Healing
Hinn appeared on the April 23, 1998 installment of Larry King Live. King challenged him as to why he doesn’t go from “bed to bed” in hospitals with his healing power. Hinn indicated that he does visit hospitals and when he prayed for people, there were some who were healed but others who were not. He then offered King this explanation as to his mixed results: “But, you see, the gift does not work when you want it to work. The anointing must be there.” He told King and the viewing audience: “Look, God has given us, Larry, many sources of healing. Look at Lourdes. People have been healed going to Lourdes and Fatima.
(Fatima calls for making holy communion on the first Saturday of every month and the Almanac informs us that: “Fatima, with its sanctuary and basilica, ranks with Lourdes as the greatest of Marian shrines.").
So what about Lourdes? Hinn evidently approves of it. Lourdes is just the French version of Fatima. The Almanac gives its history: “Mary, identifying herself as the Immaculate Conception appeared 18 times between Feb. 11 and July 16, 1858, to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous at the grotto of Massabielle near Lourdes in southern France. Her message concerned the necessity of prayer and penance for the conversion of men.” (False doctrine, heresy which Hinn is relating to).
FALSE PROPHET EXTRAORDINAIRE
Jackie Alnor reports that TV mega-preacher, Benny Hinn, used a false prophecy to extort millions of dollars from unsuspecting victims. He warned TBN's TV audience that 1999 was going to be a year of plenty and the year 2000 would bring disaster. He threatened the viewers that those who didn't double their giving in 1999 would not survive the year 2000. Even the donors who had already called in their pledges were ordered to call back and increase their giving or face the consequences. This alone certifies Benny Hinn as a false prophet. This isn't the first time Hinn has prophesied falsely. Back in 1989 he prophesied to his congregation at the Orlando Christian Center in Florida what he was seeing for the decade of the 1990s. "The Lord also tells me to tell you in mid 90's -- about '94 or '95, no later than that -- God will destroy the homosexual community of America . . . He will destroy it with fire." "The Spirit of God tells me -- an earthquake will hit the east coast of America and destroy much in the 90's." "The Spirit tells me -- Fidel Castro will die in the 90's. . . Holy Spirit just said to me, it'll be worse than any death you can imagine." After 20 minutes of prophesying to his congregation that night, Hinn appeared to be "drunk in the spirit." When he came to his senses he said, "I'd like to know what I said. I was totally gone." Yet no matter how many times Hinn's false prophecies have been exposed, he still performs to overflowing crowds in stadiums around the world.
It was the spring, 1999 Praise-a-Thon, Trinity Broadcasting Network's (TBN), bi-annual fund-raiser, seen around the world via satellite. From the discussion between Paul & Jan Crouch and their guests, pledges were down because people were apprehensively anticipating potential troubles arising from Y2K hysteria. 'Prophet' Hinn exhorted TBN's supporters to not let Y2K fears affect their donations.
Liquidate
Hinn started out by establishing his credentials as a prophet of God. He called upon TBN's fellow guests for help in interpreting a disturbing dream he had had. "I do not fully understand it," he lamented, "but I really believe it deals with what God is about to do in the world." He gave a long narrative of his mystical dream that he said was "more of a vision of the night" than a dream. "In this dream, I did not see his face," Hinn began. "Everything in me knew it was the prophet Elijah . . . I walked up to him and he was turning water into blood." Hinn continued, "As I came to him, he said to me, 'Take this!' I took the rod from him.".
