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Old Time Country Preacher

An Evaluation of Bill Johnson

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **6/18/16 3:21 pm**

Bill Johnson wasn’t happy. The pastor of a successful church in Weaverville, California, he wanted more than just a sermon and worship choruses. He attended a conference in 1987 featuring the teaching of John Wimber but left discouraged. “The reason for my discouragement,” Johnson explains, “was the fact that they had fruit for what they believed. All I had was good doctrine.” After careful reexamination of his personal priorities, he concluded, “There was a risk factor I had failed to enter into—Wimber called it faith. Teaching MUST be followed with action that makes room for God to move” (emphasis in original). Immediate change occurred. However, he reports, “a number of healings and manifestations broke out and I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t object to it, I wasn’t opposed to it; I just didn’t know how to pastor it in a way that it would continue and increase.” It wasn’t long before Johnson became discouraged again because some weren’t being healed. Finally, in 1995, he made a trip to the Toronto Airport Vineyard, where the Toronto Blessing had broken out the year before. Since then, he hasn’t looked back.

Previous to the seventeen years Johnson spent in Weaverville, he had been a youth pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California, under the leadership of his father. In February of 1996, Johnson and his wife Beni became the senior pastors at Bethel.

Bethel is a multifaceted church. Extensions include an inner healing and deliverance ministry called Sozo (which depends heavily on extrabiblical revelation), healing rooms, a prophetic ministry, and the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry where, they state, “the school emphasizes the need for believers to return to the ministry of signs and wonders.”

A fifth-generation pastor, Johnson’s teachings are solidly rooted in those of the late John Wimber and the former pastor of the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, John Arnott. Frequent speakers promoted by Bethel include Randy Clark, whose 1994 appearance at the Toronto Airport Vineyard signaled the beginning of the Toronto Blessing, and Cindy Jacobs, a self-professed prophet who once noted that the Holy Spirit resided in her left arm, having moved from her right arm.

SIGNS AND WONDERS

As with other churches and individuals involved in what Hank Hanegraaff has coined the “Counterfeit Revival” movement, Johnson feels that miracles should be a sign of the presence of the authentic gospel. He writes, “Heaven is the model for our life and ministry. Jesus lived with this principle by only doing what He saw His Father doing. Learning to recognize the Holy Spirit’s presence, and how to follow His lead will enable us to do the works of Christ, destroying the works of the devil. Healing and deliverance must become the common expression of this gospel of power once again.” Indeed, “powerlessness is inexcusable,” he insists. “Our mandate is simple: raise up a generation that can openly display the raw power of God.”

Concordant with that belief, in addition to the accounts of falling gold dust and angel feathers so commonly reported in the Counterfeit Revival movement, Bethel Church’s website reports numerous instances over the years of miraculous healings, including people being raised from the dead. Johnson also tells of God’s storehouse of body parts in heaven that one of his students experienced:

Years ago one of our students had an encounter with the Lord. It was really quite bizarre. In heaven she actually saw this room with spare body parts. You say, “Well that doesn’t exist in heaven.” I don’t know. I haven’t seen it. But she did. And she was with Chris ministering down in Santa Rosa, I think it was. And a gal came up who was in a head-on collision. Really messed up her legs. Used to be a dancer and had very little function….She says, “I don’t even have a kneecap.” Well, the gal who’s seen the spare parts room in heaven says, “Well, I’ll get one for you.” That’s got to be like the ultimate response ever! “Well, I’ll get one for you.” She reaches her arm like this [he gestures reaching for something above his head], she brings it down, lays her hand on her knee and within fifteen minutes she has a new knee cap.

There are two noteworthy facts about the seemingly endless reports of miracles. First, although God certainly can and does heal today, these ministries never provide any documentation. When people come forward at a meeting for healing and leave claiming to be cured, there isn’t any documented follow-up to see if the purported healing actually occurred or was simply the result of wishful thinking on the part of the person supposedly healed. When someone feels they’ve been healed of cancer and then stops treatment as a sign of faith, the results can be horrific.

Second, the theological paradigm undergirding Bethel’s miracle claims contradicts biblical teaching. Illustrative examples abound, but the following one particularly reveals Johnson’s worldview. At a Prophetic Fire Conference in 2008, he told his audience, “As you’re praying over them, command now the spirit of affliction, ‘Loose that hip, in Jesus’ name.’ Command that God just speak health into that hip. Some actually need a creative miracle. There’s degenerative condition in the joint. So the worlds were made when God spoke them into being, so speak to that new hip.” In short, to instruct followers to give God orders and to teach them to speak material objects into existence (as only God can do) is not merely unbiblical, it rises to the level of blasphemy.

