Todd has been doing some serious housecleaning on his website.
First, Emma is gone.
Now the Abraham and Paul wrote Hebrews article is gone as well?
What's that stinking smell? Is it rotting vanilla?
And, for your temporary enjoyment, here it is, and here's where it was.
Temporary, because if you don't have a copy, this one may go bye bye as well.
Think of all the deceived ones you won't be able to go and say, look and see, when all the youtube and freshfire.ca non-Biblical and heretical videos/posts are gone!
BTW, this "teaching" is also located Here. But it's not on Todd's site for some reason.
Man, that vanilla is just rancid!
In Part One of this two-part teaching entitled: A Face to Face Encounter, Todd defines supernatural encounters and experiences based on specific biblical evidence. Then, as he shares his face to face encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul, your belief-grid concerning heavenly experiences is sure to be both broadened and challenged. In Part Two, as Todd releases meaty portions of what the apostle Paul taught him, (in the context that Jesus Christ is the door to every heavenly encounter) you’ll be inspired to press in for your own face to face encounter with the Lord.
A FACE TO FACE ENCOUNTER
by Revivalist Todd Bentley [ as edited by Kathy Thorne]
PART 1 of 2
To come face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ is to come face to face with the goodness and glory of God! Oh to be a friend of God like Abraham and Moses were; for out of their intimate friendship with the Lord they had a face to face encounter with Him (Gen. 17:1; Ex. 33:11).
Listen. Today, for a deeper understanding of the apostolic, we need to note that every apostle in the Bible had been with the Lord. Not only were they friends of God who had face to face encounters with Him, they also had supernatural encounters and prophetic experiences. In fact, what made Paul an apostle was that he was taken up into the third heaven where he saw the Lord (1 Cor. 9:1; 2 Cor. 12: 2–4). That’s where his apostleship came from because he wasn’t yet a disciple or an apostle when Jesus was physically on earth.
JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOREVER
Now I want to ask an important question. Can Paul’s experience also be ours today? The answer is “yes” and I say this because Jesus Christ is the same today as He was yesterday when Paul was on earth, and He’s the same forever (Heb. 13:8).
Now consider this: Jesus’ healing virtue is still released through His trusted servants today and that means that He heals people today just like He did two thousand years ago. What a great promise when it comes to healing, but why not for the supernatural? If He’s the same today, then why can’t He visit me like He visited Abraham? If He’s the same today, why can’t He visit me like He visited Daniel? Why can’t He visit me like He visited John? Why can’t He visit me like He visited Isaiah? How about Ezekiel?
Yes, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that makes what’s available in “Bible days” available today. It’s not just about healing and laying hands on the sick and seeing miracles, as great as these are, but it’s also about supernatural encounters with God. Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead and over five hundred people saw Him for forty days in His resurrected body (1 Cor. 15:6)?
Do you believe supernatural things can take place today? I’m asking this because we’re okay with angels showing up and speaking to Mary and Joseph, but we’re not okay with angels showing up and speaking to us. We’re okay with Paul being taken into heaven, or what he called the third heaven—caught up into a place called paradise. We’re okay with that. It’s good for Paul, or it’s good for Elijah. Yet both Paul and Elijah were men just like we are, and as you know, they’re both in heaven today. So are Abraham and Isaiah, for example. They aren’t on earth anymore for God to interact with. But God, by His very nature, wants to interact with somebody supernaturally. My question is: Why not you?
Why should anyone’s experience in Christianity today be any different from what people experienced in Bible days? Take Peter. He was in prison (See Acts 12:1–17). While an all night prayer meeting took place (on his behalf in someone’s house) an angel of the Lord came to Peter in his cell and his chains miraculously fell off his hands. Then he was led by the angel out of jail into the city. Peter made his way to the prayer meeting and when he arrived and knocked on the door they didn’t really believe that he was at the door! They said (paraphrased): “Ah, it’s not Peter, it’s his angel.”
My point is this. As God pours out His greater glory, we’re going to hear about supernatural encounters and prophetic experiences, and they’re going to be based on the way God moved supernaturally, in ancient times, for people in the Bible.