When Hinn finished narrating his dream, fellow guest Mark Chirona, offered the interpretation: "The formless essence of Elijah is the spirit of Elijah that God promised to pour out on the last days' company of seasoned ministry that will literally fulfill everything that God promised under the old covenant that would come into the new covenant of a prophetic order that would change the course of history." Hinn responded. "I feel the anointing here while he is talking!" Chirona continued: "And when Elijah handed you the rod, God was putting in your hand a new level of apostolic authority for the nations. . . You are entering into a new age of the miraculous. There will be a sharpening, for the spirit of Elijah rests on you." Hinn laid out his first prophetic message under Elijah's mantle:
(Hinn now quotes one of his buddies) "Pat Robertson, in January, said 'I have just come out of two days of prayer and fasting. The Lord has said to me that this year, 1999, would be the greatest year for the body of Christ, economically and spiritually, but beginning the year 2000, disasters would hit in the world, economically and otherwise, and only those in the church who have been giving to God would be spared.'" Turning his attention to the viewers, Hinn said: "So when I say to you here and in your home, increase your seed, God knows you can and you must because if you do not, you will be the one to suffer." TBN supporters then jammed the phones in order to survive the coming year of disaster. Hinn gave dire warnings to those who pledge and then fail to follow through. "And one final thing, if you break your promise, hear this! Some of you make a pledge and along the way you decide to forget about it. The Bible says God will destroy the work of your hands if you do that . . . We can't play games with him!" "Now, some of you will have to step out in faith tonight; you may not even have the money right now. In fact, most times you make a pledge you don't even have it."
Then he followed up with a warning to the skeptics:
"You know, you do not get under the kind of anointing I get under just because you sing hallelujah...There's a heavy price and I would not want to be in the shoes of the one who touches the anointing. Don't touch the anointing!" "I'm giving you a prophetic word. You know the scripture says they prospered because they obeyed his prophets. I'm telling you tonight, I'm speaking prophetically. Obey the Lord!" Hinn had a solution for those who were short on cash, -- liquidate! "You know if I was you and God spoke to me like this, I'd take it out of my investments to give it to God now cause it's already spring and the year 2000 is almost next door."
So now that the year 2000 has come and gone with no casualties to count, will TBN refund the extorted funds?
False Doctrine
Although Hinn states that his ministry throughout the 1970s was shaped by the writings of men like D.L. Moody and R.A. Torrey, he was a strong proponent of "revelation knowledge" -- new truths revealed to him by God directly -- that were not contained within Scripture. Only recently has he stated that he will no longer claim revelation knowledge as the authority for his teachings.
As Hinn's popularity increased due to his television program and the runaway sales of his books, his teachings came under close scrutiny by several apologetics ministries. The Christian Research Institute became especially alarmed by Hinn's references to the Godhead that seemed at best unorthodox and at worst heretical. On both his television program and in his book, Hinn asserted that all three persons of the Triune Godhead have their own independent bodies, souls, and spirits, as well as wills (10/13/90, TBN).
What alarmed most critics of Hinn is his statement that "there are nine of them [Spirits of God]." Some took this to mean that there are nine persons, which is not what Hinn was saying. "Nine of them" referred to the separate elements of the Trinity: three bodies, souls, and spirits.
"He [Jesus] who is righteous by choice said, 'The only way I can stop sin is by Me becoming it. I can't just stop it by letting it touch Me; I and it must become one.' Hear this! He who is the nature of God became the nature of Satan where He became sin!" (TBN, 12/1/90). Blasphemy!!!
When Benny Hinn found himself in a bind over his gaffe about there being nine persons in the Trinity, he said that it was only a joke. He has made many other irresponsible claims; e.g., that humans were created to swim like fish and fly like birds, and with only a thought, could move from planet to planet. When challenged as to his authority for such ridiculous claims, he appealed to his Jewish origin (Hinn was born a Palestinian Arab, not a Jew ["The Confusing World of Benny Hinn," PFO Journal, 12/97, p. 34]) and his knowledge of Hebrew, which he clearly doesn't have. He said that the word translated to "have dominion" in the creation story means that Adam and Eve could do everything that the creatures over which they had dominion could do (Christianity in Crisis, p. 119). So presumably, they could also lay eggs like hens and swarm like bees.
New Truths and Revelations?
BENNY HINN SAYS THE DEAD IN THEIR CASKETS
WILL BE RAISED TO LIFE IN FRONT OF TV SETS
The following is a transcription of what Benny Hinn said on Paul and Jan Crouch's TBN television program (Praise The Lord, Trinity Broadcasting Network, October 19, 1999):
Benny Hinn: But here's 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 raised from the dead watching TBN. Programs -- just plain programs -- programs that haven't done much when it comes to supernatural manifestations -- teaching programs. It's not going to be a Benny Hinn saying "Stretch your hands." It's going to be your average teaching program, your normal Christian program that's blessing the church. There's going to be such power on these programs people will be raised from the dead worldwide. I'm telling you, I see this in the Spirit. It's going to be so awesome. 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."