IF IT BE THY WILL

The Johnsons admit that sometimes people haven’t been healed. One time the declaration was made that Redding would be a cancer-free zone, only to have someone die of cancer. Beni Johnson said, “You’re going to have failures. We don’t try to figure out the answers. We’re seeing major breakthrough, and we just keep at it.”

It never occurs to them that the reason some people aren’t healed is because it may not be God’s will. In fact, in the “Questions and Answers” section of Bill Johnson’s website, the question is asked if it is always God’s will to heal someone. Johnson responds, “How can God choose not to heal someone when He already purchased their healing? Was His blood enough for all sin, or just certain sins? Were the stripes He bore only for certain illnesses, or certain seasons of time? When He bore stripes in His body He made a payment for our miracle. He already decided to heal….Take risk—pray for people (NOT—‘if it be thy will’ kind of prayer. In the thousands of people I’ve seen healed, I’ve never seen anyone healed from that kind of prayer)” (emphasis in original).

Johnson alludes to Isaiah 53:5, which in reality provides no promise of physical healing. In context, Isaiah spoke of our spiritual healing—Messiah was “pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities.” As Peter explained, “‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’ For ‘you were like sheep going astray,’ but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Pet. 2:24–25). Furthermore, Jesus is quite clear that it is not wrong to pray “if it be thy will.” He Himself prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42; cf. 2 Cor. 12:8–9). And John affirms, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14–15). Only God knows what is best for us, whether it be healing or not, and to teach otherwise is a false and dangerous teaching. As Hanegraaff often says, healing is provided for in the atonement, but it is not guaranteed prior to the general resurrection at the consummation of history.

CALLING OUR SALVATION INTO QUESTION

As error begets error, Johnson includes miracles, signs, and wonders in the works each and every Christian should be manifesting. In an excerpt posted on his website from his book Release the Power of Jesus (Destiny Image, 2009), he writes, “Works cannot save us, but without the fruit of good works in our lives, we lack the evidence that identifies us as a new creation in Christ. Just as God’s nature is revealed in what He does, the evidence that we are being transformed into His likeness is that we reveal His nature in what we do.” Johnson goes on to ask, “What are these good works?” He answers by quoting Jesus’s statement in John 14:12: “‘Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.’ It can’t be stated more plainly. Those who believe in Him will demonstrate signs and wonders” (emphasis added).

This false and dangerous teaching that miracles ought to manifest in every believer’s ministry as evidence of saving faith stems from how Johnson applies his doctrine of the “kenosis” (emptying) of Christ. He teaches that Jesus functionally “laid his divinity aside” in order to model what any ordinary Christian can and should do through dependence on the Holy Spirit. Where, then, does that leave the committed Christian who isn’t manifesting signs and wonders in his life? It may well leave him with a badly shaken faith, doubting his own salvation. And what about the salvation of millions of Christians who have never healed someone or raised a person from the dead?

TRUSTING IN SUBJECTIVE FEELINGS AND EXPERIENCES

Johnson writes, “Usually those who use the natural mind to protect themselves from deception are the most deceived. They’ve relied on their own finite logic and reason to keep them safe, which is in itself a deception. They usually have an explanation for all that’s going on in their walk with the Lord, but criticize those who long for more. Our hearts can embrace things that our heads can’t. Our hearts will lead us where our logic would never dare to go.” Elsewhere he asserts, “But to follow [the Holy Spirit], we must be willing to follow off the map—to go beyond what we know. To do so successfully we must recognize His presence above all.” And again, he says, “It’s difficult to expect the same fruit of the early church when we value a book they didn’t have more than the Holy Spirit they did have. It’s not Father, Son and Holy Bible.”

The prophet Jeremiah, however, warned, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Countless people today endorse unbiblical practices, such as gay marriage, because it feels right in their hearts. A fortiori, it is perilous to trust in extrabiblical revelation that “will lead us where our logic would never dare to go.” As Hanegraaff has shown, a hallmark of counterfeit revivalism is the subjugation of critical thinking, as though the mind were an obstacle to spiritual illumination. But the Holy Spirit always works through Scripture as our final authority in discerning truth, which entails the disciplined use of our critical thinking faculties.

