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Bethel Church and some practices.....disturbing....
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Post For the record, here is Bethel's official doctrinal statement brotherjames
Looks very much like yours I think

What We Believe

There is only one true God who is the eternal King, Creator and Redeemer of all that is. He is perfectly holy, just, loving and truthful. He has revealed Himself to be eternally self-existent–one being in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

The Bible to be the inspired and only infallible and authoritative Word of God.

Humankind was created in the image of God to know and enjoy Him yet we willfully rejected the Lordship and glory of God for which we were intended. Because of this, sickness, death and judgment entered the world and now creation experiences the effects and consequences of sin.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the one and only Son of God, was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin, Mary, and is God's Anointed One, empowered by the Holy Spirit to inaugurate God's kingdom on earth. He was crucified for our sins, died, was buried, resurrected and ascended into heaven, and is now alive today in the presence of God the Father and in His people. He is "true God" and "true man."

We are saved by God's grace, through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Anyone can be restored to fellowship with God through repenting, believing and receiving Jesus as their Savior and Lord. The Holy Spirit, convicts, regenerates, justifies, and adopts us as we enter the kingdom of God as His sons and daughters.

In the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live holy and minister supernaturally. The baptism of the Holy Spirit according to Acts 1:4-8 and 2:4 is poured out on believers that they might have power to be witnesses.

The victorious redemptive work of Christ on the cross provides freedom from the power of the enemy–sin, lies, sickness and torment.

The Church consists of all who put their faith in Jesus Christ. He gave His church the ordinances of baptism and communion. The Church exists to carry on the ministry of Jesus Christ and further advance His kingdom by undoing the works of the enemy, preaching and living the good news of God's love, and discipling the nations–baptizing and teaching them to love and obey God.

In the ever-increasing government of God and in the Blessed Hope, which is the glorious visible return of our Lord Jesus Christ for His overcoming bride–His church. Heaven and hell are real places. There will be a resurrection of the saved and the lost, the one to everlasting life and the other to everlasting death.
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2/20/18 10:20 pm


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Post Carolyn Smith
Apparently, it is increasingly difficult for anyone to answer a question with a simple yes or no.

Laughing Laughing Laughing
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2/20/18 10:43 pm


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Post Re: Bethel Church and some practices.....disturbing.... Isa 58:12
caseyleejones wrote:
Some things they embrace are


1) Destiny Cards...alternatives to tarot cards. They claim they are prophetic but not predicting the future.

2) Angel Boards as opposed to ouiji boards. The HS will lead you through those.

3) Grave sucking(soaking) ...soaking the anointing from the dead. Some actually lay on the grave.

4) My MIL contacted my wife asking about their belief system. One of the Johnsons said on TV that "the HS is a genie in the bottle and works like magic and he is blue in color"

I will let you google the information. Put aside the gold dust and angel feathers which is old news.


Well I'm sorry guys, what else did u think would happened? All churches pastors, denominations, they are guilty of this, the question is what to do now? (Read Isa 58:12)

I mean seriously, where do you think all these gay pastors came from? There's no more Law/Torah. It's like anything goes now, Church turn into a self-help group, that's mixing and mingling in Rev 3

There was a thread on here about tattoos, and not one person could say that tattooing was wrong, or knew what G-d said about it. It's very depressing

But seriously, what do you think about gay pastors and lesbian pastors?
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2/20/18 10:54 pm


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Post If you suck too many graves do you start coffin? COGLayman
If you to do too much grave sucking will you start coffin? Friendly Face
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2/20/18 11:02 pm


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Post Re: If you suck too many graves do you start coffin? UncleJD
COGLayman wrote:
If you to do too much grave sucking will you start coffin?


Not if you don't inhale
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2/20/18 11:27 pm


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Post Re: For the record, here is Bethel's official doctrinal statement Dave Dorsey
brotherjames wrote:
Looks very much like yours I think

Yup, wolves come in sheep's clothing. On the one hand we have a very orthodox statement of faith, on the other hand we have volumes of books, sermons, lectures, quotes, and interviews revealing that it is actually another gospel that is being preached.

brotherjames, I am certain the following quotes from Bill Johnson give you discomfort: "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 "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."

