Charismatic evangelist Benny Hinn recently told Paul and Jan
Crouch and an audience of millions of viewers of Trinity Broadcasting
Network's Praise the Lord television broadcast that God would
use TBN to raise the dead in various parts of the world. Hinn
claimed to have received a vision from God in which God told
him that TBN programming was to serve as a representation of
Heaven to all the earth and that God would even use TBN to bring
those who had died back to life. The following transcript details
Hinn's exact words on the October 19, 1999, Praise the Lord program:
Here's 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 ... 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."
...
I'm telling you, I can feel the anointing talking here. People
are going to be canceling funeral services and bringing their
dead in their caskets, placing them-my God! 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 dead. 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
...
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 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.>
Such words coming from the mouth of Hinn are completely foolish
and unbiblical. God does not speak today through new "visions"
or heavenly messages, nor would He ever contradict His own Word.
Hinn's statements clearly contradict Scripture, for the Bible
teaches that the next resurrection for which the believer is
to await will occur when Jesus Christ comes again in the air
to catch away His own (I Thess. 4:16-17). At that time, the bodies
of those believers who have died will be raised from the dead,
and they will receive their new, glorified bodies. After this
rapture of believers, God's Word says amazing, miraculous manifestations
will occur on earth, but those miracles are energized by Satan
himself and are used for the purpose of deception (2 Thess. 2:6-1
0). God is not the author of such works. in fact, these miracles
will be used against the true God, for these forthcoming miracles
and manifestations will occur in a "religious" context
but will be used to deceive all who do not have a "love
for the truth" (Rev. 13:14-15). Do not be deceived by the
speculations of men or the supposed revelations of the Spirit
to Charismatic dreamers and schemers. The only word we have from
the Lord today is the written Word, the Bible. FOUNDATION Magazine
- Jan-Feb 2000, pp. 43-44 http://www.fundamentalbiblechurch.org/WTrumpet/fbcwt004.htm