Paul Crouch: Benny Hinn! J_ _ _ _! (using the Lord's name in vain)
Benny Hinn: I'm telling you. People will be -- people -- I'm telling you, I feel the anointing talking here (the devil was at one time the "anointed" Cherub, this is the anointing Hinn is referring to). People are going to be canceling funeral services and bringing their dead in their caskets, placing them -- my G_ _! (using the Lord's name in vain) I feel the anointing here -- placing them before a television set, waiting for God's power to come through and touch them. And it's going to happen time and time -- so much it's going to spread. You're going to hear it from Kenya to Mexico to Europe to South America, where people will be raised from the -- so much so that the Word will spread that if some dead person be put in front of this TV screen, they will be raised from the dead and they will be by the thousands. You wait. Now the Lord just told me -- and I don't know whether this is true or not -- as I'm saying this, the Lord said He gave you (Mr. Crouch) that word many, many years ago.
Paul Crouch: I have said that, yes.
Benny Hinn: I don't remember you saying that to me ever.
Paul Crouch: No, I didn't.
Benny Hinn: [He said] 'I've told him this already.'
Paul Crouch: Yeah, the Lord spoke that to me in the very beginning of TBN and I
didn't really ...
Jan Crouch: And I had a dream.
Benny Hinn: You had a dream.
Paul Crouch: Yeah, tell him about that little ...
Jan Crouch: That's just a dream -- people were being raised from the dead. Years ago.
Paul Crouch: It's on tape. I said the day is coming ...
Benny Hinn: I see quite something amazing. I see rows of caskets lining up in front of this TV set and I see them bringing them closer to the TV set and as people are coming closer I see actually loved ones picking up the hands of the dead and letting them touch the screen and people are getting raised as their hands are touching that screen. With this program -- I'm not talking about my program -- I'm talking programs, plain programs aired -- the glory of God will be so on TBN that there's going to be divine resurrection happening as people bring their loved ones to the TV set.
Paul Crouch: Just because it's His time.
Benny Hinn: It's His time. Now here's something else I see. Jesus, I give You praise for this, I give You praise for this, I give You praise for this -- the day will come, Paul -- and I pray you'll be here. I pray the Lord will allow you to be here and see it. I mean, physically be here. You're in your 60s now. But the day is going to come when the gifts of the Holy Spirit will so intensify in the church that young children will be watching TBN and signs and wonders will begin to take place through them. Impartations of the Spirit will come to them. A little child that knows nothing about the gifts, knows nothing about the anointing, knows nothing about the power of God, will be imbued with power from on high as a child, as that TV set comes on, and will go out like fire torches to their schools and their playgrounds and their families. I see children, I see children, what looks like fire in their lips spreading -- but I see these kids touching the TV set, receiving it, and going out and spreading it. And it's going to happen with children in the U.S., Canada, all over the world. And I do see people being raised from the dead here, but I see masses of them overseas.
Transubstantiation: the doctrine of hell, Hinn, and Rome
Benny's Had A Revelation On Catholic Communion - 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, eat, 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? ...And so tonight, as we partake communion, we're not partaking bread. We're partaking what He said we would be partaking of: 'This is my body'"(Praise the Lord, TBN, Dec 27 '94).
Growling and Cursing
From here the TV interview goes to a level which can only be described as horrific and occultic. TBN screens a video recorded in Denver when Benny Hinn pronounced blessings on those who support him and curses on those who oppose him:
Hinn: I've been preaching 25 years almost; I've never seen the anointing as frightening (2Tim 1:7) as I saw in Denver Friday night; and so when you hear me in just a little bit give blessings and cursing ... any who attack this anointing, I speak a judgment on them.
According to an eyewitness account: "In the recent Denver crusade, Hinn became a different person under the influence of the 'anointing' unlike anything seen before. So much so, that his voice changed to a 'growl.' He was telling the people to raise their hands and exalt the master Jesus. It was obvious that he was not talking about the Jesus of the Bible. He also cursed all who would raise their hands against his ministry in word or deed."