THE MODERN CHURCH WANTS MORE

Sadly, much of today’s church isn’t satisfied with the gospel. For them, it isn’t powerful enough. Paul warned about this when he wrote, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Tim. 4:3–5).

Just like noted snake handler Jamie Coots, who recently died of a rattlesnake bite, many pastors feel they must authenticate their ministries and the gospel by performing signs and wonders. But since the death of the first-century apostles and the closing of the biblical canon, Scripture stands on its own and doesn’t need these miracles to defend itself. Hebrews tells us, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). Indeed, in the story Jesus told about the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man asked that Lazarus be sent back to warn his family so they wouldn’t end up in torment. But Abraham’s reply was, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

Contemporary signs and wonders are not necessary to win people to Christ, but the Holy Spirit, working through the Word of God, is essential. It’s time that the church abandon sensationalistic teachings and get back to doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

renewal

Once Again..

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1021 **6/18/16 3:50 pm**

OTCP..You stated that we should get back to what we need to do?

Question please:

What do we need to do?

What do we need to preach?

What do we need to proclaim?

All from your point of view of course..

Once again you blast a person who has no voice in this forum.

I always wonder about that fact..Please explain..

Another question please..

How many people have you raised from the dead in your ministry?

How many miracles have you had in your ministry?

How often do they get out of wheelchairs etc?

What should the church be doing? And are you doing any of these things?

Just askin"

Old Time Country Preacher

Re: Once Again..

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **6/18/16 4:42 pm**

renewal

Fact Friend..

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1021 **6/18/16 5:57 pm**

We are doing just that are we not...

Two people have been raised in recent months...

One just last week..A 5 year old boy and a adult a few months ago that was dead for over 30 min. fact my friend...

If you pasted this article then I would ask the same questions to him as I have to you...

If, you want to read about the one a few months ago I will give you my info in a PM.

We did not make a big deal about it, so we keep it quite..

Some people just talk about it...We do it...

They reason it away, yet they believe it, maybe not..

Nature Boy Florida

Re: Fact Friend..

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16646 **6/18/16 6:22 pm**

Link

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **6/18/16 8:37 pm**

Commanding a hip and commanding God aren't the same thing. The author still obviously has a cessationist bias.
_________________
Link

Old Time Country Preacher

Here is the Facts

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **6/18/16 11:30 pm**

Do I believe God can raise someone from the dead in 2016?

Absolutely! Yes I do!

Do I believe all the reports from fellers like Johnson, Hinn, Bentley, etc., bout folk bein raised from the dead?

Absolutely not!

brotherjames

Those that can't, criticise those that are doing

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **6/19/16 6:33 am**

Jealousy rears it's ugly head masked in the form of a "heresy"hunter. I didn't know John McArthur had a pen name on Acts. I guess I do now. Sad.

In Christianity, cessationism is the doctrine that spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecy and healing ceased with the original twelve apostles. This is generally opposed to continuationism, which teaches that the Holy Spirit may bestow the spiritual gifts on persons other than the original twelve apostles at any time.

I thought this was a Pentecostal, CONTINUATONAL group. My my my.

bonnie knox

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **6/19/16 7:57 am**

brotherjames

Bonnie, I don't usually ask

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **6/19/16 8:21 am**

A cross eyed little girl to get documentation after her eyes straighten out or a deaf person can suddenly hear. We can do it and have but all the documentation in the world won't convince heresy hunters and cessationists.

John Wimber was saved in a cessationist church. He read the Bible, saw some huge differences between it and the church, and asked his pastor “When are we gonna do the stuff?” – “What stuff?” the pastor replied. “The stuff Jesus did! You know, healing the sick, raising the dead, that sort of stuff.”

“Well, we don’t do that any more.” the pastor said. “What do we do then?” – “What we did this morning! Going to the church service and drinking coffee.” John Wimber gasped, “For this I gave up drugs?”

Seriously folks, OTCP and McArthur may accuse us to have strange fire but he himself has no fire at all.

bonnie knox

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **6/19/16 2:08 pm**

brotherjames

Not a mischaracterization

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **6/19/16 3:03 pm**

Just callin' em as I see 'em miss Bonnie.

