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We received the following response to The True Marks of a Cult, “Mark Nineteen – Healing Services and Crusades”:
I see your take..I have experienced your disdain and anger myself…I still try to believe guys like [Benny] Hinn are essentially good..but hope is the last to die..they say…oh well.How can someone know the word and yet be so away from true love…IN THE END MANY WILL ERE FROM THE WAY OF TRUTH SEEKING AFTER RICHES AND THEREFORE PIERCE THEMSELVES WITH MANY SORROWS,,,,,I THINK IT IS IN 2 PETER? my CONCERN IS DONT LET A ROOT OF BITTERNESS DEFILE YOU ETC…… Glad to know someone is out there thinking a little like I do……of course I have to look at me first cause He did say IF YOU LOVE ME YOU WILL OBEY ME and I don’t know about you but I don’t love HIM enough…Peace to you………..
radio…@…
Victor’s response:
Greetings in Christ Jesus, “Radio,”
I want you to know that the word “disdain” is not the word I would choose to honestly describe my attitude or perspective, be it toward Benny Hinn or any other person. Disdain, according to my dictionary, is defined thus: “To regard or treat as unworthy or beneath one’s dignity.” It adds the synonym, “condescending.” The meaning I have experienced of the word is one that would be descriptive of those who are proud, haughty, arrogant, and self-righteous. While I must readily admit that I have been that way in times past, and though in our flesh we can be that way at any time, I choose, by the grace of Jesus Christ and a new nature, not to be that way. We are given to be as Him, of Whom it is written:
“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:6-8 MKJV).
None of us has a right to disdain anyone, not Benny Hinn, Adolph Hitler, homosexuals, the pope, drunks, addicts, or any other. The Scriptures are clear in telling us that we have all been cut from the same cloth, the first Adam. In the flesh, we are all the same material. That means that there is no man that is “essentially good,” so we would err in trying to see anyone that way. Furthermore, you and I need the Savior every bit as much as does anyone else. He died because of me and my sin, and you and yours.
Anger? Yes. I am angry when I see Benny Hinn mock God, faith, and righteousness. The man is a vile scoundrel. If there IS disdain in me, it is not because I compare him to myself. Rather, I compare him to God and to His requirement of us and of how true believers ought to walk and do.
You ask: “How can someone know the word and yet be so away from true love?”
Benny Hinn has never “known the Word.” The Word is Jesus Christ. Hinn is a bastard. The Bible defines a bastard as an illegitimate child. An illegitimate child is one that has been born through the agency of an outsider. Who is the outsider? He is the liar and thief, the adulterer, the one sowing tares, who comes to deceive, steal, kill and destroy. That is what Benny Hinn is doing. He is of his father the devil, and has never “known the Word.” A tree is known by its fruit. The bramble was never an oak and never could be.
I can understand your concern about a root of bitterness. It can happen. We are kept by God’s grace though we must soil ourselves in having to speak the things we do. It is not pleasant or easy or popular, but it must be done. God will keep us. His blood washes us, yes, keeps us clean, though the work may be difficult.
In the flesh, no person can ever love Him to any degree, much less “enough.” In the Spirit, our love for Him is perfected, because it is Christ’s righteousness in us that works, not ours, and His Spirit in us that lives, and not us. There comes a time when our love is perfect because His work is perfect.
I walk away from this letter feeling like I have been “preachy” and “stuffy.” I hope that you will take that which is of value and ignore that which is not worth anything. God grant you mercy and grace and forgiveness as you grant mercy and forgiveness to others.
Victor
Paul’s reply:
“Radio,” Paul here. I have a few thoughts I would like to add. They may help you to better understand where we are coming from, and the hope of the glorious gospel of Christ, which is not commonly known, and that sustains us in the midst of a corrupt world.
God says no man is good. We certainly believe Him. We believe Him because He revealed this truth by applying it firstly to our own persons. We found out that it wasn’t just a matter of missing the mark by a little bit. We were utterly corrupt and without hope of change, except by the grace of God. (I speak not only of our pre-Christian days, but particularly of our lives after we came to believe on Him, and were baptized with fire, as in Romans 7.) It has been the sheer grace and mercy of God that we are saved and stand here to speak to you today. If He did not save us, we were goners. And in our flesh there is yet no good thing to this day, but the salvation of the Lord has been to raise us to live by His Spirit, and not after our corrupt flesh.
Now, knowing this, you must consider that if every person is utterly corrupt, and without hope, as God testifies (by His very sacrifice), then it is only by His will that any of us are saved. If it is by His will, and He also declares that He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, then surely He will perform it. Let me ask you, who will stop Him from doing what He wants?
We believe and preach the Good News of Jesus Christ; that He died for all and will reconcile all things (including humanity) to Himself. Jesus Christ died for sinners. It is that simple. If He died for them, He owns them. If He owns them, He can do what He wants with them. If He can do what He wants with them, He can bring them to repentance.
Why wouldn’t He? And what would you prefer? Would you prefer that people go on forever in rebellion, hatred, and animosity, in some kind of eternal torture chamber, or that they are simply annihilated, their lives a vain exercise in wicked futility? Or would you want that they bow the knee, and confess Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, as God says they will?
Unregenerate man prefers torturing or annihilating his enemies or those whom he hates, despises, or simply looks down upon. But if God, Who never sinned, and deserves no condemnation or hatred, has rewarded mankind, which has hated Him, with the laying down of His life for us, then how can we withhold His forgiveness towards all? We cannot. And I want you to know, despite what it may appear to you, we do not.
We speak the truth. People are not saved by countenancing and accepting evil, especially doing evil in the glorious Name of the Savior and God. Evil is what slays them. God is angry, as Victor wrote to you. You had better believe it. We are angry with Him. We threaten no one, but we speak the truth that threatens all who prefer their evil ways to God. So be it. We would rather be identified with God than with man, even if it costs us our lives. Of what value are our lives if we deny Him, anyway?
The lines are always drawn, and we are always choosing with Whom (or whom) we identify. Those that seek to save their lives will lose them. But those who lose their lives for His sake gain them, unto life everlasting. That is a quality of life the carnal man does not know, but which we know and have in Him, even now.
The glory is His. We lift our hands unto Him and praise His Name for the great goodness He has shown us, which must prevail to the end, even as He has determined it to be.
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