Benny Hinn is a dangerous false prophet. The Bible does not promise a miracle-working revival at the end of the church age before the return of Christ. It promises, rather, great deception (Matthew 24:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:7-10; Revelation 13:13,14). Many gullible people are deceived by false miracles, and signs, and lying wonders. The Bible warns that miracles can be counterfeited. As we see in the above cited verses, every time the New Testament mentions miracles at the end of this age, it refers to them as deceptions. Miracles do not impart faith. Most of the people who witnessed Christ's miracles did not believe. Faith comes only by hearing the Word of God, the Bible --
Services
Hinn's services follow a strict pattern that's calculated for maximum emotional impact and, not so coincidentally, maximum offering collection. From the time the crowd enters the arena, they're massaged with mood lighting, repetitive music, responsive chanting, group gestures, group singing, various forms of choral and instrumental entertainment, all leading up to the moment Hinn makes his entrance. The song sung for the entrance is "How Great Thou Art," making convenient use of an ambiguous personal pronoun.
"There's power here, people!" Hinn will typically say. "Lift your hands and receive it."
All dutifully lift their hands. "You will be healed tonight!" They sob and shout hallelujah. "All things are possible to him that believeth!" Hinn repeats this same sentence three times, getting a bigger emotional reaction each time he says it.
Chant, song, gesture, salute – all the classic techniques used to submerge the individual into a group. It works for dictators and it works for Hinn. But now that he's joined them together in hope, he adds a dose of fear.
He speaks of huge disasters coming to the world. He tells them of the strange times we live in, a sinful world that will be cleansed by fire and earthquake. And there's only one slim hope to escape: "Only those who have been giving to God's work will be spared."
As a violin plays, money is collected in big white plastic buckets. And as the ushers do their work, Hinn's voice turns soothing. "Nothing will touch you. No one will touch your children. Nothing will touch your home."
Although he never says, "Donate money or you'll die," he comes close. There is a constant theme in his preaching of the connection between "giving" and "healing," making a "faith vow" and "having your needs met." He comes within a hair's breadth of saying, "If you give me money, you will be healed." And the collection always occurs between his promise of healing and the actual healing session – the same way street performers save their biggest trick until after the hat has been passed.
Along about 10 p.m., when all the checks and donations have been collected, Hinn announces that God is speaking to him. Sometimes he sees angels in the room. Sometimes he sees ugly demon monsters that are fleeing from the building. ("You ugly spirit of sickness, go out of this place! Let God's people go!" Sometimes he just FEELS the presence of spirits, or angels. Once he saw the whole arena bathed in golden dust. And then, as though his body has been taken over by a force he can't control, he starts running around knocking people over. Sometimes he knocks them over with his coat, sometimes by blowing on them, sometimes by pushing their forehead with his hand – but when he touches them, they fall over. As he does this, he calls out the healings – a brain tumor, a cancer, a crippled left leg – as though he's watching something occurring that the rest of us can't see. And then, one by one, various people are brought up onto the stage, and an announcer describes their affliction so that Hinn can lay hands on them and pronounce the disease vanquished. On an average night he'll heal about 80 people, in addition to the ones he shouts out in a sort of "wherever you are, you're healed" way.
No wonder Hinn needs bodyguards. Very few, if any, of these people are actually healed. And when they die, or their disease becomes worse, their relatives tend to become angry. For the past ten years this has been demonstrated over and over again by various investigative reports conducted with the resources of the Trinity Foundation, beginning with an Inside Edition show in 1993 hosted by Bill O'Reilly and reported by Steve Wilson.
Just a few examples:
He claims to have cured three people of AIDS, even though the Centers for Disease Control have never seen the HIV virus leave a body once it's infected.
He healed a case of brain cancer on stage, even though Inside Edition followed up with tests that showed the tumor was still present.
He pronounced a woman cured of heart disease, and she was so convinced that she threw away her heart medicine. Questioned about it, Hinn said, "It's not my job to call their doctor."
The "cure" of a deaf woman turned out to be a woman who, according to her doctor, was not deaf in the first place.
A Houston woman who thought she was cured of lung cancer ("It will never come back!" Hinn told her) rejected her doctors' advice and care – and died two months later.
