I came across this interesting article by a man named Chris Elrod entitled Did I Sit On The Sidelines While The Playing Field Burned? where Pastor Elrod takes a sobering look at the Lakeland Revival and regrets not doing more to warn the community about Todd bentley.

What makes this story unique is that Elrod is the pastor of the Compass Point Church in Lakeland. If anyone saw the stuff that went on in Lakeland from April until the first of August, this pastor (along with Charisma forums poster “Hesed” who blogged from Lakeland and provided some excellent insights via blogs and appearances in Christian forums) is well qualified to speak.

From Elrod’s observation of:

When the first news began to break around here about Todd, healings and the revival…I went to see it for myself. In all I attended four separate “revival” meetings over a two month period. I also watched countless hours of the events on the Internet. I witnessed Todd hollering “BAM” a lot. I witnessed “verification teams” in the parking lot carefully choosing people deemed candidates for “healing” while turning many others down. I watched ushers push ill children away from the stage area because they had not been preapproved for “healing”. I heard stories about pixie-dust-spreading angels and conversations with the Apostles in some abstract heavenly cabin. I saw leg drops, high kicks, head punches and every other Wrestlemania cliche under the sun. I heard anonymous crazy stories about people being healed and others being raised from the dead. I heard and saw many strange things…but nothing that even remotely kept with sound doctrine. Every Biblical discerning bone in my body showed me that there was nothing going on at the “revival” that was in keeping with God’s Word.

to his realization after deciding not to talk about Lakeland publically after being advised against “…speaking against something that God is actually doing” and heeding that advice realizing later on that he”

… protected my flock from the three-ring circus and hoopla…but did nothing to protect the Body as a whole.

to the remorseful pondering of:

The question that I now have to ask myself…the question that will haunt me for quite a while is…did I sit on the sidelines while the playing field burned? Should have I blogged about it…spoken out about it publicly…done more to get the word out to the rest of the world that this whole thing was about Todd and not God? I took care of my own house…but should I have done more to take care of the entire neighborhood?

To Pastor Elrod, I say that I believe that your remorse and repentance is indeed genuine. I think you definitely realize that maybe you should have carried the apologetic defense beyond the walls of your church and gone against the run of the mill. I am greatful that you cared about your congregation to get the word out about Lakeland to your congregation. Many churches did not even do this and/or did the ‘wait and see’ approach thinking they could ‘jump on the bandwagon’ if Lakeland was proven to be a true revival beyond a shadow of a doubt.

But I am not here to condemn you. I am here to encourage you to ‘not beat yourself up’ over this into condemnation. This can be a great learning opportunity for you to learn that apologetics goes beyond just contending for and defending the faith. It can be a very effective form of evangelism that firmly establishes a correct doctrinal belief system. And from looking at your web page, evangelism (the “servant outreach’ section comes to mind) appears to be a biblical mandate your church is emphasizing and evangelism does involve apologetics to some degree.

Even though you have genuine remorse and repentance for not going beyond the four walls of your church, some of your fellow online brothers and sisters in Christ you have never met (but you will meet one day…..) did spread the word about Lakeland via blogs and forums and eventually saw the dark truths become revealed in the light. God still moved on behalf of His people in reference to his revival ending and I do not want you to beat yourself up any more. I want to invite you to rejoice with me and many others praising and thanking God for His sovereign and providential hand that revealed the sin and corruption for it to stop manifesting in preparation for a glorious church who is daily dying to the flesh and fulfilling the Great Commission.

It’s time to do what the blog title states….

Go Onward, Forward, Toward…

In light of the recent debacle now known as Lakeland, I was wondering and thinking about where the church will go next in terms of a ‘movement. In my thoughts, this came to mind:

Will we swing from the excessive charismatic/prophetic back to the excessive over-repentance / hyper-holiness mentality?

I believe that if we are not careful enough, we can get ourselves in grave danger of heading in this direction of an ‘over-repenting’ and ‘hyper-holiness’ type of Gospel where the legalisms widely known within fundamentalist and ole-time pentecostalism can take form. To combat the mess cause by the one extreme, we end up solving the problem with the other extreme.

What do I really mean by an ‘over-repenting’ and ‘hyper-holiness’ type of Gospel? A Gospel where we over-interpret to where we are constantly ‘repenting’ for something other people (Identificational repentance) did more than our own individual sins (personal repentance). A Gospel where we take things that are normally okay and try to re-define them as ’sin’ in order to ‘repent’ for something to brag about how we are ‘repenting’ and becoming ‘humbled’. A Gospel where we value the skirt-length, the starched dress shirt, the wide striped ties, no jewerly (except for wedding bands), no makeup, southern-Gospel (for Pentecostals) or ‘trumpet’ music (for fundamentalists), the 1/4 inch hair rule away from the ears, a ‘poorer the purer mentality’, etc. where we render the garments and hold back the hearts. I could go on and on…….