ENCOUNTERS AND PROPHETIC EXPERIENCES ARE INTENTIONAL
What’s the purpose for supernatural encounters and prophetic experiences? You might be thinking: We’ve got the Bible and that’s enough! For me, it’s about intimacy, but not just that. It’s: Why wait for your inheritance? When you get to heaven what do you think you’re going to see? What do you expect it to be like in heaven? After all, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, the
I’m hungry now. I’ve got an inheritance, I’m a joint heir, I don’t have to wait for: One day I’m going to be in heaven. Thank God that’ll be fullness. I’ll be in eternity. What’s more, we don’t only need greater faith, we also need a greater expectation that God wants to impart something to us. We need an expectation that He is going to touch us; He is going to speak to us; He is going to visit us.
Look. Heaven is real; it’s tangible, and the glory of heaven is real. It changes everything it touches. Furthermore, God wants the reality of heaven to be made known to His friends. For Jesus told His disciples—after He established the fact they were His friends if they did what He commanded—“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).
God is looking for true friends with whom He can reveal His glory. There is a purpose for this desire. For instance, as God has revealed different aspects of His glory to me this year I’ve gained a deeper friendship with God. This has helped me to keep pressing in for all the fullness of God that I can contain, not just for my satisfaction, but ultimately so that He can work through me and cause others to know Him and be saved.
Now I want to share about an amazing prophetic experience concerning God’s glory that I had in a meeting in
JESUS CHRIST IS THE GATE, THE DOOR , AND THE LADDER
In that meeting, about an hour before I was due to speak, I was suddenly overcome by the Holy Spirit. Feeling somewhat weak, as if I was going to go into a trance (a biblical trance like the apostle Peter had—Acts 10:9, 10), I asked my team to take me to a nearby place called ‘The Green Room.’ Sitting down on the couch I could feel a strong overwhelming sense of the presence of God and I knew I was going to fall into a trance. I was going to have a supernatural encounter.
Then, in the chair, with my eyes open, I had an open vision. Jesus appeared right in front of me. It was as though He stepped right out of heaven, the Lord Jesus Himself, and stood before me as a
Out of the Lord came beams of white and golden light. Such brightness! From out of the white, golden, light came other brilliant colors—blue, purple, green, red and pink were the main ones—like rainbows. Pink prophetically represents love and emotions. I saw what looked to be ten rainbows coming from the Lord, Himself. It reminded me of the description of the throne room in Ezekiel 1:28—“Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.” I even saw rivers of oil, rivers of honey, and I saw bridges.
Then the Lord did two things to me. He walked up to me and He put His hand inside my belly and He gave me a supernatural enablement to live through what was about to take place. He was establishing me so I wouldn’t die. I say that because when I saw heaven I wanted to pass the Lord and go right in. But the Lord said, “If you pass Me right now, you will die. Todd, you are not just having a vision, you are in heaven and this is real.” The Lord said, “I am the gate, I am the door, I am the ladder. There is no heaven without Me.” He said if you pass Me, you will die. Something sustained me. He put His hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes and said, “Peace I give you, not as the world gives,” and a great peace came over me like a vibration and my whole body trembled while I received the peace of God.
Then the vision faded. Yet I was so overcome by the glory of God I just laid on the floor in the Green Room and as I was lying there, unexpectedly I was caught up instantly into the spirit. I was no longer aware that I was in a conference setting. All of a sudden I was standing on a grassy hill and I saw still waters. I saw a river flowing between its banks. It was like Psalm 23, green pastures, and I was looking down. I thought the (flowing) river was going to be pure, living water but as I looked I saw that it was a river of oil and honey. Next the colors changed from pink and rainbows, white light and the color of gold, to orangey red. Everywhere I looked was the appearance of amber. Everywhere, it was like a sunrise or a sunset, red or ruby or orangey red.
I looked up to my left and there was a bridge, and my first thought was: What a secret place. Still waters, I am in
While in this heavenly experience sitting up on the bridge I saw someone walking toward me. I knew in my spirit it was Paul the apostle. He walked right onto the bridge and he sat down next to me. He had this blank scroll in his hand and he started writing with a pen (which was more like a feather with ink). When he started writing it looked like Hebrew and he would say, “Eat this.” He continued writing on the scroll, saying “Eat this” again and again. But when I realized I was eating, I noticed that I wasn’t eating by my mouth, I was eating by my belly. He was stuffing his writings inside my spirit right past by head, putting some kind of divine revelation right into my spirit.
Then Paul spoke to me about the message of the hour for the Church and much more. Yet, it would be best to hold his inspiring message and the other heavenly adventures in connection with Paul until Part Two next week.
In the meantime, for those of you who want to study this subject matter further I want to recommend several excellent resources [three audio CD sets]: Greater Glory 2 gathering (from which this teaching comes); Developing your Seer Gift; Encounters of the Kingdom Kind; and Open Heavens.
