Todd’s Blog?

Could this be Todd Bentley’s own personal blog?

http://www.freshfireusa.com/blog/

It would appear to be, though he hasn’t written a great deal.

I’ll keep in eye on it, and I’ll know whether it’s the real thing as soon as the one word we’ve been waiting for appears – ‘Sorry’.

There have been a lot of carefully chosen words surrounding Todd’s demise – regret, discipline, restoration etc. etc. Just not a huge amount of good-old-fashioned repentance.

You need to say sorry, Todd. As publicly as you said all those other things. Give GodTV a call. Maybe they’ll run a month of TV specials, just featuring you saying sorry.

Say the screams are for Jesus when we work the crowd

As one Youtube commenter put it, ‘this is the sound of a nail’s head being struck’.

Fresh Fire has a Rebrand

I love a good re-brand. I work in the media, we have one every so often. It keeps the creative people busy and allows us to make the same old thing seem a bit ‘fresher’ for a while, particular if the old name has become a bit, well, tainted. But it’s usually the same stuff with a shinier logo.

Fresh Fire Ministries (you remember, the people that hyped up Todd Bentley then looked shocked when he fell) are now “Transform International” – http://www.itransform.ca/

But the same names are on the speakers lists – John Arnott, Patricia King, Stacey Campbell etc. – and as Transform International say on their own website – “Although our name is changing, our vision and passion remains the same.”

If you’re not familiar with some of the names mentioned above, this might help…

And Can it Be?

Sometimes I just miss the hymns. Really. And this is the one I miss the most. Singing it acapella in the car isn’t quite the same!

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Saviour’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

’Tis mystery all: the Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Saviour in my heart.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Saviour in my heart.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Christmas Gift Idea

Love is…

MTV isn’t usually the place to hear passages from 1 Corinthians read by respected British actors, but this isn’t exactly the Daily Service.

According to The Guardian,

Actor Helena Bonham Carter has lent her voice to a hard-hitting MTV ad on domestic abuse, reciting a passage about love from the book of Corinthians in the Bible.

The 60-second commercial, created by ad agency Ogilvy Advertising, features a dysfunctional couple in a domestic environment.

A husband is seen yelling abusively at his wife, who is then thrown around the room, as if from the force of his words, and ends up covered in bruises.

However, no dialogue is heard – only accompanying music and Bonham Carter’s voice reciting Love is Patient, Love is Kind from 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, verse four.

The TV ad ends with the strapline “If only you could see the damage words cause” and the word “bitch” etched into the woman’s face.

Bonham Carter recorded her vocal in a single take for the ad, which breaks tonight.

The ad will air across MTV in the UK and across Europe as part of MTV’s Staying Alive campaign.

MTV will also make the ad available online and is considering running it in cinemas.

See the ad here – warning: contains violence

Old Cross. Old Power.

I didn’t write this. In fact it was written before I was born. But it feels like remarkably modern message and sums up my ‘problem’ with some of today’s ‘revival’ preaching. Unless the cross is preached, there can be no real power.

The Old Cross and the New

All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique-a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.

The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam’s proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure, only now he takes delight in singing choruses and watching religious movies instead of singing bawdy songs and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun is now on a higher plane morally if not intellectually.

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better.

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, “Come and assert yourself for Christ.” To the egotist it says, “Come and do your boasting in the Lord.” To the thrill seeker it says, “Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship.” The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.

The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-bye to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more.

The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life.

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die.

We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God’s just sentence against him.

What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God’s stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.

To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of approval upon this message from Paul’s day to the present. Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the world through the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to God’s approval.

Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth? Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.

A. W. Tozer, Man, the Dwelling Place of God, 1966

Is it because we are too lazy to get off our own butts?

Snappy headline, huh!?

Belfast-born Aussie Andrew Hamilton writes about our supposed ‘craving’ for a revival on his Backyard Missionary Blog...

I began pondering why we crave this revival experience and I wonder if it because we are too lazy to get off our own butts and get involved with the people in the communities we live in and do the hard yards of making connections, knowing that many of them will never lead to a person coming to faith? I wonder if we don’t just want God to do the ‘hard work’ of mission (we will hold prayer meetings – until we get bored because nothing has happened) and then when he has done his thing people will flock to our churches to join us… and become like us… and we won’t have to change one bit… we won’t have to experience any discomfort at all. Of course we only want ‘appropriate’ people to join our churches so it would need to be a selective revival of the middle classes.

Ouch. That hurts.

I am tired of this revival talk and these false prophets, because in the 30 years I have been old enough to understand the concept I have actually observed the church (overall) in decline. And I haven’t seen any of the revivals that have been predicted ever actually happen.

True for Australia, True for Britain. True (despite a lot of shouting and hot air) for the USA.

I have recently been wondering, what if our generation’s contribution will simply be that of ‘holding our ground’?

Now that’s an interesting idea. But would we book a speaker, hand over our cash and help to fund his or her international travels if THAT was the message they were teaching. Probably not. That’s not so much having our ears tickled – more like having our heads patted.

Anyway, you can read the rest of Andrew’s blog post here – don’t miss the excellent discussion amongst the commenters.

Revival Watch

Another of my occasional posts on the revival that was supposed to sweep Wales in May of this year.

Has anyone seen it? Anything? Anything at all?

Remember – Darrel Stott prophecied it. In January he wrote on his website, “Revival will begin in Wales in May 2008″

Interestingly Darrel has now edited his prophecy on the website.

It now says, “I prophecy God will begin offer an outpouring revival in England and Wales in May 2008.  It is up to the pastors and leadership to respond to this opportunity”

That last bit wasn’t there earlier in the year.

Nicely side-stepped Darrel. The revival hasn’t happened and it’s the fault of the Pastors. Of course.

You may be interested to know where Darrel is preaching this month. You may want to go and ask him why his prophecies fail to come true and whether that makes him a ‘false prophet’.

Book your flights. Darrel’s going to be preaching at the Ignited Church, in Lakeland Florida. Presumably filling some of the slots left vacant due to the unavailability of Todd Bentley. You couldn’t make it up.

Got Any Spare Cash?

No? Never mind. GODtv would like your money anyway.

What are they going to do with it? Apparently, they’re going to plant some trees in Israel to prepare for the Lord’s return(!?).

The rest of the money they’re going to keep to prop up their business. You know, the one that used to broadcast Todd Bentley all around the world and still won’t repent of that terrible mistake.

So far GODtv has managed to raise over $7m. Who is giving them money!?

Please stop. Your cash is paying for hugely expensive broadcast equipment and satellite time. And a tree.

Surely you can think of better things to spend your money on?

And if you think GODtv is worth the money, ask yourself this – has a non-Christian ever said to you, “Ooh, I watched GODtv last night. It was really interesting”. Me neither. And yet they call it ‘outreach’.