But most astutely, an ‘over-repenting’ and ‘hyper-holiness’ type of Gospel where we are constantly repenting thinking if we stumble upon the right repentance, God opens up the windows and can suddenly hear us again and all our social ills are suddenly eradicated to where our Christian utopia can ‘be restored’. A quazi-mixture of word of faith dominionlism combined with the Christian Reconstructionalism theories of R.J. Rushdoony.

There are two significant events that can easily swing the other extreme into action…

(1): The Lakeland disaster where we saw the extremes of a warfare dance, an evangelist who kneed people to be slain in the spirit, a revival decoder ring, and a pro-wrestler, Hells Angel biker, rockstar wanna be (Bam-Bam Bentley) run rampant on a podium only to end on moral failures known by the ’super-apostles’ called the ‘revival alliance’ {aka the ‘really rottens’ (a “Laff-A-Lympics” reference), new millenium style’ - put them all in black t-shirts with a capital Letter “R” in white letters on the front and take a group picture} months in advance.

(2): The election of Barack Obama to the White House this November.

Number one has taken place and there is a very high possibility that number two will also happen.

If we look at the trends of televangelism, you will notice that when the Republicans are in office, the teachings turn towards a health, wealth, and prosperity slant where sending them money is supposed to make you healthy, wealthy, and wise. When the Democrats are in office, the teachings turn towards an ‘over-repenting’ and ‘hyper-holiness’ type of Gospel where we are repenting, calling our congressmen, forming theo-political action committees and sending them money is supposed to stamp out the DEMONcrats and also act like indulgences and ‘provide forgiveness’ of our sins.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are at the “Crossroad of Crisis” within Christianity. There is a huge mess called Lakeland that needs to be dealt with and cleaned up to the point where this could take years to recover from. Now is the time where we need to bring forth a balanced Christian doctrine where a truly balanced work of the Holy Spirit and truly balanced operation of Spiritual Gifts plus a truly balanced doctrine of personal holiness, repentance, and “Go, And sin no more….” takes place.

If we do not choose at this time to enact the balanced doctrine of a lifelong process of dying daily to the flesh opting for the reactionary overkill of ‘over-repenting’ and ‘hyper-holiness’ for a ‘quick fix’ to ‘look good’ in the eyes of the world, we can expect another disaster called “personal moral failure of a leader (SIN)” in the same exact way the Lakeland disaster came forth.

Same mess, same beginning zeal, same ending result, but from the opposite extreme.

We need a balanced Gospel and we need it NOW! before it’s too late and we repeat the cycle.

According to John Arnott, there was also in addition to the emotional adultery, a problem with “excessive drinking” where Arnott states:

Todd has chosen to do something that is wrong according to Scripture, and his timing to announce it was equally inappropriate. Everyone is asking, “What happened?” “Why didn’t anyone see this coming?” We are making the answers to those questions a matter of prayer, and are as shocked and saddened by what has just happened as you are. Furthermore, it has now come out that there has been some inappropriate behavior, both with excessive drinking and also with a female member of his staff. Please don’t jump to conclusions or assume the worst, but this behavior is wrong before the Lord.

I wonder

Which ’spirits’ did Todd drink from, the ‘alcohol’ kind in addition to the ‘filthy demonic’ spirits?

The answer is obvious, both alcohol and the demonic.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is very similar to what happened in the Bible when Eli never disciplined his sons and let them run rampantly throughout the tabernacle.

Who is Todd’s other woman?

The world wants to know…

I was thinking about this recently and an intriguing thought came into my head. If ‘the other woman’ was also a willing participant in this emotional adultery, shouldn’t she

(1): Be terminated from the ministry and a public announcement made?

(2): Be equally called out in public for her part in the emotional adultery?

Now if this ‘emotional adultery’ was ‘forced’ or ‘falsely coerced with a promise of a mega-blessing from God’, or a ‘threat of blackball if she decided to reveal all’, I could understand her name being protected.

I think the world needs to know if this ‘emotional adultery’ was done with mutual consent or not and if done with mutual consent, what was her name and her job title with the ministry.

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In fact, if Todd’s “other woman” happens to stumble on this blog and can publically comment on the matter, please comment.

What if Senator Charles Grassley was to enact the same legal proceedings he enacted on the televangelists in reference to the Lakeland Revival to see if any possible investigation can come forth?

Che Ahn comments on Todd Bentley

Here is what bothered me about Ahn’s press release:

Please pray that their marriage will be fully restored. It is not surprising that the enemy would use this incident and anything he can find to impugn the work of God to cause us and all involved to question the Lakeland revival.

Every revival that I have experienced or studied had its controversy, and the Lakeland revival, to say the least, has had its share.

This comes across as being so ‘flippant’ as if Life Goes On. The questions and the controversy started after day one of this revival. They continued after seeing hundred’s of YouTube videos and watching the simulcast on God(less) TV. It was questioned from the start.