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http://www.freshfire.ca/index.php?Act=read&status=teaching&Id=219&pid=954
In Part Two of: A Face to Face Encounter, Todd begins by emphasizing that friendship with God must precede any face to face encounter with Him. Then as he shares several highlights concerning what the apostle Paul taught him you’ll discover who authored the Book of Hebrews as well as what other heavenly realms Todd saw. So be blessed in your pursuit of God’s greater glory which ultimately is God, Himself!
A FACE TO FACE ENCOUNTER
by Revivalist Todd Bentley [ as edited by Kathy Thorne]
PART 2 of 2
Before we begin this week’s teaching I’m going to emphasize one vital element from last week’s lesson, namely—friendship with God—and then resume where we left off concerning my encounter with the apostle Paul. [As well, because Part One lays a foundation for my visit with Paul, if you haven’t read it please do so before you begin Part Two.]
FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD PRECLUDES ANY FACE TO FACE ENCOUNTER
God highly esteems your friendship with Him. Not superficial friendship, but real, deep friendship—the kind forged through His fiery testings as well as His blessings. Look, even if you don’t really understand the great shakings of God in your life but you are still determined to trust in His inherent goodness and great love for you, such devotion thrills His heart. With an attitude like that God can’t help but be moved to commune with you on a deeper level, a level which is directly connected to the depth of intimacy you have with Him.
Take Moses for example; ultimately his friendship with God was so rich that God didn’t communicate with him like He did with most prophets in a vision or a dream, but He spoke “with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings” and “as a man speaks to his friend” (Num. 12:8; Ex. 33:11). In fact, face to face encounters with God like the one Moses had, only come after true friendship with Him.
So keep that friendship principle in mind as we move on to examine more facets of the encounter I had with Paul in the Paradise of God (the third heaven). So here we go!
THE MESSAGE FOR THIS HOUR IS THE MESSAGE OF THE CROSS
Now, continuing from last week, after Paul “fed” me revelation he stressed that the beginning of First Corinthians Chapter Two contains the most important passage of scripture for the church in this hour because it’s the message of the cross. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (vv. 1, 2).
In fact, when you read First Corinthians Chapter Two, yes, Paul begins by preaching the cross, but he also speaks about the hidden mysteries and he ends with preaching about revelatory gifts and the deep things of God (vv. 7–16).
Consequently he spoke to me about a supernatural faith, a supernatural gospel, and a supernatural experience. Paul said (paraphrase): “I was never just (only) a preacher of the gospel and I was never just a man of the gospel and salvation. I was a prophet of visions and revelations. I was a man of prophetic encounters and prophetic experiences. I was a man of the open heavens. I was a man that believed in the revelatory gift of the Spirit of God searching the deep things of God and revealing it to me. This is what the church needs and this is what God is doing today. The focus is going to be on a demonstration of the Holy Ghost in power. God has revealed these things to us by His spirit. We have the mind of Christ—a spirit of revelation searching the deep things of God.”
To summarize, Paul was saying that, above all, God is releasing the message of the cross, the gospel, in power (preaching and salvation), but not without hidden mysteries and not without revelation.
MORE WITH PAUL
After that, Paul took me to his house. (I was still in paradise [the third heaven]. His house wasn’t a mansion. It was actually a small cabin. There was an open field and a forest there.) Inside his cabin I saw books wall to wall, and scrolls. I saw every book that’s in the Bible as well as Paul’s diaries/journals that covered things that had happened in his meetings, things God had spoken to him, and things he had written that aren’t in the Bible. Paul said, “Not everything’s in there, Todd. Not everything’s in the Bible.” Just so you know, Paul didn’t give me a new gospel and all my revelation is based on the Bible. I’m not talking about a new gospel!
Paul took down the book of Titus and he said, “You need to eat this.” He explained that Titus was his apostolic son in the faith, and he said, “This is for the sons and daughters that you are raising up. I want you to get an impartation of what it really means to be an apostle, what it really means to have sons and daughters, and what it really means to be a son.”
Next he took down another scroll; this time it was Hebrews and he told me to eat it. This book is one of the most prophetic books in the Bible, and in that connection he told me something that I want to share with you even though I’m probably “stepping out” on theology now.
First of all, I want you to understand that Paul always made it clear when he authored an epistle—“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ” or “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ.” Always! Yet, for the Book of Hebrews, although most Bible scholars believe that it was authored by Paul, there are those that really can’t say it was him because the authorship is never clear. Paul told me why.