I know that kind of soft delegitimizing of God's word must make you very uncomfortable. But how could your friend Bill Johnson, who you know to be a good person, possibly be advocating a view like that? How could he be preaching against the authority of God's word in favor of a sort of subjective experientialism?

Here's another article that was very helpful to me as I was coming out of this stuff, and one that I think might be helpful to you: http://www.piratechristian.com/messedupchurch/2016/4/confirmation-bias-why-we-protect-our-false-beliefs

It's very possible that Bill Johnson is indeed a great guy and a good friend to you. That will make you want to believe he could not possibly be a false teacher. But you can see the truth in front of your face about what he teaches. Trying to keep both of them in your mind will cause a lot of discomfort. As a result, we have built-in mechanisms to reject new information, no matter how obvious it is, to avoid that discomfort. This is a great article about that phenomenon, and one that will encourage you to press in to the truth nevertheless and examine things about people you love and respect in the light of God's word, no matter how uncomfortable that may be.
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2/21/18 7:28 am


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Post Re: Dave to be clear here Link
brotherjames wrote:
1) Bill Johnson and I and many others believe that ALL the Gifts of the Spirit including ALL of the 5-fold 0r 4-fold Offices of Eldership exist in the church today.


This is a tangent, but does Bill Johnson think all of the Ephesians 4:11 ministries are roles of 'eldership.' IMO, that's a strange and convoluted interpretation. Couldn't a novice be a prophet? If an evangelist fell into the sin of being given to much wine, he shouldn't serve as en elder, but would he lose his gift?
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2/26/18 1:17 am


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Post Re: Bethel Church and some practices.....disturbing.... Link
caseyleejones wrote:
Some things they embrace are

1) Destiny Cards...alternatives to tarot cards. They claim they are prophetic but not predicting the future.

2) Angel Boards as opposed to ouiji boards. The HS will lead you through those.

3) Grave sucking(soaking) ...soaking the anointing from the dead. Some actually lay on the grave.

4) My MIL contacted my wife asking about their belief system. One of the Johnsons said on TV that "the HS is a genie in the bottle and works like magic and he is blue in color"

I will let you google the information. Put aside the gold dust and angel feathers which is old news.


I haven't read the whole thread. I would like to see primary source evidence for this, not accusations from 'heresy hunter' websites written by people who do not fact check and who have fallen into the doctrinal error of cessationism which skews their thinking.

I don't know Bill Johnson. I met him once, and I did almost literally bump into him once when I was going into a bathroom once at a hotel while he was reading something on his phone. I know of him mostly from what I've read about him and clips on YouTube. He has said something along the lines that Bethel attracts a lot of weird people, and he has to pastor them.

The destiny card and angel board thing-- is there evidence that Bill Johnson or the Bethel congregation endorses them? I wouldn't be surprised if some flakes who went to church there did some of these things. Most of you have probably gone to church with someone who was flaky or sinful.

Christians should not engage in divination or reading omens. I think that includes using things like renamed versions of tarot cards and oija boards, and also looking at who wins a ball game and trying to see if it is a prophetic sign of this or that. What about seeing who catches the bouquet at a wedding to see who gets married next?

Grave sucking-- Bill Johnson has gone on record that he does not believe in that. You can hear it on YouTube.

His daughter said that she believed the Holy Spirit was like the genie in Aladin, unpredictable and some other things. I did not care for the interview. In the same interview where Bill Johnson addressed grave sucking, he addressed this. Apparently, he did not care for what she said, and she later regretted it.

Is there any evidence that Bill Johnson endorses angel boards and destiny cards? What are destiny cards? Are they Bible verse tracts on cards or something like a tarot card?

Btw, isn't it possible to bear false witnesses by repeating false rumors you hear about someone?
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2/26/18 1:25 am


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Post Link
Their church has an article on the Destiny cards, which isn't an official outreach of their church.

http://www.bethel.com/about/christalignment/

I don't know if what they are doing is basically asking God to speak through whichever card comes out on top or not, based on the description. That seems like it could be divination, but the apostles and certain Old Testament figures cast lots, and that wasn't considered divination. The lot falls in the lap, but the decision is from the Lord. If they had seven cards with verses from 'the Roman Road' that they showed to New Agers as they shared the gospel, that would be edgy.