Seriously, when has the Ole timer indicated he believed in divine healing for today. He says he does but then he says it occurs if it is the Lord's will. Pentecostals believe Jesus paid the price for our healing in the atonement. Matt. 8:17 Either He did or He didn't. Can't have it both ways and call yourself a Pentecostal. So, the Ole timer and Johnny Mac are cut from the same cloth or they're the same person. Truth will out.

bonnie knox

Re: Not a mischaracterization

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **6/19/16 3:10 pm**

You conflate Word of Faith with Pentecostal. Perhaps that is why you don't recognize Ole Timer's classical Pentecostal beliefs.

renewal

You Want Proof...

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1021 **6/19/16 6:28 pm**

Here It Is...

I will set up a call to the Person that was Raised From The Dead....

If, possible I Will See if they Will talk to you by phone...

Give me a few days to set it up...

When it is set up I will get back to you.....

To me it is amazing that it takes Proof.. for you to believe in what God can do...

Perhaps that is why it never happens in your Ministry....

By the way, it has happened in mine...If, you believe it or not, it does not matter to me at all..

For the 5 year old it happened last week...Believe it or not....Your choice..

Like we a lying to you, Yeah, right?

If, you want to talk to the person..When I set it up PM me and I will give you the number to call...

How sad indeed that some will not take God at this word and those who function in his power word as well...

Stay tuned...

brotherjames

Ummm, Dear Boonie

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **6/19/16 6:40 pm**

Word of Faith has nothing to do with it. Here is the doctrinal statement from the COG, notice it says healing is provided for all in the atonement. Not, if it is God's will, but provided for ALL in the atonement. That's basic Pentecostal belief, always has been. Only recently have people been backing away from that to their detriment and their congregations detriment. I stand by what I said.

DECLARATION OF FAITH

The Church of God believes the whole Bible to be completely and equally inspired and that it is the written Word of God. The Church of God has adopted the following Declaration of Faith as its standard and official expression of its doctrine.We Believe:In the verbal inspiration of the Bible.In one God eternally existing in three persons; namely, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.That Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary. That Jesus was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead. That He ascended to heaven and is today at the right hand of the Father as the Intercessor.That all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and that repentance is commanded of God for all and necessary for forgiveness of sins.That justification, regeneration, and the new birth are wrought by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ.In sanctification subsequent to the new birth, through faith in the blood of Christ; through the Word, and by the Holy Ghost.Holiness to be God's standard of living for His people.In the baptism with the Holy Ghost subsequent to a clean heart.In speaking with other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance and that it is the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost.In water baptism by immersion, and all who repent should be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Divine healing is provided for all in the atonement.

In the Lord's Supper and washing of the saints' feet.In the premillennial second coming of Jesus. First, to resurrect the righteous dead and to catch away the living saints to Him in the air. Second, to reign on the earth a thousand years.In the bodily resurrection; eternal life for the righteous, and eternal punishment for the wicked.

Eddie Robbins

Re: Bonnie, I don't usually ask

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16509 **6/19/16 9:49 pm**

Old Time Country Preacher

10 Theses per the Johnson Evaluation, COG Doctrine and OTCP

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **6/19/16 11:25 pm**

1. I am 3rd gen COG and 4th gen Pentecostal.

2. I believe healing/miracles occur today.

3. I have prayed for/with people who immediately testified of being healed.

4. I have experienced physical healing in my own life.

5. To call me a cessationist in the vein of John MacArthur is nothing but an ad hominem response, I AM NOT a cessationist.

6. The COG DOF states that "Divine healing is provided for all in the atonement," not that it is guaranteed for all, in each/every situation in the atonement. Yes, the provision is present, powerful and active. Appropriation of the provision is always at God's discretion.

7. Without a doubt, I believe a person could be raised from the dead in 2016. But just as not all physically sick persons are healed (even though the provision is present), not every Christian who dies is raised from the dead.

8. What I do not believe is every report I hear. Just because I hear that someone has been raised from the dead doesn't make it true. And to question the validity of such a miracle does not mean I am a cessationist. 1 John 4:1 demands that I use discernment in such matters.

9. What complicates the entire discussion is when cereal saints* claim people being raised from the dead. When guys like Bill Johnson allege that glory clouds are in their church and that gold dust/angel feathers are falling from heaven, who support and give approval to the aberrant theology/practice of cereal saints such as Todd Bentley/Patricia King/etc., and then allege that someone has been raised from the dead, it is extremely difficult to believe them.

10. If our heavenly Father chose to raise someone from the dead in 2016, rest assured, it isn't going to happen because of some cereal saint. The person God uses in such cases will be men/women of integrity, above reproach, and living lives of moral/spiritual/ethical purity and integrity.