Here is what he said to me. “Do you know why I know so much about Abraham?” [So much of Hebrews is based on other things that you just can’t pull from in other scriptures.] Paul said, “When I was in the third heaven, Abraham was with me like you are with me now. Abraham himself shared (information) with me and I simply wrote it” (in the Book of Hebrews). “The authorship isn’t clear because it was Abraham and I; Abraham shared the content with me.” [Much of Hebrews is about Abraham; i.e. Hebrews Chapter 11.]
He said (paraphrased): “Remember, when I was caught up into the third heaven, I heard inexpressible words. I actually spoke with Abraham, and Abraham shared details with me about what took place, about Melchizedek and all these things that only Abraham knew. I authored the book as the Holy Spirit moved on me, supernaturally. Some of what I wrote, I learned by talking to Abraham face to face when I visited him in heaven.” That’s what Paul told me!
THE HEAVENLY REALM HAS REAL GEOGRAPHICAL PLACES
What’s more, several days later I was taken back into heaven to Paul’s house! But this time I didn’t go inside. I stayed outside where I saw a ladder in his back yard like the one described in Genesis 28, Jacob’s ladder. [I’ve come to understand that there are ladders like that in heaven in order to ascend and descend into different realms because heaven has places, geographical places. For example, the first heaven is where we live on the earth; the second heaven is the invisible realm of Ephesians 6: 12; and the third heaven where I was with Paul, it’s the Paradise of God (Rev. 2:7).]
So I jumped onto the ladder and began to climb up into another realm. I saw around me that it was all clouds so I began to pull those clouds back. As I did, a hole opened up in the heavens. Immediately then, out of heaven, flowed the color green, not just a light; it was like a green liquid and it was pouring onto my eyes! When I asked God about this, He said, “You are coming into the throne room; you are beneath the sea of glass; there is a rainbow around the throne. It’s not just above the throne; it’s a circle around the throne, a rainbow, emerald green in color.” [“And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald” (Rev. 4:3).] This is the fourth realm of heaven, the throne room, (with more realms to follow). [You can read Revelation Chapter Four for a good description of the throne room.]
I went up from the throne room into the fifth realm which is the heavenly city. I saw streets that are golden and mansions and I noticed that it was very different from the Paradise of God (third heaven) where there are hills, still waters, and flowers. It wasn’t as peaceful. Then came the sixth realm of heaven which is the place where the angels live. There is literally a realm reserved for Michael, Gabriel, all the archangels and all the angels under the archangels! This isn’t the second heaven, the angel and demon realm, where they battle. It’s a realm where the angels dwell.
Then the last heaven I saw, the seventh realm was other universes and the solar systems; undiscovered universes and planets that God has created.
So I ascended the seven atmospheres of heaven but it all began with a face to face encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. How many of you are getting a little bit hungry, hungry for greater glory, which ultimately is Jesus Christ? More of Him!
LET FAITH COME ALIVE IN YOUR HEART
I shared these supernatural encounters because I want to bring heaven closer to home. Ezekiel saw the glory. Heaven opened and he was taken into visions of God. (See Ezekiel 1; 8; 9; 10; 11; 37; 40; 41–44; 47.) I’m not just talking about having a vision. Ezekiel was taken into visions of God. How many of you would like to have a season of visions of God? A season of visitations of the Lord? A season of encountering the heavenly glory? A season of coming under the spirit of wisdom and revelation? A season of open portals and heavenly glory?
If you’re like me, then you want open heavens of heavenly glory. Now I’m not promising you that you’re going to have an experience like mine; however, I want to bring forth a perspective so that faith comes alive in your heart! I am saying you could make yourself available today for deeper and deeper friendship with the Lord.
If that’s your heart, if you are longing to encounter God in deeper intimacy, if you are longing to behold His face and to be in the wonder of His presence, then I want to pray today that God will open the eyes of your heart as you press-in for this and all that He has for you. Let’s pray.
Lord, we’re so hungry for You in Your glory, for You in Your presence. That’s what we’re hungry for. It’s Your greater glory.
For the people reading this teaching, Lord I ask that you would open the eyes of their hearts, oh God. Take them into a deeper place of intimacy and friendship that they would behold Your beauty face to face. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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1 comment:
What should be wrong with this teaching or beter yet revelation that Todd has had? It loooks to me like a sound bibcle story, why should this not happen today?
I believe stuff like this is still for today.
Taco.
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