Here is an article claiming there is a Bethel Ouija board, but then it says it's all satire: https://bereanresearch.org/bethel-board-encounter-god-new-game-no-not-ouija-board-religious-pharisee/

I wonder if that article is the source of the Ouija board accusation.

I also saw an article that claimed that Bethel was using Angel Boards, which quoted reviews from Amazon that were couched in the language of New Agers, not Pentecostals, Kingdom Now third wavers or whatever. Is there any link between these boards an Bethel besides an accusation?
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Post Mat
Link wrote:
Their church has an article on the Destiny cards, which isn't an official outreach of their church.

http://www.bethel.com/about/christalignment/

I don't know if what they are doing is basically asking God to speak through whichever card comes out on top or not, based on the description. That seems like it could be divination, but the apostles and certain Old Testament figures cast lots, and that wasn't considered divination. The lot falls in the lap, but the decision is from the Lord. If they had seven cards with verses from 'the Roman Road' that they showed to New Agers as they shared the gospel, that would be edgy.

Here is an article claiming there is a Bethel Ouija board, but then it says it's all satire: https://bereanresearch.org/bethel-board-encounter-god-new-game-no-not-ouija-board-religious-pharisee/

I wonder if that article is the source of th,e Ouija board accusation.

I also saw an article that claimed that Bethel was using Angel Boards, which quoted reviews from Amazon that were couched in the language of New Agers, not Pentecostals, Kingdom Now third wavers or whatever. Is there any link between these boards an Bethel besides an accusation?


As to "casting lots" in the New Testament, I only read it of once, in the Book of Acts, and as I understand it, it was more of a voting process, not divination. They elected Matthias (who did meet requirements) to replace Judas, and we never read of Matthias again. This "casting lots" was before the Day of Pentecost and the infilling/empowerment of the Spirit. Is there another reference to "casting lots" in the NT? Did they miss "it" with Matthias? Ar those using angel Boards and Destiny Cards operating outside the Spirit? (I think I can answer that one with a big "YES"!).

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2/26/18 6:45 am


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Post Re: This thread is beyond repulsive Dean Steenburgh
brotherjames wrote:
Bill Johnson's theology is rooted in the AG (5th generation). The things some of you are accusing him of are out of context and misunderstood. Is Bethel pushing signs wonders and miracles? Yes but shouldn't Pentecostals be also? They push a deeper relationship with Jesus, shouldn't we all? I for one would not like to have every word of every sermon I've ever preached micro analyzed. Don't we all say things that we wish we hadn't or be taken a different way than we intended.

Do you have any idea how many people Bethel is impacting for Jesus every year? I just chalk this thread up to jealousy misunderstandings and outright meanness over supposed WOF teachings. I've known Bill Johnson for a long time. I respect the man and just wish I could teach as well as he does. Our church is networked with Global Legacy while still being AG. I find no theological basis for not linking arms with them in our pursuit for Jesus, souls and revival.

Has Bill made mistakes? YEP Did he endorse Bentley after his fall Yep. Ok OTCP? But, have you made mistakes? YEP you might be wise to not disparage what you do not know. But I know that won't stop yoiu from doing it. Oh well. My 2 cents you will do what you always do, I'm not sure why I bother. This is old news been discussed ad nauseum. Haters gonna hate, it's what they do, it's just sad some of you call yourself Pentecostal. I expect this stuff from John Macarthur, just sad it comes from COG boys too.

38 And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.

39 But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.

40 For he that is not against us is on our part.



Thank you BJ for these truthful words!
My kids go to this church & since day one they have kept their awareness set on sensitive in case they see something they need to call out.
I've asked them about all of this nonsense that has been discussed here & most of it is as you say, 'taken completely out of context.'
I've worshipped at Bethel & enjoyed the fellowship with their leadership ...very down home folks.
Not once have I discerned an odd spirit or something sinister lurking behind the scenes.
There is a reason why I don't visit this board as I once used to do & it's because of the petty jealous spirit that arises from the masses on certain topics who know nothing unless it's readable on a Google search.
Has Google ever gotten things wrong?
I don't even have to dignify the answer w/a response.

Just for clarification, the Northern Dist. Office of the A/G still have some regular fellowship & contact with Bill & staff members at Bethel.
This is one of those times when you really wonder what is going on in the head of some people whose goal it is to bash another ministry.