At that time, they sought counseling and went forward believing their marriage was restored. It is obvious that the stress of the outpouring meetings at Lakeland has had a major effect on their current relationship.

Why did you commission him if you knew they had marriage problems? Wouldn’t one think that being in a higher public profile would be more stressful on a marriage to the point where one would need to sit Todd down and see if the marriage was still solid or not?

Remember, Todd filed for the separation not Shonnah! It came across as if Todd wants to be with the other woman.

These ‘revival leaders do not get it. The devil’s to blame, the Christians are to blame. And it is also Todd’s fault, but not mine

Excuse me, I have another global mega-revival to preach to…..

What’s next, the Drew Rosenhaus syndrome of “next question please”

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Speaking of “Life Goes On”, Scott at Northwest Musings has another response in his blog post entitled The dancing continues! Can you do the twist?

This from Ricciardelli’s “Visionary Advancement Strategies Articles- Week of August 17, 2008″ hosted at inJesus online community

Roberts Weekly Pondering

Todd Bentley’s moral failure was publically exposed this week. There is more that has come forth from young women and pastors from his home town and around the world, so more information should be forthcoming, unfortunately. We have tried to be wise in our reporting, as we felt compelled to report because so many questions were being asked and so many were being influenced by wrongful doctrine and untruthful claims. Many leaders have been deceived and so we know the deception was very powerful, even though many of us were wondering how so many had been caught up in it.

Lakeland was not revival, but there were many who made the journey who were touched. The question was, how could that be? Well we know that God inhabits the praises of His people and there were many who came to worship Him in the Lakeland meetings. Many came expecting, and God met them in their expectation of Him. There were claims of the dead raised and other extravagant miracles, and this simply did not happen. Some people were healed and many were touched in the worship. We have seen in the past from Ted Haggard, William Branham, Paula White, etc., that results can happen regardless of the character and lifestyle of those from the platform. Todd’s lifestyle, character, doctrine, methods, etc., often did not line up with the Word of God and that is why there was such a schism in the charismatic church. Those that supported Lakeland and felt touched and those of us that were watching in shock as we seemed to be watching a completely different story.

We have asked leaders to not put a spin on their involvement and to consider acknowledging that they were duped. I have been duped before and will again. I was fortunate that on this occasion, we had information early on of the deception that was going on. We witnessed how this was in fact perpetrated by man, for man’s agendas. We shared this with many of leaders involved, and many would not listen. Instead they warned us to not come against Todd Bentley, his lifestyle, his methods, or his doctrine, because he was God’s choice to mess with our religion. We were called “revival police”, and other names for asking questions. The fact was that they needed revival police, because there was criminal activity going on. Todd should have been arrested for assault when he kicked a sick man to the ground in Jesus name.

I am hoping that those leaders who supported Lakeland and used the same platform for gain would come forth and admit that they either were too concerned with their own agendas to listen to those who warned them of such things, or they simply just missed it. God TV has an enormous responsibility in all this and ignored wisdom from many leaders regarding this. At the time of this writing, many have back pedaled claiming that they did not lay hands on Todd, or endorse him. It would be refreshing if they came out and said, I am so sorry, please forgive us for our blindness in these matters. And also ask Todd for forgiveness in using his platform, rather than having Todd come down from the platform for the ministry and healing that was needed.

If you have talked to the people who have been hurt by this violence and abuse, you would understand the frustration from many of us. When we questioned staff members, and former staff members about Todd, many used the same words to describe him, Pathological Liar”. These lies in the guise of ministry and Todd’s behind the scenes lifestyle made it difficult for his board and others to discern. I have gotten emails wondering if I am happy now that Todd has been caught in an affair, (see message from Todd’s board). We are not happy about this, it has been sickening and impacts us all. I am saddened for him, for his family, for the other woman, and for all of those who have been hurt through this process and Todd’s lifestyle. I pray for repentance, I pray for mercy, I pray for reconciliation and I pray for total exposure so that Todd can finally get the deliverance and healing he needs. This did not happen 3 years ago, and this led to this sad moment.
I would like to thank all the brave souls out there that stood for righteousness, holiness, and reverence towards the things of God. One man whom I love and respect is Lee Grady. He has been guarded and only released responsibly needed information, and he did so in the love of God, and the love of the truth of His Word. My prayer is that we could all learn from this. It could happen to any of us, if we refuse to walk humbly in the fear of God .We must also choose to walk with those around us that that will provide relational accountability, get in our face when they need to, and encourage us towards righteous living before God and man. Todd has a chance now to be whole for the first time in his life and that is what we should all pray for. We should also pray for a miracle in his family and also for the charismatic church to walk in plumb line truth of God’s Word. We also pray for the church to rid themselves of the self pleasure pursuit of signs and wonders, and adrenaline rush experience, and instead pursue King Jesus and His righteousness in every aspect of our lives. As they die to self, and serve others, they will see signs and wonders follow their lifestyles of obedience while living in His presence.

AMEN!!!!!!