me a revelation that night that when we partake communion, it's not just communion, we are partaking Christ Jesus Himself. He did not say, Take heed, this represents my body, he said. This is my body, broken for you. When you partake communion, you're partaking Christ, and that heals your body. When you partake Jesus, how can you stay weak? Sick, he questions. And so tonight, as we partake communion, we are not partaking bread. We are partaking what he said we would be partaking of. This is my body. Now, for Benny Hinn to claim the special revelation and to have the word of knowledge, he has made many false prophecies that confirm that he is a charlatan. For example, he said on the 1st of January 1919 that homosexuals in America were to be burned. I tell you, in the mid-90s, about 94, 95, no later than that, God will destroy the homosexual community in America. He will destroy it with fire. Many will turn to be saved, many will rebel and be destroyed. Didn't happen. He claimed revival was going to break out in Cuba. In the same program he said, the spirit tells me Fidel Castro will die in the 90s. I don't think he did. Oh my! Some will try to kill him. They will not succeed, but there will come a change in his physical health and he will not stay in power and Cuba will be visited by God. I will visit you. And the revival hasn't come either. Then he prophesied the dead would be raised while they were laid out in front of the TV. 19th of October, 1999 on the Praise the Lord Trinity Broadcasting Network. But here is first what I see for TBN. You're going to have people raised from the dead watching this network. You're going to have people raise from the dead watching TVM. There's going to be such power in these programs. People will be raised from the dead worldwide. I'm telling you, I see this in the Spirit. I'm telling you this in the Spirit. It's going to be so awesome. Then He says, Jesus, I give you praise for this, that people around the world, maybe not so much in America, people around the world who will lose loved ones will say to undertakers, not yet. I want to take my dead loved one and place him in front of that TV set for 24 hours. That, of course, is an unfulfilled prophecy. And becoming yet more outrageous, Jesus, he claimed, was going to appear physically at his meeting. I believe. Hear this. Hear this. I believe that Jesus, God's Son, is about to appear physically in meetings of two believers around the world to wake us up. You know, a prophetess sent me word through my wife right here, and she said, tell your husband that Jesus is going to physically appear in his meetings. I'm expecting to see. I'm telling you. I feel it's going to happen. I am careful in how I am saying it now because I know that people in Kenyum are listening. I know deep in my soul something supernatural is going to happen. in Nairobi, Kenya, I feel that I may very well come back with footage of Jesus on the platform. Now that visit to Nairobi, Kenya took place on the 29th and 30th of April, the year 2000. I assume, I think safely, the footage of Jesus on the platform has not yet been released. He then has claimed, and I'm closing with this, and I'm sure you're glad, and maybe I will close down completely on this one, He has prophesied that all opposers would die. In September of 1991 at the Anaheim Convention Center, he said, the day is coming when those that attack us will drop dead. You say, what did you say? I speak this under the anointing of the Spirit. I'm not afraid to tell you what I think. I owe nothing to no man, and don't you dare touch Morris Carilio. Don't dare touch Rex Humbart. Don't touch Billy Graham. Don't touch Larry Lee. Don't touch Oral Roberts or Richard Roberts. Don't touch them. You're going to pay. And the day will come, the Lord said this to me, when I will punish instantly those who touch my chosen. Again in Denver, Colorado, on the 17th of September, 1999, Hinn repeated the threat, and he has done this on a number of occasions. He said, I place a curse On every man and every woman who would stretch out his hand against this anointing, I curse that man who dares to speak a word against this ministry. Come again? Who dares to speak a word against this ministry? Spiritual reproof or rebuke is commanded by God Himself. 2 Timothy 4, verses 1 and 2. We are obligated to raise a voice over this kind of serious, pernicious error. Notice the reproof. that Samuel brought to King Saul, 1 Samuel 15. Notice the rebuke that Peter had delivered to him by Paul in Galatians chapter 2. His threatenings here against believers who faithfully are rising up and speaking the truth in love, who not only proclaim the truth but expose error wherever it can be found, merely reveals how desperate he is to defend and justify his false claims and his false teachings. I trust the information, though long in delivery, will benefit you. And that when you hear of friends and family members, come the end of June, making tracks for the Odyssey, you'll be able to say, ah, but hold on a minute, this is the guy who said, who did, and you'll have the information that you need and that they need as well. If ever there was one person who had risen to stand and sail along on a heresy-banned wagon. It is Benny Hinn, no question.