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2/28/18 9:02 pm


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Post Dean, brotherjames
Thanks for your post. I agree 100 % with ALL your comments. I'm about done here myself. Too much pettiness, jealousy, mean spirited heresy hunters who rely on Baptist cessationists for their doctrine, tske minor points out of context and deny the power of God for today on this Board for me. Can no longer waste my time here. Acts-celerater
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2/28/18 11:10 pm


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Post Re: Dean, Old Time Country Preacher
brotherjames wrote:
Too much pettiness, jealousy, mean spirited heresy hunters who rely on Baptist cessationists for their doctrine, tske minor points out of context and deny the power of God for today on this Board for me.



Dead wrong, BJ.

OTCP is a Classical Pentecostal
OTCP speaks in tongues
OTCP believes in the gifts
OTCP is not a cessationist

Yes, all that and I still denounce Bethel's Bizarre Behavior/Practices
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3/1/18 1:30 am


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Post Dave Dorsey
Yep, same here. Continuationist, was just praying in tongues moments ago, believe in the gifts, etc. But also believe the word of God and the Lord Jesus that in the last days false anointed ones will arise and will deceive many. The doctrine they preach is what the word of God commands us to judge. It's tough to continue to bear witness against it when it is so popular, but I'm grateful that people did that for me when I was deceived by it, and by God's grace I'll continue to do that for others. [Insert Acts Pun Here]
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3/1/18 5:39 am


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Post bradfreeman
From the Bethel Website:

WE BELIEVE:
- There is only one true God who is the eternal King, Creator and Redeemer of all that is.
- He is perfectly holy, just, loving and truthful.
- He has revealed Himself to be eternally self-existent - one being in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
- The Bible to be the inspired and only infallible and authoritative Word of God


You guys are right. This is some weird, wild, heretical stuff! Rolling Eyes
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Post Dave Dorsey
bradfreeman wrote:
You guys are right. This is some weird, wild, heretical stuff! Rolling Eyes

Come on, Brad. I could go to most any website of a law-preaching evangelical church and retrieve an orthodox statement of faith about how we are saved through grace by faith alone. I could go to the website of a COG that burdens its people weekly with threats of God's curses during the offering and do the same. Would that refute what you share on this forum about that type of preaching?

You're a lot smarter than that and you ought to respect us a little more than that.
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3/1/18 7:41 am


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Post Re: For the record, here is Bethel's official doctrinal statement bradfreeman
Dave Dorsey wrote:

brotherjames, I am certain the following quotes from Bill Johnson give you discomfort: "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 "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."


Did you Google "Bill Johnson heresies?" If you did, I'm sure the gnat-strainers you read listed a bunch of teaching you agree with.

It's unfair and dangerous is to pull a quote out of context and attack someone with it. It's disappointing that you would say he's de-legitimizing the Bible by encouraging people to follow the Spirit. The early church simply had more supernatural manifestations of the Spirit than we did and they didn't have the epistles, they had the Spirit-filled apostles.

The infallible, inerrant, inspired letter kills. The Spirit gives life. I don't have any problems at all with him encouraging people to "go beyond what we know" and value the Holy Spirit above the book. This statement only gives you "discomfort" if you believe that no experience not previously listed in the Bible is legitimate or, stated another way, "God does nothing new."

BTW, if we are appraising value, the Holy Spirit is more valuable than the Bible He inspired.

From the Bethel website:

WE BELIEVE: - The Bible to be the inspired and only infallible and authoritative Word of God

This doesn't sound like de-legitimizing to me.
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3/1/18 7:43 am


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Post Dave Dorsey
Cool story, bro. [Insert Acts Pun Here]
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3/1/18 7:48 am


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Post Old Time Country Preacher
bradfreeman wrote:
From the Bethel Website:

WE BELIEVE:
- There is only one true God who is the eternal King, Creator and Redeemer of all that is.
- He is perfectly holy, just, loving and truthful.
- He has revealed Himself to be eternally self-existent - one being in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
- The Bible to be the inspired and only infallible and authoritative Word of God


You guys are right. This is some weird, wild, heretical stuff! Rolling Eyes


Ummmm, keep readin brad.
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