*Cereal Saints are fruit, nuts and flakes!

Nature Boy Florida

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16646 **6/20/16 8:46 am**

Perhaps God is sneaky.
He doesn't want any documentation.

However,
I have documentation in my hand from the medical dr regarding a heart attack my Mom didn't seem have.

A Dr. catheter checked her heart one time and said it was "interesting" that her LAD artery (the widowmaker) was completely closed - and it had been closed long enough that the heart had rerouted all of the blood supply so there was nothing he had to do to open it - there was plenty of blood supply.

He said while it was well known that the heart would reroute - it was very unusual that it happened in that artery as it normally kills you. Especially interesting that she had no ill effects from it.

So I know documentation can exist - I am just surprised it never does for those that regularly raise folks from the dead.
_________________
Whether you like it or not, learn to love it, because its the best thing going today!

brotherjames

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **6/20/16 9:09 am**

Documentation certainly exists. One of our good friends was Oral Roberts staff writer and document-er. Her job was to go around and check on those who were healed in his meetings. The especially big healings were investigated 1 year, 5 years and 10 years out for some 40 years. Full documentation was made including doctors reports etc. These documents are available at his library in Tulsa. It's not a problem to document healings but most of the time, especially in some third world countries there aren't any doctors to document it. And, frankly we know what God has done, the individual and his family know and many in the village or city also know. That's sufficient. There are always skeptics and we can't waste much time on those. When it's possible to document a miracle we do. A blind man came to one of our meetings in Venezuela. He was instantly healed of blindness and he showed up 2 days later at a meeting waving a piece of paper that his dr. gave him confirming he was also healed of diabetes. He was almost more excited about the diabetes than his blindness.

brotherjames

OTCP

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **6/20/16 9:31 am**

You can complain about my ad hominem attack on you but you did the same thing to Bill Johnson and he's not on this board to defend himself. I am not his apologist and there are a few things he has said and done I could question.

No one claims that every person will be healed or raised from the dead. That said, Jesus paid the price for all to be healed. He is not a respector of persons. He told us to go and lay hands on the sick and they will recover, to raise the dead, cast out demons and to tell people the kingdom of God had come in their midst. He told us to pray that His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. He told us when the comforter would come we would do what He did and even greater works.

I will NEVER pray "if it be thy will". That is doubt, not faith. I WILL always pray and EXPECT God to show up and manifest His will which is healing for the person I am praying for. I am not, Bill Johnson is not the healer and we don't claim to be. Jesus does it. Why some aren't healed or raised from the dead is NOT my problem, nor my question. I pray, and expect in faith and then He does it or not.

I have said this to you before but once again here it is. Bill Johnson and some others missed it with Todd Bentley but they wanted him to have a second chance. I know Bill, he is a 4th generation Pentecostal who was raised and credentialed in the AG but left it because our fellowship as lost its way regarding the things of the Spirit. W e have sacrificed the Holy SPirit on the altar of growth and numbers. Bill Johnson is a man of integrity. If he says there was gold dust or feathers, I believe him. If you choose not to that's your choice but to attack him and call him a liar when you weren't there is just a crass ad hominem attack on your part.

To question whether people have been raised form the dead is your right but it is NOT your right to call him a liar. IF you say you are a present day believer of miracles of healing and casting out demons and raising the dead I will take you at your word. But, if you say you have faith, show me that faith by your works. I can back up my statements with video of some of the miracles - not all. This I know, Jesus Christ is STILL the same, yesterday, today and forever. What He did, He is still doing through His Body today - He STILL confirms His Word with signs following.

You may think that the preaching of the Word is sufficient today for salvation. But the pattern in the Book of Acts and the early church in general was - 1) A supernatural sign 2) the Word preached 3) a Harvest of souls. Sometimes the Word came first and the sign proved the Word was true sometimes the sign came first and provided an opportunity to preach the Word. But that was and still is the pattern of the Holy Spirit.

I have preached the Word all over this wide world and everywhere I go, including America, Jesus shows up because He has compassion and mercy on the lost and hurting and He confirms His word with miracles. I have never seen gold dust or feathers but I have seen His Spirit do some unbelievable things. You might not believe what I have seen but I saw what I saw.

When your ministry equals Bill Johnson's, I might begin to listen to you. Until then you are just noise in the wind.