The heavyweight boxer Evander Holyfield, banned from boxing because of a heart condition, went to a Benny Hinn crusade in Philadelphia, had Hinn lay hands on him, and gave Hinn a check for $265,000 after he was told he was healed. In fact, he passed his next examination by the boxing commission, but later his doctors said he never had a heart condition in the first place – he had been misdiagnosed.
Hinn claimed that God ripped the pacemaker out of a woman's body because she didn't need it anymore.
Hinn claims that a man in Ghana was raised from the dead on the platform. "We have it on video!" he says – although he's never produced the video.
Even sadder than the people who think they're healed are the ones so sick that Hinn's employees never allow them to be seen on stage. People suffering from paralysis, brain damage, dementia and the like – people who couldn't possibly make any "demonstration" on stage – are rejected at a screening session held backstage.
In two cases journalists have tried to verify all the healings at a particular crusade. For an HBO documentary called A Question of Miracles, researchers attended a Portland, Oregon, crusade at which 76 miracles were claimed. Even though Hinn had agreed to provide medical verification of each one, he stonewalled requests for the data, then eventually responded 13 weeks later – with only five names. HBO followed up the five cases and determined that a woman "cured" of lung cancer had died nine months later, an old woman's broken vertebra wasn't healed after all, a man with a logging injury deteriorated as he refused medication and a needed operation, a woman claiming to be healed of deafness had never been deaf (according to her husband), and a woman complaining of "breathlessness" had stopped going to the doctor on instructions of her mother.
NBC's Dateline tried to duplicate the HBO study. At a crusade in Las Vegas they counted 56 miracles. Of those, Hinn eventually provided data "proving" five of them. Four of those people refused to share their medical records with NBC. The remaining one, a woman supposedly cured of Lou Gehrig's Disease, had been misdiagnosed, according to her doctor.
There have been so many documentaries and investigations on Hinn – almost all of them orchestrated by Trinity Foundation – that they even have a common structure. Here's what he looks like in action. Here's what he claims to do. Here's what his critics say. Is he a fraud or is he a healer? Let's find out. Not much healing going on. One thing Hinn says in his defense – when confronted with evidence that someone claimed to be healed and then died – is that "The reason people lose their healing is because they begin questioning if God really did it."
Ten years later, Hinn has become something of a media master. Whenever he's investigated now, he simply ADMITS his "mistakes." He's also refined his view of what he does. He doesn't heal anyone, he always reminds the interviewer. He just creates an atmosphere so that God can heal people. By the time people get to the stage, they've already been healed by God, he says. If the healing turns out to be bogus, then the person was self-deluded. Besides, hope is a great thing. He also says he has a doctor backstage now to counsel the miracle cases and encourage them to continue with their medication until the healing has been verified. This seems to satisfy the media, even though it amounts to an admission of his own inability to know whether someone is healed.
Ministry of Death
But there's an even darker side to Hinn and his organization. In 1998 two members of his inner circle died of heroin overdoses. In 1999, after one of his many vows of reform, he fired several board members and hired an ex-cop named Mario C. Licciardello to do an internal investigation of his ministry. Licciardello was the brother-in-law of Carman, the popular Christian singer, so many think Hinn considered him "safe." But Licciardello did such a good job – taking hundreds of depositions and getting to the bottom of the heroin use – that Hinn then sued him. While Licciardello was still his head of security, the ministry filed a lawsuit demanding that all his files be turned over and sealed, because their public release could result in the end of the ministry. One day before Hinn was supposed to give his deposition in this case, Licciardello had a mysterious heart attack and died. The Hinn organization made an out-of-court settlement with Licciardello's widow, which included sealing the court papers.
Hinn runs the largest evangelistic organization in the world that is NOT a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Responsibility. That means his finances are private, his salary is secret, and his income is anybody's guess. Royalties from his books alone are estimated at $500,000 per year, but he essentially has carte blanche to take anything out of the till he wants. "He lives the lifestyle of a billionaire," says Ole Anthony, "all on the backs of false promises and selling false hope."
-- By Joe Bob Briggs Illustration by 4G˛ Issue #191, January/February 2004 http://www.thedoormagazine.com/theheretic.html
last generation ~ www.lastgeneration.us