Dear friends:

The widely reported "revival" taking place in Lakeland, Florida, with Todd Bentley, is getting strongly worded positive and negative comments on the Internet.  People seem to either love it and are getting blessed, or they hate it, are not getting blessed (or maybe un-blessed), and are calling it a false revival. Today I will not try to persuade you one way or another, but it is interesting that just moments ago -- literally -- as I was struggling with and debating the subject in my own mind, I received an e-newsletter from Canada and an old minister friend of some 30 years and fellow CBN staff member, Regner A. Capener.  Below is an excerpt of what he said:

Jim
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It is important to mention the Lakeland (Florida) outpouring that is taking place.  For nearly fifty consecutive days (as I write this), a miracle of stupendous proportions has been unfolding.  If you have access to GOD TV (Channel 365 on DirecTV for those of you in the U.S.), every evening from 7:00 or 8:00PM (EDT) -- the time varies depending on GOD TV's schedule -- they have been carrying Todd Bentley's healing services from the Lakeland Convention Center.  GOD TV carries these meetings for four hours at a time, although the meetings have run much longer than that.

As I write this, there are more than 40,000 documented miracles of healing with at least nine people having been raised from the dead.  Here's one instance for you.

Monday night a week ago at approximately 9:00 PM at Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando, a three-year-old girl with an incurable disease was pronounced dead.  She'd been in a coma, and her death was not unexpected.  The family had already been making funeral arrangements, and they had signed off on a document permitting a transplant team to take certain of the little girl's organs.

The transplant team was due at the hospital on Tuesday morning, but they were delayed unexpectedly.  The girl's body was zipped into a body bag and put into cold storage for 24 hours.  The transplant team arrived on Wednesday.  The body was removed from cold storage and preparations made for organ removal.

Meanwhile, the girl's mother was watching Todd Bentley and seeing all the miracles that were taking place, including hearing the testimonies of people who'd been raised from the dead.  She began to pray, "Father, if you are doing this for other people, then you can raise my daughter from the dead.  In the name of Jesus, I'm asking you to do that."

Now.  It's Wednesday.  The little girl has been dead for nearly 48 hours.  The transplant team has prepped the body and they're ready to start.  Just as the surgeon gets ready to make the first incision, the little girl begins coughing.  It won't take you any great imagination to understand the pandemonium that broke loose in that hospital.

The girl's mother came to the meeting on Thursday to report the resurrection of her daughter, and the circumstances surrounding it.  Todd gets the father on the phone (who happens to be with his daughter at the moment) to confirm the story, and he reports that not only has his daughter been raised from the dead, she has been completely healed of the disease that took her life!

A reporter happened to be present in the meeting from Israeli national television, and he immediately made preparations to carry the story, along with the doctors reports and verification.  A reporter (perhaps two) from Atlanta's media was also present, and the story ran the following day as headline news.

During the early part of this outpouring, a CBS reporter from Orlando's network affiliate brought her camera team to tape the events in preparation for a story to run on that station.  Either one of her team members or a friend reported to Todd Bentley that she was there, and that she herself was in need of healing.  They brought her up on the stage and Todd interviewed her.  (Kind of a turn about, ehh?)  Della and I chuckled at the contrast.

Turned out she'd been in a serious auto accident some months before and suffered spinal injuries and nerve damage.  She'd returned to work after partial recovery, but still suffered with debilitating pain.  Todd raised his hand to command healing and the power of God hit her like a ton of bricks.  She dropped to the floor (although a couple of folks caught her) under the weight of the Holy Spirit and laid there for some period of time.  When she finally got up, she was able to testify to the entire gathering that the Lord had completely healed her, and that she was pain-free for the first time in many months.

Guess you know that story got reported on the local CBS outlet!

Della and I watched as an 11-year-old boy who'd been hit with cerebral palsy when born and paralyzed his entire life got up (with some assistance, of course) out of his wheelchair and walked across the Tigers' baseball stadium to the platform where Todd had been sharing.  This was one of only two nights when the healing meetings were held in the baseball stadium.

What makes this story remarkable -- among other things -- is the fact that this boy had never walked a day in his life.  For eleven years, he had been wheelchair bound.  He shared with Todd that the Lord had given him a dream not long before.  In this dream, he had seen himself running the bases in a baseball stadium, and the Lord had told him that He was going to heal him.

The boy had shared the dream with his parents, and when they heard that the meetings were going to move to the Tigers' stadium (their spring-training stadium in Lakeland), they knew that this was the time for the boy's healing.  As Della and I watched him struggle to get out of the wheelchair, we saw absolute determination.  It took humongous effort on his part to get out of that wheelchair, and despite the lack of strength in his legs demanded that his family help him get started.

At first, he was more carried and supported by his family than actually walking, but with every successive step came more and more strength until by the time he reached the stage out in the middle of the baseball field, he was standing on his own and walking under his own strength.

How many times have we read where Jesus commanded, "Take up thy bed and walk" ?  The one healed had to exert effort in obedience to the word of healing, and when they did, the healing was evident and manifested for all to see.  So it was for this eleven-year-old boy.  He put forth the effort in obedience to the quickening Word of the Lord and received his healing.
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End of  excerpt.  You can go ahead and praise the Lord now!